13 Eerie

I had the pleasure of watching this at the Fantasy Film Festival in Germany. Quite a few have compared the setting of it with the movie "Mindhunters". There are similarities of course, but this one goes for the horror stuff. You might not like what you see, if you're easily offended and/or you're not able to handle the sight of blood. But if that was true, you wouldn't watch the movie now would you?

Effects are good and the direction is decent too. The actors are doing a fine job playing characters that have their moments. Of course there will be stupid decisions, , but they are all making sense more or less. The movie is good fun overall!

I don't write that many reviews, but I just wanted to warn you guys if you're planning to see this movie.

Albeit the cast including the lovely Katharine Isabelle, Brendan Fehr and Brendan Fletcher are doing a decent job. The low budget doesn't help this movie, it just looks so cheap. And seriously since when do zombies run, besides that the make-up used for the zombies looks really cheap. Maybe that's the reason why it suddenly looks so dark when the camera zooms in on them, probably to mask the poor make-up.

And don't even let me start about the ending, the scene just gets cut off out of the sudden like they had no more money. Probably for a sequel, but I for one won't burn myself again with this garbage.

The undead genre can at times, really wear on one's patience with one failure after another. It's been quite a while since I've seen a zombie film where everything felt right, where the story was original and took the time to explain the origins of the outbreak and also had good overall camera and sound work for being a budget flick. Director Lowell Dean, in his first feature length film debut, has just pitched a no hitter. As a matter of fact this is the first review I've ever given to a film in this genre that I felt was nearly perfect, but please take into account I judge horror films against other horror films, zombie films against other zombie films and the budget always plays a key part in my overall opinion. When a group comes together and makes the absolute most out of every dollar they deserve recognition for it. I give every undead flick that surfaces a fighting chance, even if the budget is $5k, because I know from experience that eventually someone will get it right. It's a process comparable to rummaging through a dumpster full of unlabeled DVD's mixed with rotting food, but my love for indie films and "The power of Christ compels" me to trudge on.

The story consists of six forensic students that are transported to an abandoned prison island. They are totally cut off from the outside world so they can participate in a lifelike forensic examination of actual corpses placed strategically at specific "murder sites" by their instructor, who is also monitoring them by remote cameras & walkie-talkies. The eighth person in the group is the bus driver/cook whose pot smoking & incompetent nature leads to just enough mayhem to jump start the danger by fowling up the communications. The walkies start to fail right around the time when one of the groups has a hair raising find, a corpse that is clearly not supposed to be there.

The acting was on point, nothing wooden or over the top. I appreciated how the film generally avoided the poor decision making in the script, something this genre is plagued by. It was of course only made possible by the convincing writing of Christian Piers Betley. The manner in which the undead are presented is slow, but deliberate and very powerful, thick skinned and not easily put down. Some may criticize this as cheap, but it was extremely effective in my opinion. They used what little they had and managed to create very menacing characters, zombies that, believe it or not, had the ability to evoke some legitimate terror for once. Plus, with a seasoned cast with the likes Katharine Isabelle, Brendan Fehr, Brendan Fletcher, Nick Moran and Jesse Moss, zombie fans that don't require big budget effects can't go wrong here.

I sat down to watch "13 Eerie" without a single clue as to what it was about whatsoever. And as the movie started up, I thought it might be a crime thriller or something, and being the zombie aficionado that I am, imagine my surprise when the corpses started to wake up. It was just priceless.

Well, the thrill was short lived, because "13 Eerie" turned out to be really flat and very generic. And what really brought down the movie enjoyment was the fact that these zombies were able to run, even with their advanced decomposition. I am not particularly a fan of fast and agile zombies, but this here was just a bit too stupid. And to make matters worse, then the zombies were making these growling sounds that would put even the biggest and ferocious of lions to shame. It was so bad. Zombies should not, and I repeat not, be making such noises, it just becomes a spoof and a comedy on itself. But wait, it doesn't stop there, these zombies were breathing as well - you could clearly see the hot steam exhaling from their mouths against the cool night air. It was such a painful thing to witness, and such a rookie movie-making mistake to make.

Well, I am not even going to delve deep into the storyline, because there is very little to delve into. The story is essentially about a group of forensics students brought out to a remote location where they are to be tested under strenuous conditions, when the cadavers start to come to life. And that is it! End of story! Brendan Fehr and Brendan Fletcher actually did carry the movie quite well. But the other people on the cast list were going good jobs as well.

The zombies looked like something out of a 70's zombie movie, bad make-up and even worse design. However, that was more than made up for in the amounts of blood, gore and mutilation that was in the movie. And that is also one of the major reasons as to why this movie scores a 4 out of 10 rating.

"13 Eerie" is the type of movie that you watch once, and never ever make an attempt to watch again, because it just has nothing to offer or support a second watching in any way possible. The movie is linear, predictable, not even remotely scary and just trots ahead in a rather monotone pace.

Now it is not the worst pile of cheap filmmaking in the world nor is the the best by a long shot. Why do film makers of zombie movies insist on making the people in it do stupid things no normal person would do. This is what annoys me most about movies like this. They insist on not taking any cars out and they came on a boat but never think of getting out on it. They constantly run into dark old flimsy buildings. Shoot them in the head one of the girls explained. Next scene guy shoots zombie in shoulder. Doh! I am writing a zombie movie as a book at the moment and am eliminating the idiot plots most movies have. Anyone who directs and wants to work on a decent storyline. Give me a bell. B