Pray for Morning

This is a theme that has been done to death. Talking of death, although it will most certainly not frighten you to death, it may well bore you to death. A group of students or student types enter a haunted house for a dare, out of curiosity or necessity, and strange things happen, then spend the next hour walking around in the semi-dark. How thrilling. No, not exactly. Yes, you guessed it, somebody or more likely something is killing them, starting with the resident nymphomaniac and her boyfriend in the middle of a session. What a way to go.

There are ghosts, some are or appear to be malevolent. Others...Seriously, if you can sit through this one in a single session without taking a break to watch something genuinely interesting - like watching paint dry - well, you're braindead if not dead already. True, there are a few special effects, but they are not very special. In the last third of the film we get to see what or who is behind the nightmare, a magician who has crossed over to the other side. There is something about a mysterious book, and as this guy is a murderer, why not resurrect the original detective on the case? Yeah, seriously, and at the end they all live happily ever after. Those who survive.

This under the radar indie horror wasn't cheap to make, standing at over 2 million dollars Pray for Morning looks a lot better than it's shoddily made cover art and stars horror legend Udo Kier.

It tells the story of a right of passage for youngsters to spend a night in an abandoned hotel, but the latest batch are in for the night of their lives as they find themselves getting picked off one by one.

Though not an original concept the delivery is, this isn't your standard slasher or ghosty flick it's something altogether different and has character.

Sadly the execution is lacking and the film is just plain messy, with an unlikeable cast, confused plot and mediocre delivery this should by all rights have been better.

It has it's moments but they are too few and far between, so though it starts promisingly enough it spirals out of control and faceplants hard.

The Good:

Promising start

Deaths are pretty brutal

The Bad:

Highly amateurish cover art

Poorly made

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Udo Kier is overdue a lifetime achievement award

The horror genre needs more bone crunching

The most cliché group of teenagers decide to ditch their graduation party to spend a night in an abandoned and haunted hotel as a way of marking end of their youth, friendships etc.

When I started watching this, I was ready for the usual sloppy horror movie, with terrible acting, terrible plot choices and, well, basically the usual stuff that all horror fans are already used to by this point. Although I have to say, that "Pray for Morning" did contain all of the previously mentioned things, it was also surprisingly entertaining.

When this movie first started I thought...Oh No another teen slasher flick! It's about these teens on there graduation night they go to this hotel that is supposed to be haunted. They are gonna stay the night, and go to the individual rooms where these kids from the 80's were murdered.

It starts off kinda slow, but really picks up by the middle. What I thought about the movie totally changed, It has twists and turns you really don't know what's going on until the end.

This movie was not your typical cookie cutter horror movie. I think you should definitely pick this up.

I personally thought that I would be in for a pleasant surprise but low and behold I was mistaken. I don't have any preconceptions about B movies I like to watch all kinds of quality work. This movie however, was not fun to watch. The plot is OK, it isn't written especially well but it's not that hard to listen to. The acting on the other hand was dreadful. I mean painful to watch. It wasn't the horror that had me cringing in my seat, it was the acting. I was looking for a hopeful for a glimpse of an up and coming actor in this movie, surely you won't find any one of the actors in upcoming A movies. They might be seen in one of those late night infomercials instead.

For this one I say Thanks but No Thanks.