Cornered!

Cornered! (2009)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Pretty bad slasher flick about a serial killer stalking convenient stores in Los Angeles. A store owner and his friends sit down to have a poker game after hours one night and sure enough, the killer shows up and starts to pick them off one by one. There are countless direct-to-DVD horror releases out there so you have to pick them with caution but I decided to give this one a go since Steve Guttenberg has a small part. I'm sure those who grew up watching POLICE ACADEMY wondered what he was up to in his recent movies and this here was my shot of seeing him again but it frankly wasn't worth the trouble. This screenplay is without question one of the strangest I've seen because it features a lot of bums and the reason for this is beyond me. We have the store owner who is obviously a cheap, rude jerk. We have his nephew who runs the cash register and just happens to be a meth head. We've got a prostitute trying to pick up some extra cash. We have one lady who works as a phone sex operator. We even have an overweight guy hooked on donuts. Umm....what the hell? Have we really gotten to the point in horror films where one of the characters needs to be addicted to donuts? I'm not sure if this was meant to be part of the humor but the laughs certainly never work and this is painfully obvious in a scene early one where another bum, this time a homeless man, tries to steal some alcohol. I'm really not sure what the point of this comedy was but it certainly doesn't work but then again neither does the horror or mystery aspects. The killer was rather obvious within the first five minutes so the entire mystery gets flushed right down the toilet. With the comedy and mystery gone you'd think we'd at least get some gory deaths, right? Well, wrong. The violence for the most part is rather tame and the bloodiest scene is actually a quick edit to part of a jelly donut dripping onto a table. The performances in the film were fair and that includes Guttenberg who at least proves he still has some nice comic timing. With that said, CORNERED! is a low-budget slasher film that doesn't work on any level and should certainly be skipped.

This was another film that I added to my Netflix list back in college and just now got around to seeing it. I thought the look of the cover was good and was interested to see what this film was all about. I pretty much came in blind, which is one of my preferred ways of coming in if you know me. The synopsis is during their nightly poker game, a group of lowlifes are terrorized in their own convenience store by a masked killer.

We start this one off learning about a serial killer who attacks convenience stores. We know that he takes the security footage and that he has done this quite a few times. There are no real leads and the reward is now up to half a million dollars to catch this guy.

It then shifts to a crappy convenience store that is owned by Steve (Eduardo Antonio Garcia). He sits upstairs watching the security cameras and keeps track of items that his regulars take to dock them. He is also trying to sell the place as it is struggling.

Running the front desk is a junkie Jimmy (James Duval). He is actually the nephew of Steve and he supposedly just returned from a trip to Hawaii. Another worker is Donny (Peter Story). He has a weight problem and they call him Donny Doughnut. A banned customer comes into the story and there is a tussle when we see he's trying to steal a bottle of alcohol. This causes him and Donny to go through the door, shattering the glass.

Outside we meet Jess (Liz Nicole Abrams), who is a local prostitute that Donny has a thing for. Also hanging out at the story is Mona who uses her cellphone as a sex line. A delivery man shows up, Morty (Steve Guttenbeg). This group talks about what they'd do if came in contact with the killer. There's a man listening to them a couple aisles away and he knocks over stuff and runs out the backdoor.

That night they go up to play poker. The regulars are Jimmy, Donny, Steve and Mona. Donny convinces Jess to play and Jimmy needs a fix, but his uncle throws his phone out the window. Things take quite a turn when the killer shows up and picks off those upstairs in some interesting ways.

Now I do have to say, this is an interesting slasher. The film doesn't really state that if all of the convenience stores this killer hits are full of some unlikeable characters or not, but I do like the idea of blurring the lines of who you should root for. I do want to say that not all of them are horrible, but they aren't pristine by any stretch.

With that out of the way, I actually liked the angle of who the killer was. I did find it a bit predictable. I thought I might have been wrong for all of 15 seconds before the film ends up confirming it, so that does hurt the film for me a bit. I also thought it was creative how the deaths were done. I don't really want to spoil it, but I will say they are interesting for a slasher film in my opinion.

The film though does have its flaws. Being that the poker game is upstairs from the store, we actually have a way to keep them safe until a few of them are killed off. The film though is a bit boring unfortunately. In a film like this, the characters aren't interesting enough to keep the kills off as long as they do. There are quite a few deaths in the film, which I liked. The characters are distinct, but they just aren't people that I cared enough for. I think that actually helps make films like this more impactful. I did find the ending to be interesting a bit out of the norm I would say as well.

Moving to the acting of the film, I didn't think it was bad. Guttenberg plays such a quirky character, which he made his hay doing back in the 80's. He isn't in the film all that much though. Duval I thought was good as the junkie. He just has that look about him and I actually felt bad. He is going through withdrawals and his uncle is pretty mean to him. He does have an interesting turn in his character. Abrams I found to be attractive. She is one I felt bad for in that she feels all she can do to make ends meet is prostitution. She was fine in her portrayal though. Story was fine, but he got on my nerves. I personally bored and nervous eat, but I don't think he would do as much with the love of his life there. He was fine outside of that. Garcia is such a jerk I liked his fate. English is interesting in her job, but I think it was a joke they played out too much. The rest of the cast I thought was fine and rounded out the film for what was needed.

Something that really surprised me with this one was the effects of the film. They actually did some that were quite interesting, which I liked. Going even farther though, they looked to be done practical. The blood looked good to me as well as the rest of the gore. A slasher film like this really needs to showcase this, as they normally lack in the story and I do think they did well here. The film was shot fine also.

Now with that said, I did find this film to be entertaining, but it does have quite a bit of issues. I think that there is an interesting concept to it. The problem with going with a cast of somewhat unlikeable characters is that I don't really care what happens to them. The story isn't good enough to take as long to get into the killings as it did. I like the reveal of the killer, but I'm not a fan that I guessed it pretty early on. I did like his look though which I thought was good. The acting was fine. The effects to be honest were above average and it was shot well. The soundtrack of the film didn't stand out or hurt the film. I think overall I'm coming in that this film was average, which is a shame, because with a few tweaks it could be good.

Five people play poker after hours in the upstairs of a liquor store, only to be picked off one by one by a serial killer. Much of the first half is centred around this game, frankly very boring. The acting isn't great, especially Duval as the heroin addict going cold turkey. The temptation to hit the FFWD button was great. Once the killing starts there is an attempt, with some success, to substitute gore for tension. Many slasher fans will feel short changed however, with only one killing near the end producing the gory goods. I guess making a film in pretty much a single location takes skill, so credit to them for trying. Could've been better, I'd pretty much lost interest after the first half.

Being a hardened, jaded horror buff this reviewer was tired of seeing a bunch of clichéd, attractive teens with the personality of a thrift store being killed over and over by the same kind of stalker. Along came Cornered! and I must say that I'm glad that I didn't listen to all the negative feedback on this site.

A group of real people are trapped in a liquor store after a killer breaks in and begins stalking them. This killer has an odd penchant for murdering convenience store clerks and the like before stealing the security footage and watching his own handy work.

The pace is what scared a lot of people off and it does tend to be a little slower than one would hope for. But it's just a minor complaint as the rest of the cast performs quite well, the villain is interesting, and it held my attention for eighty-two minutes. And wasn't it nice to see Steve Guttenberg again?

In Los Angeles, a serial-killer with unknown identity is slaughtering clients in convenience stores. The steals the surveillance tapes and the police department has offered a US$ 500,000.00 reward for him.

In a trashy convenience store, the owner Steve (Eduardo Antonio Garcia), his clients Mona (Ellia English) that works with phone sex and the whore Jess (Elizabeth Nicole), his employee Donny Donut (Peter Story) and his junky nephew Jimmy (James Duval) discuss with the carrier Morty (Steve Guttenberg) what they would do with the serial-killer if they capture him.

Morty goes away and Steve invites the group to play a poker game, with Jimmy is affected by the forced abstinence. Out of the blue, they are attacked by a masked killer during a night of terror.

"Cornered!" is an unpleasant and stupid low-budget film with fake reviews promoting it. The uninteresting and dull story has lowlife characters and never holds the attention of the viewer. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Brutal! A Face do Demônio" ("Brutal! – The Face of the Demon")