The Roost

Noonan is talented - check out his triple duty as the writer, director and star of 1994's WHAT HAPPENED WAS..., which features one of the most believable first kisses in movie history - so what in the world is he doing here? Either lending his star power to a needy friend, I suppose, or simply taking the money and running.

THE ROOST has absolutely nothing to recommend it. The writing, directing, acting, photography, effects, makeup and scares - they're all garbage. Even Noonan's own bit as the retro TV horror host is painfully lame, and the "shock" scenes are just a handful of uninspired shaky-cam attacks by some escapees from a WALKING DEAD convention.

You can - as I did - fast-forward through 90% of this sad excuse for a movie without missing anything, and the other 10% is equally worthy of oblivion.

And, please, can people stop hating on bats? The bat is a docile and remarkable creature without which we'd be up to our eyeballs in mosquitoes, and the vandalism of its habitats is an ignorant crime against nature.

While driving to the wedding of their friend Mike, Trevor (Karl Jacob), Brian (Sean Reid), Allison (Vanessa Horneff) and her brother Elliot (Wil Horneff) leave the main road and have an accident, and their car falls in a ditch in a lonely road. The quartet seeks for help in an empty farm, but Elliot and Trevor decides to walk further, leaving Brian and Allison waiting for them in the farm. They meet the highway patrol Officer Mitchell (John Speredakos) that brings them back to meet Brian and Allison. Meanwhile Brian decides to go to the barn, where he is attacked by vampire bats. When the group seeks for him in the barn, they are trapped inside by the killer bats that turn people into zombies.

"The Roost" is not a totally bad low-budget movie, actually it is tense and has good acting of the unknown cast. However, it is a short story that is extended in low-pace to last 80 minutes running time, and becomes boring in a certain moment. The conclusion and the silly black and white insertions with The Horror Host are awful. I do not know if the intention of the director / writer Ti West was to extend the feature or try to make it cult with the insertions, but the fact is that it does not work. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Ataque dos Morcegos" ("Bats Attack")

I really wanted to love this moody and minimalist zombified-by-bat-bites flick, but it was unbelievably slow-paced. It has a brooding and creepy atmosphere, but nothing occurs in the first 40 minutes except bickering amongst young folk. I appreciated that the main story went for horror and not comedy, unlike most contemporary zombie features, but that goes out the window with the fact that the movie is introduced (and interrupted) by some silly fake TV horror host. That part of the film comes across as filler, which is unfortunate in a film that already moves way to slow and has a lack of action, dialogue, etc. If 30 minutes were edited, this could make a sweet short film or TV episode.

I am a sucker for zombies, but this one definitely needed more.

The whole film took place on a deserted road and in a barn. A roost of bats turned people into zombies. That's it. No explanations. Just people getting turned into zombies.

This could have been a 10 minute YouTube video and it might have been interesting, but stretched to 80 minutes, it just didn't have anything to recommend it.

The music was good, and it did have a creepy atmosphere, but like most low budget productions, the lighting was terrible.

Try something else.

"The Roost" is a movie that was most assuredly made by lovers of "B" movies for lovers of "B" movies. Nothing more, Nothing less. And as a lover of this particular type of film I was stoked to see it. I have to admit though...It was a while before I could get into the movie. It starts out slooowly, With a intro/outro featuring a horror host that I found to be fairly interminable. As a matter of fact I didn't know what was going on for more than a few minutes of the film. Once the feature actually started I managed to get a hold of the concept & enjoy the film a little bit more. A lot of the film is grainy & dark. Not a good combo if you ask me but it 's not enough to hinder watching the film on your TV. It must have been rough to watch on a big screen though. The plot? Well let's just say that 4 People are stranded on an old country road in the middle of the night & seek shelter/help at an barn that they stumble upon. Unfortunately for them the barn is infested with killer bats that have the ability to turn you into a zombie if you are bitten by them. WTF? Yeah, It's a bit odd. As a matter of fact it doesn't make any sense at all. But I don't think they were looking to make a logical movie when they were filming this. Just a movie that makes you jump a few times & cover your eyes a bit. And in that sense they succeeded.....Barely. It's got plenty of atmosphere & the performances were pretty tight(When you can hear them, The sound is fairly bad. Subtitles help a lot). The ending was also pretty eerie. All in all a pretty good little movie to get you through a dark & stormy night with your significant other. And I believe that's what the filmmakers set out to do. They succeeded.