Star Leaf

At the start of any B-grade movie review I like to make it clear that I generally love B-grade horror/thriller/action movies. However, this was terrible. Bad acting, bad script, bad editing (at one point you see the actor's mouth move but no audible voice). The horror element is not developed very well, the action is cheap and horrible. The characters are not likable. There were some laughs to be had at how bad it was but mostly it was just bad and cringe-worthy. There is really very little to recommend about this movie. Save your time/money and watch something else. You have been warned. Do not watch this movie unless you have absolutely nothing better to watch or do.

There is almost nothing to like about this movie. I will give credit to some decent cinematography and some decent (for the budget) special effects. Literally everything else about this movie is terrible. I'd say the writing is the major culprit. Not funny, not scary, not coherent, not dramatic, not interesting. Just a pile of nothing. The movie is mercifully short, at least.

I just want to say, for the record, I give B movies every possible concession. It takes a lot for me to hate on a low-budget movie like this. This movie just sucks. A lot.

Random people going into secluded place is the benchmark of horror genre. Star Leaf, to its credit, decides the motive should be finding weeds. This is not so much a horror rather than a parody of one, it's utterly bizarre and often doesn't make much sense. Characters are partially product of satire, and it's confusingly insipid since it opens up with heavy theme of homicide and kidnapping. The best it could come up with is a few giggles due to its extreme oddity.

Three people go into a forest to find a mysterious sage who can lead them to a promised place of rare medication plant. Bizarre as it may sound the following is even crazier with trippy creature or haunting dream. This may very well meant to be representation of being high, nearly everything is pointless gibberish. Fortunately, the runtime is rather short, so it's equivalent of a weird dream.

Characters would appear out of nowhere, then disappear in five minutes as there's no consistent plot here. One can actually randomly skip a scene or reverse them and it would be the same incoherent story. Characters themselves are not likable, they are created for such intended effect with hippie gibberish and blatant reference to pop culture. The most sensible of them is surprisingly the jock stereotype, and even he seems woozy at times.

Star Leaf's best chance at entertainment is if audience is lenience and laugh at its silly antics. For anything resembling horror, thriller, or any coherent narrative, don't expect much from this delirious mess.

Bottom line: This wasn't worth the watch.

I didn't have expectations for Star Leaf to be a *good* film, but I did expect it to be a *fun* film we watched around 420. I really like Russell Hodgkinson in Z-Nation and it seemed like they cast him in a similar role for this.

The good news is that Russell Hodgkinson's character is still pretty funny, but he doesn't actually get much screen time. Also, like a lot of these sorts of scifi movies, the park ranger is pretty weird and funny too. He also get's very little screen time. Star Leaf is mercifully short, so it has that going for it too.

The story is disjointed, the hallucinations aren't done well, and the "overall driver" they reveal later in the film just feels strange and forced. It felt like, for the most part, they forgot about what the description of the movie was and just shoehorned in some stuff about it periodically.

Ignoring the terrible story, you will *hate* all the main characters and their acting is atrocious on top of it.

If you keep the world, Russell Hodgkinson, and Richard Cranor (park ranger) then it could be a pretty fun TV show.

For me personally, I felt the story was a bit flimsy. I get the bringing in elements of extraterrestrial/ contact point, I loved the whole pot from outer space thing, I even respect the bringing in the whole returning, fragile soldier in need, it was the characters themselves. They seemed only mildly developed. At times I just didn't connect with their personal story. Other times the characters and the moments were just spot on!. Directing and the creativity are pretty cool in "Star Leaf". I haven't really scene films on this kind of high outside of Full Moon Horror.

The special effects for the most part are pretty hokey for the most part. But I think that it was intended and even celebrated by the team behind "Star Leaf". This is really meant for a nice, sometimes disturbing trip "through the crack", or say, "down the rabbit hole". The aliens were cool, and done enough to were they didn't seem completely CGI, often they looked more like practical design. All the extra paranormal/supernatural CGI was used in a trippy, hallucinatory aspect that even though it comes off a bit cheap, it still is fun and entertaining.

Overall "Star Leaf" is an entertaining, 420 staple. I mean it is better than "Evil Bong" and I get high to that quite a bit. The ending is a more "life lesson" , hallmark moment situation that, I am sorry, but I thought was a bit lame. Plus when the ending is delivered to us I kind of felt the whole movie was built up around that ending concept and its message. I didn't get any real horror from "Star Leaf" , some definite thriller moments, but I love aliens, and pot. Plus anything that spotlights the emotional and psychological conditions a lot of our soldiers return home in is dope! Pun intended!