Honesty, when I first herd the title, I thought that it had to do with the game but when I saw it was only 15 minutes I knew it wasn't. Instead, it is about a college teen who must pass through a sorority hazing first. The hazing consists of this teen venturing through a closed off field of dead bodies in order to retrieve the ring of a rotting corpse, however, when the dead rises, he thinks it's a cruel joke. The acting was okay, but it wasn't bad, it was okay. The technical aspects of the film were outstanding and what I mean by that is the camera angles, the lighting and the establishing shots. The scares were not abundant in this film, in fact, there were no scares, there is something else.
As for the acting in this film, it was descent but there were points were it was just ridiculous and it seemed as thought it was fake and very scripted especially near the end and when the teen walks through the field. After the prologue, the acting by the group of teens was, to say the least, campy and immature and seemed as though they did not want to be there. Though, there was some good acting that really gave depth to the scene. This kind of acting could be seen when the teen is walking through the lake. This sort of experience would make anybody cringe. Some of the arguments seemed as thought they were meant to be serious but I couldn't help but laugh because they seemed to scripted and unnatural.
There were no scares in this film; in fact, the only scary scene that was present was the shot of the zombies walking behind a raging fire. There wasn't any kind of "jump out" scares or "weirdness" scares in this film. There is however an element in this film that replaces the scare tactics that was absent from this movie. In a very well thought of way, this movie was more disturbing than scary. The director had effectively and strategically placed numerous dead, rotting bodies throughout the luscious scenery and made them look so much like dead people, you could almost smell and feel the rotting skin. There are hidden corpses in the bushes, under dirt, floating in the river, under the river and scattered throughout the floor, almost like ground mines. There are also some skulls and bones littered throughout. I think that this aspect of the film replaces the scare tactics that would have made this film a little better, but the disturbance of the dead bodies is way more effective.
The technical characteristics of this movie were incredible. The cinematography had some great establishing shots that really set the mood and the scene up for the next act. There were some great swooping shots as well as POV shots including the angles aboard the Jeep and the POV from the mini camcorder. They were all well done in their own ways. The lighting of this film, especially for the outside shots, were very high contrast an exposed a lot of natural sun light into the scene. This style makes for the impression that you are actually there. Another great use of the camcorder was the auto iris they set, and you can tell that it was the camcorder POV when the iris adjusted to the light. Accompanied with these facets, the ending was a big achievement and the editor effectively toggled back and forth between real life and camcorder imaging.
Overall, I believe that this film was an average horror film in of itself. There weren't that many scares but they were replaced by the disturbing content of dead bodies and the acting was so-so. As for the technicalities of this film, it should have won an award or something because they were eye opening. But, for those who enjoy average student projects and b-movies, this is a film that you cannot miss, and for those who enjoy longer and scarier films, it's still one of those films you have to see and enjoy. It's just a great film to watch and to look at it and say, "Hopefully, someday these kinds of directors would give a new face to the horror genre years down the line."
