XMOOR

Wilderness horror. Exmoor is a national park in south-west England, a place that I have visited & explored numerous times. Therefore I felt somewhat cheated by the fact that this was filmed in Northern Ireland. Two Americans (well actually non-American actors with unconvincing accents, especially the guy) go to Exmoor to film the elusive big black cat, but instead get duped into hunting for a sick serial killer known only as The Beast. Much of the running time involves shouting & screaming in the wood at night, gets pretty tedious. It does have a few shock moments but this film fails to impress, instantly forgettable.

Starring Nick "Agents Of Shield" Blood we have three people going into the woods to find evidence of a big cat roaming freely.

Irish made and with a one million budget you'd think this would deliver but instead is an excessively dark poorly constructed embarrassment.

The one thing I'll say for it is that it wasn't predictable, to such an extent in fact that it's not what it's advertised to be and the front cover is yet another lie.

Utterley unlikeable I don't see where the budget went and can only assume they had great catering.

The Good:

Unpredictable

The Bad:

Lifeless

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

1/4 movie covers are lies these days

But not really something that is phenomenal. Horror movies live and die with their characters (most times literally than metaphorically) and in this case, the characters are mostly nicely drawn. You might even care for them (or at least some of them) not to die. Unfortunately a few things come in the way (and I'm not talking about Death/Killer situations alone).

The things that might annoy you, are the decisions made. Bad decisions as they mostly only happen in horror movies, to move on and make the movie "interesting" or let things happen that could be easily avoided. Having said that though, I have seen far worse, so if you don't hang up too much on those things and don't mind the slow pace in the beginning, there is a couple of things to enjoy here

Two Americans go to Exmoor, England to investigate the rumors about wild cats roaming the moors. They hook up with a guy who is a hunter and set out to find one of the beasts. What they actually find is much more disturbing.

It's a pretty good premise for a horror but doesn't quite live up to its promises. The plot twists and turns unnecessarily, leaving the viewer yearning for something more punchy and less contrived. It's very much a case of the more they added, the less they got.

Melia Kreiling is probably about the best thing in the movie. She's solid in the lead role and I have a feeling we'll be seeing much more from her in the future. It is competently shot, looks and sounds good but it's the messy plot and somewhat thin characterization that prevents any real tension from building.

It does have a few moments that are effective but they are scarce and not particularly scary. I didn't hate this film but I doubt I'd give it a second viewing in a hurry.

Needless to say that I had never heard about this 2014 horror movie titled "X Moor" prior to sitting down here in 2023 to watch it. But I do believe in giving a movie a fair chance, and with it being a horror movie, of course I opted to watch it.

However, writer and director Luke Hyams failed to deliver a movie that appealed much to my particular liking. The storyline was actually okay enough in concept, however, the movie was had very little entertainment value to it. It was a bit too slow paced, and the fact that it was shot in near darkness didn't really help to improve on the failing entertainment value. Why would the audience want to sit around and watch something where half of the things on the screen is shrouded in darkness or shadows?

The acting performances in "X Moor" were okay, but the actors and actresses didn't have much of anything worthwhile to work with. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble here, but it was actor Mark Bonnar that stood out as the most memorable performer.

Visually then "X Moor" wasn't all that great. Especially since the movie was frightfully devoid of proper lighting. I sit down to watch a movie, not to watch a dark screen.

My rating of "X Moor" lands on a three out of ten stars.