Amazon.com reviews for
The Trigger Effect (1996) More at IMDbPro »

The Trigger Effect (dvd):

Amazon.com video review: Do yourself a favor and buy some canned goods, a flashlight, and a radio before you watch this film. Unfairly dismissed by the critics and missed by the public, this pre-Y2K suspense film by writer-director David Koepp (the writer of Jurassic Park and Apartment Zero) is a chilling, sobering experience that will turn any practical person into a paranoid, apocalyptic loon. When the power goes out in the big city and society starts to break down, husband and wife Matthew (Kyle MacLachlan) and Annie (Elisabeth Shue) find out that not even suburbia is safe. Complicating the situation is their mutual friend Joe (Dermot Mulroney), who stays with them during the blackout, partially because of his interest in Annie. Koepp's inventive and authentic take on interpersonal relationships (Shue and MacLachlan are great as a foundering couple) and the assault on the white-collar male ego are spot-on. Koepp doesn't stop there. He also plays and builds imaginatively on suspense conventions (including the casting of character-baddie Michael Rooker), race relations, and our prejudicial, judgmental attitudes toward strangers. The concatenation of events, how they affect us without our knowledge, and our dependence on the machinery and power that prop up our society complete this involving, perceptive analysis of our very weak social fabric. (The DVD includes some interesting production notes, including the fact that Annie and Matthew live on Maple and Willoughby, a nod to two famous episodes of The Twilight Zone, one of them being the paranoid "The Monsters Are Coming to Maple Street" episode.) --Keith Simanton

Trigger Effect (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: In David Koepp's ambivalent tale of middle-class terror, modern society is already set just below the boiling point. When a massive, unexplained blackout strikes married couple Kyle MacLachlan and Elizabeth Shue's region, their already tense suburban lifestyle threatens to pitch over. Old friend Joe (Dermot Mulroney) adds some obligatory class and marital strain into the mix, but together the three debate what to do as their society is rumored to be collapsing (all phones and broadcasting are also shot). Making an end run for the in-laws' house 500 miles away, they come across several confrontations that compromise their values and test their survival instincts. Unfortunately, there are no fresh critiques of humanity's latent turpitude that lurks close to the surface, and the film's pacing is rather staid. --Alan E. Rapp