Vacaciones de terror

'Sneekweek' also known as 'Scream Week' is a stylishly shot and moderately entertaining Dutch teen slasher flick that features a fun premise with an effective whodunit mystery, glossy production values and plenty of cliched slasher movie moments. However, the movie struggles to rise above mediocre due to its bloated runtime, lacklustre kills and a lack of any tension or suspense. Despite its flaws this still manages to be a rather watchable effort.

The Plot = Six friends celebrate graduating college with a trip to 'Sneekweek' - the largest sailing event in the Netherlands. Once they arrive at their remote luxury villa, but because of a dark secret from their past, the group are targeted by a masked killer.

The movie is stunning to look at and the initial set up was promising, but what lets this movie down is the sluggish pacing that leaves the first half of the film lacking any real horror or suspenseful moments. Thankfully things pick during the last act of the film which is where the real fun begins with some fun cat and mouse chase sequences and a ton of kills. But the kills are another sore point here as they are rather tame and bloodless for the most part. The movie tries to go for a comedic tongue in cheek approach which does work at times with some nice homages to the genre and snappy dialogue, although it feels more like the filmmakers are laughing at the audience rather than with them due to its over reliance on dumb character behaviour and questionable choices.

The acting performances here were decent, but none of the characters were at all likeable or memorable and you just couldn't wait to see them die.

Overall 'Sneekweek' is decent enough for what it is, a standard and average 2010's slasher flick.

As this Dutch slasher film opens a mixed group of young students are 'auditioning' others to find a new housemate. This involves the young men hoping to join them sitting in an ice bath... one of the final two remaining suffers a heart attack; he dies. The others don't call an ambulance as they fear their futures will be ruined. Two years pass and they are finishing their studies; to celebrate they rent a house in the Frisian city of Sneek during the popular Sneekweek water sports event. One of them is soon found dead; the head of the local police quickly rules it a suicide as he doesn't want to frighten the tourists, but other officers suspect otherwise. Soon the death toll rises; somebody is targeting this particular group. Given the killer's choice of weapons they appear to have a power tool fetish!

Films in the slasher genre aren't expected to feature on lists of the greatest films; they tend to be about good looking twentysomethings dying in creatively unpleasant ways... if that is what you want this delivers. The group of students aren't too likeable so one isn't too sympathetic when they start dying. The deaths, while not overly bloody, are quite disturbing, perhaps because more than one character suffers unpleasant injuries without immediately dying. The acting is solid enough even though I suspect looks were the most important criteria at the auditions. There are nods to well-known films; most obviously 'Scream', which characters actually watch and one point; and 'Jaws' with the police chief worried about scaring the tourists mirroring the mayor's actions in the '70s classic. The identity of the masked killer isn't too obvious although there are hints. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of the slasher genre; it's not that original but it delivers unpleasant deaths in pleasant surroundings.

These comments are based on watching the film in Dutch with English subtitles.

Cliché, but it escapes the traditional panorama, some strange and bizarre scenes, which sound very pleasant, and naturally we cheer for the villain, since these young people are not at all innocent, the deaths are great, using some portable electric tool, some scenes give a lovely anguish ... Using the backdrop of a traditional sailing competition event in Europe ... I loved the outcome, revenge films attract me, technical quality debatable, but so what ...

No wonder you may say after watching how brainless they act (pun very much intended). Btw if you are watching the german dubbed version, you can easily take off one or even two points of my rating. It's barely a decent attempt on the whole "I know what you did (whatever time of last year)"-schtick.

The protagonists are more or less all despicable and you won't find yourself caring too much about them. There are others in there and the twist towards the end may sway you to like this I guess. On the other hand it's a bit far stretched. Especially because there seems to be a lack of information to put it mildly and just wild assumption. Why every other horror movie thinks it needs a zinger at the end? Well ... whatever

Basically the Dutch I know what you did last summer. Terrible. Yet not in any way worse than any other teenage slasher b-flick. That's as high as my praise will get 😛