Evil Twins

To make a long story short: it's not scary, and is poor in every aspect - script, camera, directing, acting.. Moreover it tries (poorly again) to be a grotesque in a way of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre II. So Simon says: "Do not watch this movie".

Good news is that it has got a spark of creativity, i.e. some of the scenes/effects were way beyond my expectation like one with a dog, and with flying blonde. Brutal, cold blooded, blunt, not too detailed - right to what it should be.

Well, simply avoid this Simon unless you are a horror fan with some exploratory streak.

First of all I saw this movie dubbed in German and German dubs of horror movies most of the time are ridiculous. In this case it somehow fit the plot and the characters. You get you basic horror movie setting... a bunch of teenagers go out to camp in the woods (Good one: "You know a romantic place at the river? Something dark and creepy where serial killers walk around?"). After the characters are introduced... funny stoner guy, hunky football guy, horny annoying chick, naive chick and the smart chick that is supposed to save the day... they stop for fuel and meet Sicko Stanley played by Crispin Glover. Crispin plays the two brothers Stanley and Simon who are the same person after all because Stanley turns out to be schizophrenic and playing the role of his dead brother Simon (whom he obviously killed like everyone else). So when they get to the camping site the usual serial killer story unfolds. That is packed with as many clichés as the opening of the movie. Girls fall down when fleeing the killer, stoner guy walks into a freezer with corpses, hunk guy gets mixed up between two girls and Stanley walks around, killing people with his crazy pickaxe catapult, stomping dogs, stabbing people, building funny dwarfs out of corpses and having a relaxing dinner with his dead rotting parents. A lot of this stuff is absolutely ridiculous, Stanley seems to have supernatural powers when pinning people to trees with pickaxes and making a human shishkebab. Some party made me laugh and reminded me of the Freddy Krueger Horror-Fun like when stoner guy is killed with a giant spliff and then set aflame. Anyway, the acting of all involved is pretty medium and the movie is not horrifying at all, although there really is some gory stuff in there. To me it came across like an extremely clichéd horror comedy that in many scenes made no sense at all (for example the dead horse woman pointing somewhere) and was stolen from loads of movies you know anyway.

The story of "Simon says" is nothing new. Some teenagers in the wood get hunted down by some sicko. So, I didn't expect much anyway in that regard. Still, the movie disappointed me. The teenagers are just your basic clichés for this kind of movie, which is not necessarily bad, but the main problem is the main character, Simon. In my opinion he's just way overdone. The acting is almost like a caricature. So, what should be a threatening character ends up being a (sadly bad) joke. The kills are good, but that's about it. Everything else in this movie just is below par, even for the genre.

Still, with a better Simon this movie could be fun. With that guy it's more a pain to watch than anything else. Avoid this movie.

Ah finally, here's another absurdly grotesque and over-the-top cheesy gorefest-slasher that could have come straight out of the 1980's, with its demented killer, stereotype characters and downright insane story lines! Many avid fans agree Crispin Glover is a genuine hero of the horror genre, and he obviously experienced the time of his life starring in this unspeakably nasty homage to bad B-movies & backwoods exploitation horror. Me says: Simon Rocks... and so does his equally sick-in-the-head brother Stanley. Glover stars in a double role as the redneck twin brothers Simon & Stanley, terrorizing a van full of empty-headed teenagers on their camping trip in the woods. Whilst enjoying random sex and soft-drugs, drooling Simon sneaks up on the teenagers and kills them – as well as some other unfortunate bystanders –in some of the most ingenious ways you'll ever see! Simon is particularly creative with pickaxes, as he developed several wonderful traps and ambushes all over the woods that mercilessly catapult the rusty weapons in the direction of the victims. Needless to say Simon's macabre games result in a gigantic blood bath, with gory impalement, decapitations and dismemberment. Of course, there absolutely isn't any tension or plot-development and the only story twist that is worth mentioning can easily be guessed long before it's revealed on screen. Crispin Glover (unintentionally?) finds a perfect balance between creepiness and humor. Although constantly exaggerating in performing his odd roles, he somehow occasionally manages to look creepy & menacing nonetheless. Perhaps that's just because he is Crispin Glover and always has this aura of morbidity surrounding him. One moment he's an ultra-creepy maniac who makes eyeless puppets out of his victims, yet the next he's a sneering lunatic who crushes little fluffy dogs with his feet and yells out silly lines like "You forgot to say Simon Says!!". The camping teenagers are your average routine and colorless lambs to the slaughter, including the pot-head, the muscled macho, the bimbo (who's likely to get topless at some point in the movie), the girl who always complains and the one remotely intelligent & likable chick who will presumably survive the massacre. Textbook slasher-fodder, but I couldn't possibly care less because "Simon Says" is a highly welcome return to the outlandish splatter fun of the 80's. Even the whole clichéd "family reunion" sequence near the end of the film immediately reminded me off several titles on my endless list of 80's favorites. I personally guarantee "Simon Says" is the ideal midnight-movie crowd pleaser, terrific entertainment to watch with a bunch of buddies.

A thoroughly bizarre horror movie in which a deranged Crispin Glover (is there any other kind) boobytraps a stretch of woodland with 1001 flying pickaxes and waits for a bunch of irritating teens to stumble onto the scene. I've never really understood the logic of populating a movie with completely unlikeable characters. It makes for pretty tedious viewing when the only reason for watching is not the hope that the characters survive, but that they will die sooner, rather than later. And the teens here, played by the usual bunch of pretty twenty-somethings, are some of the most irritating in horror history. Luckily, 'Simon Says' benefits from the presence of Crispin Glover, who is hilarious camping it up with a bizarre high-pitched accent that seems like a cross between English aristocracy and Louisiana Creole. He's clearly acting in a completely different movie that exists only in his own head and thank God for it. The kills are pretty creative and grizzly with a lot of messy dismemberment, but veteran writer/director Bill Dear has little interest in originality or developing any suspense or real fear. For fans of Glover's unique style, this is an often very funny must-see movie. For everybody else it's a pretty average teen slasher.