Stoker Hills

If you can endure the first 15 minutes of found footage material without getting seasick (or irritated), and you don't mind a farfetched and illogical story, you'll see that it's not all bad. At least the gore and violence are well done, and the premise (some students try to make a movie, when in the process their girlfriend is abducted by what turns out to be a psychopathic mass murderer) starts out as fairly original.

Biggest problem is (apart from the story), that the pace at several times sags, due to too many too long scenes and way too much talking, especially by the two detectives, who curiously enough behave, in spite of all their expressed urgency, as tired sleepwalkers, forever pondering and puzzling and deliberating. Another problem are the scenes with the villain, we endlessly see the main characters tied up in their chairs, and the villain walking in and out on them without ever saying a word. This way he never becomes a real person with understandable motives. In fact, apart from the start and the end of the movie, it's all rather uneventful and on the brink of tedious.

The whole thing impresses as a well meant try by film academy students, which probably has been the deliberate aim of the director, when we see the very last scene with the (at least to me!) surprising twist. Even so, the result is as you might expect of such a try: sympathetic but hardly adequate.

Had it been15 minutes shorter with more attention to the lines of the characters I would have enjoyed more. Honestly, I didn't understand the reasons for the killer to do what he was doing in a random college. He could have achieved his goals in a much easier way if he had looked elsewhere. The "division" between two parts of the movie was interesting cause it made me feel we were moving towards something interesting, but it never got there really. And the final smack down was very easy and quick.

ALL of the dialogue was nonsense. I wanted to tell every character to just SHUTUP!

It was worse than those horror movies when the characters argue the whole time. More like watching a bad worldstar video. With repetitive phrases like "Go! Go! Go! There there there! The door! The door! Go, go, go, go!" and it goes on the whole movie.

But the whole time they are trying to be quiet and stay hidden but the killer keeps finding them because they talk so much.

The dialogue is less entertaining than watching a livestream of an airheaded gamer who has no subscribers and just blurts out random thoughts but every thought is vapid and shallow.

I wouldn't class this as a horror bit a good watch. My only issue is a discussion with a doctor where the police are horrified by animal organ transplants. This is pretty common and it's made to be "experimental", I felt this lack of insight really lowered it's credibility. The audio is annoying as it jumps up and down, but the story has potential and has a dark and morose atmosphere. It's broody, like Seven but brings in some found footage elements. Plus some real time parts so there's a lot going on to keep you interested. Don't go in expecting to be blown away but definitely a decent watch. It's a puzzle type thriller, you're working it all out with the lead detectives and it's okay.

I'm so glad i found this. Stoker Hills is a really well made thriller movie that kept me on the edge of my seat right to the very end. Great cast but my favorite in this is Tony Todd who plays a professor and really toke this film to the next level. The script was solid which was important with plenty of surprises that you wouldn't expect. Just when I thought I had figured where this film is heading towards it makes an unexpected turn. This isn't a big budget film but the plot, acting and the quality of the production really made Stoker Hills Shine. This is a weekend movie to watch with family and friends, I highly recommend it, seriously well done!