Lonely Joe starts in New York where Michele Conelly (Erica Leershen) works for the New York Journal newspaper as a, well, journalist. Ten years earlier in her home town of Solvay in Albany her brother James Connelly (Mike Cauchon) was brutally murdered by an old farmer in his 60's who later turned out to be a serial killer responsible for several murders, nicknamed Lonely Joe (David Fine) he was a loner & no-one really knew anything about him or why he killed so many people. Recently Michele has been suffering from intense nightmares & after doing a little research discovers that there has been numerous more mysterious disappearances near Joe's old farm & where her brother James was killed. Driving back to Solvay to write a story about a possible unknown serial killer at large Michele starts asking questions & local Sheriff Scoggins (Peter Speech) tries to warn her away but Michele is insistent & finds out that the town still has dark secrets to hide...
Written, produced & directed by Michael Coonce who also has an acting role in the film as Bobby Butler the opening credits of Lonely Joe claim it's based on 'True Events' (apparently a case in South Texas from the 1980's) although one has to take that with a pinch of salt & one should assume that the majority of Lonely Joe is pure fiction. Lonely Joe seems to have been thrown together rather awkwardly, there's some supernatural nonsense at the end which is supposed to pass for a twist but comes across as desperate & exactly what you were think would happen anyway, The Sixth Sense (1999) has a lot to answer for with it's countless rip-offs that try to steal it's twist. Lonely Joe is a rather uneventful film too, the main focus is Michele & we follow her around as she ask's a few questions & starts to discover the sinister goings on. There are some dumb moments, like when Michele meets her friend Ben again after he has been missing for an entire day & doesn't even bother to ask him where he's been & the flashback scenes which are never really tied into anything other than they happened at the same place. The story is just dull, Michele seems to go round in circles in order to pad the running time out before a supernatural ending which is at odds with the (very) slow steady thriller that Lonely Joe has been up to that point. Lonely Joe is just a boring mess all round really, a plot that takes ages to get to a rubbish twist, only one main character, bad dialogue & an entire town who are seemingly happy to tell complete strangers everything they know except the Sheriff who wants to sweep it all under the carpet despite three missing Deputies which no-one else was obviously bothered about.
Lonely Joe flirts between being a drama, a horror & thriller & succeeds at being none, the whole film is flat & ponderous with a really bland search for the truth no matter how awful it is plot. Forget about any gore, there are a few dead bodies seen but nothing else, forget about any scares or atmosphere either. Look, just watch Se7en (1995) or The Silence of the Lambs (1991) again if you want a proper serial killer murder mystery thriller & watch a proper horror film if you want some decent blood & scares. Lonely Joe looks cheap even by low budget indie horror standards, the entire thing looks really ugly actually.
With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 this is an unremarkable looking film, it has a cheap low budget look about it with static & boring camera-work along with forgettable music & production values. Filmed in Syracuse in New York & the real town of Solvay. The acting is below average, I thought there were some really bad performances here although leading lady Erica Leershen is actually quite cute.
Lonely Joe is a waste of time, it's a boring thriller with a slight supernatural edge that feels more like an afterthought than anything else. The story just didn't grab me, it just didn't entertain me & it's so bland I will have forgotten all about it by the end of the week (thankfully).
Written, produced & directed by Michael Coonce who also has an acting role in the film as Bobby Butler the opening credits of Lonely Joe claim it's based on 'True Events' (apparently a case in South Texas from the 1980's) although one has to take that with a pinch of salt & one should assume that the majority of Lonely Joe is pure fiction. Lonely Joe seems to have been thrown together rather awkwardly, there's some supernatural nonsense at the end which is supposed to pass for a twist but comes across as desperate & exactly what you were think would happen anyway, The Sixth Sense (1999) has a lot to answer for with it's countless rip-offs that try to steal it's twist. Lonely Joe is a rather uneventful film too, the main focus is Michele & we follow her around as she ask's a few questions & starts to discover the sinister goings on. There are some dumb moments, like when Michele meets her friend Ben again after he has been missing for an entire day & doesn't even bother to ask him where he's been & the flashback scenes which are never really tied into anything other than they happened at the same place. The story is just dull, Michele seems to go round in circles in order to pad the running time out before a supernatural ending which is at odds with the (very) slow steady thriller that Lonely Joe has been up to that point. Lonely Joe is just a boring mess all round really, a plot that takes ages to get to a rubbish twist, only one main character, bad dialogue & an entire town who are seemingly happy to tell complete strangers everything they know except the Sheriff who wants to sweep it all under the carpet despite three missing Deputies which no-one else was obviously bothered about.
Lonely Joe flirts between being a drama, a horror & thriller & succeeds at being none, the whole film is flat & ponderous with a really bland search for the truth no matter how awful it is plot. Forget about any gore, there are a few dead bodies seen but nothing else, forget about any scares or atmosphere either. Look, just watch Se7en (1995) or The Silence of the Lambs (1991) again if you want a proper serial killer murder mystery thriller & watch a proper horror film if you want some decent blood & scares. Lonely Joe looks cheap even by low budget indie horror standards, the entire thing looks really ugly actually.
With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 this is an unremarkable looking film, it has a cheap low budget look about it with static & boring camera-work along with forgettable music & production values. Filmed in Syracuse in New York & the real town of Solvay. The acting is below average, I thought there were some really bad performances here although leading lady Erica Leershen is actually quite cute.
Lonely Joe is a waste of time, it's a boring thriller with a slight supernatural edge that feels more like an afterthought than anything else. The story just didn't grab me, it just didn't entertain me & it's so bland I will have forgotten all about it by the end of the week (thankfully).