Playback

This is a low budget genre flick that has countless flaws but also a rather interesting story and a decent payoff. You could tell that the budget was not very high which honestly kind of drags the movies watching experience down. The acting is okayish and the effects are somewhere between good and pretty bad at times. The movie definitely borrows some material from other more famous flicks but never straight up copies anything and tries to be its own twisted little story. Overall it's decent and if the plot synopsis sounds interesting to you, you might enjoy this, however don't expect something great out of this because it is not. [4,7/10]

I don't usually do this, but some of you might stumble upon a review by IMDb username tlsmith-569-716188 as the visible review on this film's page. Aside from mistaking Christian Slater for Christian Bale, it's obviously biased and written by either someone who took part in the making of this film, or someone to related to such a person. Do your part and click "no". We deserve more integrity.

Having said that, let's get back to "Playback". I must say that while I did enjoy watching it, I couldn't help but finding the screenplay and story lacking. The idea is nice while not all that original (The Ring has already given us "evil from a videotape" and this was simply too similar), but the twist was too obvious and predictable. A good plot twist is one where the balance between the hints given and the element of surprise upon the discovery is kept. In this case - the hints were too thick, and the surprise was gone. That might be because I'm a Horror freak and have watched many Horror and Thriller films, but I can't help but expect more.

The second thing, which was really sad for me, was Christian Slater's roll. Oh my, how the great ones have fallen and been humbled to a shady background role of a semi-pedophile creep. I'd hate to think that after his illustrious career Slater has been degraded to his role here. Depressing.

However, while not being the best film ever, Playback is far from being bad. The effects and cinematography were very impressive, the original indie-rock soundtrack was great and is in my opinion good enough to purchase if available, and the way some of the scenes shot by the kids in the movie end up realized by the killer was very nice. But the best thing about this film is for sure Toby Hemingway's acting (and a great job by the make-up department). Hemingway was superb, and I look forward to seeing him in other films!

All in all, like I've mentioned, Playback wasn't the best film ever, nor the worst. It had its moment, and while it could have been a lot better - it could have been a lot worse too. I personally rate it a 6, but recommend that you give it a shot.

Playback does a great job at building a story base on an actual figure--think of Robert Johnson and the legend of the crossroad--that you want to look up the figure to see if there's any truth to the lore. However, the movie dragged in the middle and became a chore to watch. I found myself looking at my phone most of the time and had to rewind to the previous scene to understand why the lead got so upset.

Overall: the acting was decent, and the movie didn't skimp on the gore. Would I recommend this movie--yes, but only for the lore.

When a group of film students attempt to document the brutal history of their town's past, they unleash the evil spirit which inspired the rampage and must stop it's current rampage before it exposes the secret behind it's existence.

This is overall a pretty lame and barely worthwhile effort. The only true sense of credit that this one really has is it's plot line about the body-hopping spirit that can only be transfered through video, which is pretty creepy and doesn't get used often-enough as a concept since it generates some really impressive moments here and there of the possessed beings out and about with their unknowing victims. Otherwise, this here is a gory, low-budget boring mess that seems to fling itself around in ten different directions without any sort of inner compass to determine what it wants to do, a low-budget feel that never lets it's full scope become apparent despite the feel it's going for and a laid-back pace that rarely lets on it's a horror film and never really goes for any sort of excitement or enjoyability. A true let-down and not really worth it.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity and underage drinking.

The only thing great about this movie is probably the over rated movie poster. The movie itself was absolute crap with glitter wrapping on it. i hope to never ever come across another load of crap again. The plot was none existent, the characters where incredibly watered down to the point where you will find yourself not caring about them at any level and the scares where just loud noises like a loud truck or dog suddenly barking. This is not even a movie you consider if you where bored. Majority of the time i found myself looking away from screen and just wondering how the directors can get away with releasing movie like this. At the end of it i felt i had wasted over 1:30 minutes of my life for no reason. Do your self a favor and don't bother watching this crap.