When I spotted the DVD of Furnace at a local store for a mere dollar then glanced at the cast listed (Michael Pare! Danny Trejo! Tom Sizemore!) and the fact that it was a horror flick set in a prison, I gladly threw down my four quarters. I know I wasn't expecting the behind bars awesomeness of 1988's Prison or even the campiness of Shadow: Dead Riot, and I didn't get either, but this is just essentially a J-horror riff (think Ringu) that just happens to be set in a penitentiary with a bad history.

They amusedly tack "Inspired by True Events" at the beginning of the flick before a credits sequence that peppers in various news articles about massacres and the like and the fact Blackgate Prison just happens to be built over the land these events took place. We also know we're in for trouble when some guard supervised prisoners break open the long closed off wing that was bricked off after a massive fire gutted that part of the building.

Seeing as this is a horror movie, and that one of the guards came home from work only to commit suicide in the opening scene, not only are malicious forces unleashed but rundown detective Turner (Pare) arrives on scene to investigate the death. And what a place Blackgate is. It's an imposing, castle-like structure that looks gothic and menacing - which makes it too bad they never really cash in on its appearance instead throwing the cast into bland looking concrete sets.

Soon after Turner arrives he meets prison psychologist Ashley (Jennifer McShane) and hard-ass guard Frank (Sizemore) who seems to have something to hide. He spends about fifty minutes of the movie wandering around, and getting the help of coroner Karen (Kelly Stables), as the script attempts to throw in a weak mystery angle. At the same time various guards and prisoners at Blackgate fall victim to our supernatural beings and start getting picked off. This leads to Turner and Ashley discovering the dark secrets of the prison (and instantly having sex after uncovering a disturbing story of incest!), there's what amounts to the most low-budget and shabby looking prison riot I've seen in quite some time, and a dull finish.

Furnace just isn't very engaging. The direction by William Butler (a veteran of many junky Full Moon efforts and actor in such things as the third Texas Chainsaw Massacre and 1990 version of Night of the Living Dead) is pretty pedestrian but he does manage to come up with a few okay scare attempts. I also kind of dug the ghost effects which made them shimmer like television static at times - pretty cool. Where this stumbles is mostly due to the script and fact it never cashes in on its location. There's some okay ideas here but they're just not executed that well. I wanted to be intrigued by the mystery and I wanted them to use the claustrophobia of the cell blocks better but it was all for naught. It also doesn't help that our actual inmates and guards are so under-developed.

In the lead Pare keeps the bland theme of Furnace going. He's fairly wooden here and they vaguely hint at his tortured past but he's just going through the motions. He's years removed from Streets of Fire, that's for sure. McShane is our lame love interest. Trejo just seems to be here for name recognition. Sizemore gets to act all gruff but there's not nearly enough of him here. With the exception of the quite engaging Stables and Richard S. Cowl who plays the slow-minded, child sing-song obsessed Simon everyone here is pretty "blah".

I suppose the main word you could use to sum up my time with Furnace is "indifference". It's just another forgettable and skippable horror flick that offers nothing new and doesn't particularly do anything special with what it does. I didn't feel ripped off of my dollar, so at least I have that. (Chris Hartley, 10/28/13)

Directed By: William Butler.
Written By: William Butler, Aaron Strongoni, Scott Aronson.

Starring: Michael Pare, Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins, Jennifer McShane, Kelly Stables.