Chemical Peel

I'll be honest, I thought it started a bit slow, but once the chemicals hit the fan, it gets sorta...hypnotic. The setup puts these girls in an isolated spot (no cell phone service, so you know it's trouble), and then traps them there with a deadly poison outside the ranch. Things slowly start to fall apart (literally and figuratively), but enough happened that it remained interesting.

I thought it was a pretty effective thriller, and when I say horrible in a good way, I mean precisely that. What transpires in this film is quite horrible, though I can promise there's at least one character who kind of deserves it.

"Chemical Peel" (2014) only cost $20,000, but it's so proficiently made it doesn't feel like a micro-budget Indie. It comes in the tradition of "Carriers" from five years earlier with the main difference being that this is a 'confined location' flick. In other words, the bulk of the runtime involves the house-in-the-sticks and the dramatics of the females.

Speaking of which, blonde Natalie Victoria stands out on the beauty front as protagonist Rae. Meanwhile statuesque redhead Arielle Brachfeld is a real biyatch as Angela, but it happens. Leigh Davis is also worth a mention as Kimberly. Too bad the director didn't know how to shoot women.

At about the 18-minute mark the situation takes a life-or-death turn and the story becomes very compelling. It morphs into a body horror flick and is hampered by the one-dimensional location, but it's worth checking out for those interested.

It runs about 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot in the Greater Los Angeles area at Glendale, Ojai, Semi Valley and Hollywood.

GRADE: B-

This could have been good if they put intelligent characters in the movie. Had my doubts when I saw the main cast was millennial coeds, but the reviews made me curious. Nope. Its exactly what I figured it would be. Bunch of half wits and a super mean and evil girl that makes you want to put her head through the cabin window and watch her skin boil. Give it a shot if you want, but you were warned.

Went in to this film not expecting much as I checked out some positive reviews and decided to give it a watch. For the most part I enjoyed the plot it was simple yet almost Cabin Feverish.

The things that went downhill for this film were two main things for me and those are... #1 the acting from Arielle Brachfeld (Angela) was pretty cringe worthy itself. The scenes with her and Rae are almost impossible to watch without turning your head in disbelief. Her alone made me nearly turn off the film but I kept watching hoping for a gruesome death.

#2 was how ridiculously long of a build up this film had... I literally sat through 45-50 minutes of nothing but story telling of Rae & Angela's characters pretty much. IMO when you have a 90 minute or less window for the film do not spend 50 minutes messing around and if you do you better have good reason for it.

However, with those two negatives out of the way the film was pretty decent in the rest of the departments. Effects were good for the low budget. The acting from the rest of the crew wasn't bad either... It's good for low budget horror film goers.

I found this tiring to watch, but worth seeing through. In short, this compares to Cabin Fever, and similar films like it. It does not have the sharper script, supporting ecosystem, and acting skill like others in its genre, but still worth a view if you like watching those that are down with the sickness. In fact, the general sickness ambient makeup looks pretty convincing, and the actresses play the dread look well. However, the panicky bickering and yelling at each other more often than not seemed a bit extra. Not bad though, for genre fans..