John Leguizamo, a recovered crack head, an orphaned boy, and Darth Vader from episode 3 walk into a bar. And so begins the joke that is Vanishing on 7th Street. It’s not a bad film by any means, but the ludicrous story line makes it really hard to take seriously because there is no way of keeping the rules of the predicament consistent. The population of Detroit is swallowed up, consumed by the shadows of the dead leaving behind only their clothing heaped on the floor. Which shadows are safe and which are not is unclear the majority of the time, and when shadows follow the victims they tend to appear to slow down to allow an escape. Vanishing is also plagued with cliche Asian horror sound bites giving the shadows a voice which really tears apart any chance at originality or suspense. With the bad also comes a lot of good; haunting visuals of a deserted city are intense and well staged, and the destruction that follows is taken to it’s peak and quite grim. Making a movie about an entire city scared of their own shadows is an ambitious undertaking and Vanishing is somewhat successful in it’s execution, but with the Hollywood polish rubbed on thick the film masks it’s true potential leaving it a likely candidate to Vanish from your memory soon after.
