Cruel World

First off I've watched a LOT of badly made cheap 'horror' films and this is not the worst I've seen. In fact, the plot is interesting, the acting reasonable and the dialogue could be worse. However, there are a number of faults with this movie that would prompt me to dissuade anyone from watching it. My biggest issue comes in the form of characterisation. The group of would be reality show stars starts off as a mixed bag of people with seemingly good representation of various ethnic/cultural groups, but, they are horrendously stereotypical e.g. the Asian contestant is the shy, intelligent one whilst the gay character generally fits in with many other movies' portrayal of the token joke character (whom we later find is also backstabbing and generally less decent than any other male character...figures). Furthermore, the story is often lacking in structure, the so-called tasks that contestants must face are not well thought through and this generally leads to boredom throughout. Overall I'd say this film started relatively well and ended much the same as any other cheap and tacky horror movie, I wouldn't bother with this one again and to be honest wish I hadn't in the first place.

If you like terror, blood and sex, then here's a shocker to sink your teeth into. Cruel World kicked ass. I recently purchased this DVD at Best Buy and i loved every minute of it. It had a killer cast to die for. Im a huge fan of Edward Furlong and he was at his menacing best. Picture hot college students including Susan Ward (The In Crowd), Laura Ramsey (Venom and The Covenant) and Sanoe Lake (Blue Crush) and six other gorgeous co-eds, pitted against the diabolical Edward Furlong in one of the most gruesome slasher films today. This movie really rocked! It's like Saw meets Fear Factor. I strongly urge anyone who comes across this film to check it out. Its definitely a party movie and reality TV at its best!

Two brothers somehow sucker a bunch of young people into believing they're part of a reality game show in which they do whatever challenge the mastermind comes up with. Eventually it becomes apparent that the stakes are life and death, and the contestants start getting killed off, sometimes by each other.

Perhaps the craziest part of this movie is Edward Furlong as the lead, Philip Markham, who overacts at every turn as he screams at the contestants from his control room, where he chain smokes and eats gas station food. His performance is not one of his finest, but given that he appears to be past his prime at this point, he does deliver something that is, at very least, entertaining (not always for the right reasons, though).

As others have pointed out, Markham is a fairly lazy killer. Mostly he just yells a lot. It is often up to his simpleton brother, Claude, to carry out the dirty work for him.

The big question is whether or not the flick is worth seeing. Well, for me, the movie came with four others in a small package that was located at the bottom of a bargain bin. Given what I paid for it, it wasn't too bad.

I don't get why so many hate this film. It's a very creative premise (a spawned reality tv show contestant creates his own reality tv show and kills off the contestants one by one). Edward Furlong is electric and plays the psychotic killer exceptionally well, and the acting of the supporting cast is superb, exactly how you'd expect to react in the horrific situations they are put in. Laura Ramsey is stunning and plays the final girl very well, and the dynamic between her and Furlong is very interesting. The movie does a good job developing the characters while they think nothing is amiss, and each character then gets a devoted death scene. The challenges were fun to watch and the murder scenes were all unique acted out well. It was a fun watch and I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie.

Edward Furlong reaches critical mass in this roll, which is buttered with gargantuan heaviness. Though the story is famished for what anyone might term logical structure, Mr. Furlong seems hungry to chew his way through every scene. Some might think he's becoming too big for such movies, squeezing into them like 5-pounds of marbled pork in a two-pound sausage casing. But I think he's a dollop of awesome; a soupçon of superb; and the thick, calorie-laden icing on what might otherwise be a rather slender cinematic cake. It doesn't matter that the director seems to have "written" this while shooting it, nor that the film runs out without any explicable ending. It has the enormous talent of Edward Furlong, who feasts on the meager dramatic opportunities as if they were a banquet.