Terrortory

'TERRORTORY': Three Stars (Out of Five)

An ultra-low-budget anthology horror movie, telling six different supernatural tales. It was written and directed by three indie filmmakers; Dan Doran, Kevin Kangas and Mark Wenger. It stars a cast of completely unknown actors. The film is pretty cheesy, and amateurish, but there are a few quality elements to it; especially considering how low-budget it is.

The movie centers around a couple that's trying to entertain each other, while waiting for the electricity to come back on during a power outage. The guy (Brad Masters) tries to impress his female friend (Laura Kiser), by telling her five very bizarre scary stories. Each supernatural tale revolves around different people being stalked, and killed, in the woods. The segments are titled 'Gotz', 'Siren', 'The Prowler', 'Smiling Jack', 'The Drone Collector' and 'The Midnight Clown'.

At first the film was pretty painful to watch (full of atrocious dialogue, nonsense stories, and bad acting); but as it went on, I started to notice several elements I liked to it. I think to really enjoy the movie, you have to respect low-budget filmmaking; being an ultra-low-budget filmmaker myself, this is something I can do. The movie is pretty bad, in comparison to mainstream horror flicks, but for a next to no-budget film, it's not that horrible (some of it is kind of cool).

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The basic premise of this movie is that a young couple are on vacation in the woods when all the lights go out, so they spend the rest of the night in the dark discussing "the terrortory," the portion of woods they are in that is full of urban legends. This is the frame story for all the other stories told (titled Gotz) and it definitely does not end up where I thought it would, with the final minutes including one of the best sets of lines in the movie.

The stories being told are Siren (a hunter encounters a strange woman), The Prowler (a film set has someone come shake up down time between filming), Smiling Jack (a duo of hikers are chased by a slasher), The Drone Collector (a group of hikers are chased by drones), and The Midnight Clown (a group of filmmakers are terrorized by a clown).

My favorite two stories were Smiling Jack and The Midnight Clown. I felt those were the best two executed shorts that could work as feature length films. Smiling Jack is by far one of my favorite shorts from any anthology, I considered it that amazing! As with any indie movie, some segments did have a few faults. The Prowler had audio that didn't match the other segments and was too low. The Drone Collector also had a scene of really bad audio peaking. And for a microsecond in The Midnight Clown there was a crew member crouching in the background.

Yet that is it. Everything else was great! Even the practical effects, those were incredibly well done. Especially in Smiling Jack towards the end, that had a gory sequence that was well executed.

I highly recommend giving this a watch.

A couple tells each other scary stories until the lights come back on: a hunter encounters a siren in the woods; a slasher terrorizes a group of actors in the woods; a horde of drones hunt down hikers in the woods; and a clown kills more actors in, you guessed it, the woods.

Compared to movies made by brand new filmmakers, on a behind-the-sofa-cushions budget, filmed over the course of a few weekends in the neighboring trails, widely released to just about anybody that will show it, Terrortory is better than might be expected. So, filmmakers, please don't be discouraged, and please keep trying.

Compared to feature length horror films, with budgets that don't need a decimal point, intended for theatrical release, Terrortory isn't good.

Youtube quality production values, without any real charm or originality to compensate. The actors were mostly competent, but they couldn't save the film on their own.

The sequel had issues like why all these monsters or people gather in one forest but this movie is so bad I can't believe a second one was made but that is the better movie. The worst actor in this movie was the guy that play David in the smiling Jack bit and I was shocked to see he is a recurring actor on Gotham. Watch the second one first and it will be easier to sit through this and you'll see what happened to lead to what happens in the sequel.

I revisited the original Terrortory tonight. Since my first viewing, I've fallen deeper into the rabbit hole that is microbudget indie filmmaking, specifically of the horror variety.

I "get it" now, and I'm a fan. You can't come into this expecting a polished film with seasoned actors (although a few are quite good). What you can expect is a fun, well-written script, some legitimately weird, scary monsters with their own memorable trademarks (DID YOU BRING ME MEAT?), some nice camerawork, a pretty terrific score, and a palpable love for the genre.

Even if there's a segment in this anthology you're not super impressed by - for me, it's 'The Prowler,' - a new one starts up before you know it.

For me, it's the writing in 'Smiling Jack' and the nightmarish weirdness of 'Gotz' that make this one of my new favorites. Support these for-the-love-of-moviemaking filmmakers! There's a lot here to admire.