Frayed

I went to the Nevermore Film Festival in Durham, NC (Daniel & Emily, Norb if your reading this), because of course I have a love for horror films. As I was browsing through the films for the Nevermore Festival, trying to pick which ones I thought I should see. I watched the trailer for Frayed, and knew it was one that I had to see. I was expecting a nice little low budget horror film, and got something completely different. Frayed is honestly one of the best horror films I've seen in a long time.

Frayed is a dream come true for horror fans, they don't lie when they say their is most brutally scene ever depicted on film, there's not a lot of scenes in horror movies that I find hard to watch, but that one was one of the hardest and gut wrenching scenes I have ever seen.

Frayed has a lot of similarities with Halloween, but believe me overall they are nothing alike. The ending was literally jaw-dropping, I expected a twist ending, but nothing like what I got. If this movie comes to a theater/festival or when it comes on DVD I highly highly recommend it.

The movie is done on a low-budget, but honestly it looks like it came from Hollywood with a much larger budget. It's impressive what the filmmakers have done with the film, and it really deserves to get released into theaters as a mainstream movie. I look forward to seeing more movies from this group, I really believe if they keep coming out with stuff like this they could be up there with horror icons like John Carpenter and Wes Craven...etc...

Good luck guys

If you're looking for a movie that's not Halloween But feels like Halloween I would suggest checking out Frayed 🚨WARNING🚨 This borrows a lot from the original Halloween Especially the opening scene I'm surprised they didn't name the killer Michael or Miguel But I suppose that might be too obvious even for this movie The story jumps around a bit too much and there are plenty of plot holes I do like the twist on the ending I must admit it wasn't what I expected But I think it would have been better if the writers did a better job with the script But if you enjoy a low budget knockoff I would highly recommend watching this.

I saw this at the Screamfest in Hollywood on October 18 2007. Finding out after viewing this movie that it was made on a shoestring budget with newcomer actors in Seattle, Washington, I have to give makers of this film some props. The setups are top notch, the lighting and visuals are on par with much of what Hollywood even puts out for horror. Some of the actors in the film showed quality also. There is a pitch perfect scene involving a character in the back of a pick-up truck. Everyone involved seemed to be into making a good movie.

All that being said, there were a lot of problems with the film. The makers said that the film didn't have a distributor yet, and I think when they do get one (and I'm sure that will be real soon) the distributor will have them trim some of the fat. and there is a good bit of fat to be trimmed. There was some unnecessary scenes of people talking to each other on cell phones, relating things we already knew.

They say they pay homage to 'Halloween'(the original); that's great and all, but there is a difference between homage and heavily borrowing...They didn't list 'Haute Tension', 'Identity', 'Silence of the Lambs' either and there was definitely some lending from those films as well.

If there was a grade for suspense alone this film would get a 9 in my book. If you come looking for a bloody/gory movie, this is not your flick. If you loved the first Halloween you will very likely dig this movie.

When I think of all the crap horror films that go straight to DVD, if I stumbled upon this flick I think I would be pleasantly surprised.

This 2007 horror film, has one of the most amazing and gruesome openings of any movie I've seen for awhile. In camera, a Mother is attacked by a killer with a baseball bat, and in pretty good closeup, her head smashed all to hell, in an extremely gory bloody pulp of a mess. I love movies that get off to such a good start. The suspected killer is her own 5 year old Son that has flipped his lid, and after 13 years is being transferred to a psychiatric hospital, when he escapes. Ah you say, HALLOWEEN.... Not hardly, although some reviews have had trouble trying to review this movie without giving away all the twists and turns right into the end credits. Yes, the now 18 year old crazy did escape, and teenagers are dying, when the movie shows a security guard from the hospital being chased by a crazed killer. Other reviewers have been a little more bold, and said, it's a cross between Halloween and Haute Tension. I tend to agree, that "Frayed" has a lot more in common with "Haute Tension" than just about anything else I can think of, and even that comparison is rather remote. Which brings us to the fact, that the story is pretty original, even though you could say homages are paid slightly. This is a damn good horror film, and you do not know what exactly is going on, until even more reveals are exposed as the end credits start to roll. For gorehounds, even though the most graphic almost sickening scene happens right at the beginning, there is still plenty of good old kills to keep the blood flowing. I give this very very high marks as one of the best horror films in the past few years, and an absolutely superb screenplay. After the movie is over, all I wanted to do was watch it again and listen to the commentary. I ran out of time, but that is on the agenda very soon. Don't miss this one, it deserves every horror fans attention.

A town sheriff's mentally ill sun murders his mother and he is sent away to an insane asylum, years later he escapes and starts to wreak havoc in the community.

Of course the storyline is a lot more fleshed out than what I've summed up, like there is actually a reason why the child is mentally sick but I'm not going to spoil it, because this film is actually worth seeing for any horror fan, its probably one of the more unconventional horror films I've seen because with other slasher horror films I can actually predict who will die and who will live, with FRAYED I was way off the entire time and that was probably the first time that's happened to me in years and the array of plot twist at the end drove me nuts because that's when the film really took hold.

The suspense is kept surprisingly high thanks to the relatively casual pace of the film which helps to keep the viewer hooked and allow for some well done character development.

Note, I did say it was close to becoming a classic but there is only one flaw that keeps it from actually being a classic, its not 100% original despite having a great plot, if you look carefully you'll notice it seems to borrow from older films Like HALLOWEEN (1978) but en light of that I'd put it along with LAID TO REST as one of the more competently made slashers in a while.