It’s about a bunch of young people, most of them romantically or just carnally involved with each other, some of them financially secure from the here and now until senility, get together to play a confessional game about their vices and sins, both real and imagined – that’s the opening of the film where we get to see what kinds of crimes these girls and boys have at least contemplated without getting to know who would do what.
The main action is taking place some time later, when relationships have been destroyed, new alliances forged and fortunes lost and won. Now each of the original but so far anonymous trangressors is going to be revealed, mostly by some undisclosed party killing them in imiaginative ways. As is to be expected with such melodrama, everyone overacts their messiest, most remarkably Nick Stahl as the host, Eddie Kaye Thomas (whom you may remember as the only Gentlemen and distinguished tantric philosopher in the "American Pie" movies) as a basically decent child-molester and AB herself who should, if the universe were just, win at least another chance in another and better film to show off her decidedly nasty and kinky side which she throws around this thing as if the film were an action-flick and those insults and come-ons were dropkicks. So why is "Taboo" just OK instead of being the thrillride it could have been?
Surprisingly unwriterly answer: The script is alright, the acting could carry it all, but the editing, music, camerawork, lighting, in short: everything that should serve to create the all-prevasive atmosphere of menace and moral ambiguity a piece like this is in desperate need of are just below the level that we’re used to see associated with AB’s performance by now, whether it’s on "Buffy" or in her own movie, "Chance". Should you watch "Taboo" if you love Amber Benson? Well certainly, if you can rent it or catch it in other non-expensive ways. But there’s no reason to buy this rather short (appr. 80 minutes) film – if you feel a collector’s compulsion to do so, just buy one ore a couple more DVDs of "Chance" to give to someone you like until the urge goes away.
Dietmar Dath
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