Virgin Cheerleaders in Chains

Saw this at the River Fest Film Festival after a long day of viewing long and short films. Out of the fifteen movies I saw that day, this one still sticks out to me. This movie doesn't take itself too seriously and the audience is let in on the fun. Too many horror movies leave out the humor and try to make you jump out of your seat. But this one was a nicely story within a story that left me happy that I saw it.

It is a story about a group of people that are trying to write and film a horror movie. While on location, the movie becomes reality as members of the crew are picked off one at a time. Come for the movie making and stay for the slashing and hacking!

Look, it's a low budget film and never pretends otherwise, and I have a warm place in my heart for low budget films and film makers who are smart and make the most out of what they've got. Like these guys. For its type (yes, if you haven't figured it out already yes there's some gore and blood), style, subject...well done, folks. A fun ride.

This is a pretty useless effort all round. There is nothing frightening about it and the story is boring. There's a bit of gore but it's film school stuff. Plus, there's an annoying white guy doing a bad Rastafarian act the entire way through. However, there is one amusing scene in the film, which includes the annoying white guy, so he gets a half-pass. It's also the only reason it got one extra star. Avoid this 'film' like the plague.

This film is built on a gimmick - the notion that the characters are making a terrible film and we, the audience, get to see the ensuing train wreck.

However, the film itself becomes a train wreck, using tired jokes and uninspired writing. Every scene feels forced and there's no character to root for. The "bad guys" look like people who just grabbed some Halloween garb off the clearance rack and the "good guys" are supposed to be your goofy Scooby Doo mystery team types, but that cliché only works if the film were set in an era before people reviewed every location on the internet and before you could vet any person with the touch of a button.

The worst part is, there's this smugness to all the writing that just makes it seem in every line of dialogue like the writer thought he was being the most clever guy who ever walked the planet. Hopefully he learned from this experience that a "so bad that it's good" film is usually fun because its creators worked extremely hard at something that INADVERTENTLY turned out extremely bad. They didn't make it bad ON PURPOSE.

However, this film was made badly on purpose to try to cash in on that type. All the "so bad they're good" movies were never planned that way, and this film is no exception. It's just bad.

Given the title, I wasn't expecting much. The lighting was also a little too dark throughout. But overall an entertaining film with a good twist at the end.