Are you also fed up with the overload of horror films taking place in remote and rural areas, where mobile phones never have signal and idiotic tourists are relentlessly pursued by drooling inbred hicks with pitchforks chainsaws? Well then, Chad Ferrin's "Parasites" offers you an alternative, albeit one that is equally derivative, unmemorable and mediocre! The only thing Ferrin does differently is change the setting and the type of assailants. Instead of somewhere in the backwoods of a conservative Southern state, the action takes place in the pauperized dark alleys of a big city at night, and instead of local yokels the menace comes from homeless people who suddenly decide to attack rich teenagers. Different? Yes. Better? No. Apart from being shockingly discriminating, the idea is also poorly executed and unrealistic. I encounter homeless people every day in the city where I live and work, and I assure you they have an entirely opposite profile. Homeless people carry with them the consequences of extreme alcohol abuse and survivalist conditions. They are confused, fatigue and sickly. Most of all, they are non-violent and try to avoid confrontation, apart from the occasional aggressive tirade perhaps. The homeless here, and especially leader Wilco, are fit, sober, racist, organized and hold a grudge against everyone who has a better life than they do. It's just wrong, and the lack of respect and empathy for homeless people is quite disgusting. The screenplay is lacking more than just respect, by the way. Are we supposed to believe that, after midnight in a metropolitan city, there's literally nobody on the street except for bums and drifters? There aren't any cars, bars, patrolling police officers, kebab shops or whatever? Three teenagers, in a far too expensive pick-up truck, take one wrong turn too many and end up in the bad part of town. That's it, then. Their lives are over. The cat-and-mouse game rapidly becomes tedious and repetitive, the violence is tame and predictable, the acting performances are weak and unconvincing, the soundtrack is pretentious and misplaced and the supposedly shocking climax is one that you can see coming from three ghetto blocks away. Please don't spend any time or money on "Parasites" (completely irrelevant title, moreover). I, for one, will sell my copy at a flea market and donate the sum to the first homeless person I meet.
