13 Seconds

Do not listen to anything that someone who has given this movie a positive review has to say: they are lying to you, literally. It is pretty common knowledge amongst the posters of this movie that there is a conspiracy to improve this movies image on IMDb.com. If you look at the rating percentages, there are next to no 8's and 9's, which is a very good and reasonable score for a movie that is as good as some say it is. No, the only significant positive rating that is given is a 10, which makes no sense. Look at the rating history, look at who has commented on it, and look at their post/rating/comment history. It is quite amusing indeed.

As for the movie itself, it's supporters have one thing right: it's pretty hard to make a movie on the budget that they must have had to make "13 Seconds" (which I'm guessing is in the neighborhood of $100). First, it is not at all scary. At no point am I scared, "creeped out," on edge, nervous, or even disgusted. It only affects the viewer's emotion in one way; it makes the viewer angry, angry for having spent the money to have seen it, and angry that you wasted an hour and a half of your life on it. The special effects are very distracting (no, we cannot fault the film makers for this, but it certainly does hinder your watching experience). The acting is horrendous (I'd say bad by high school theater standards). The plot is mediocre at best. And the dialogue is painfully terrible (lines like "I found this book."--"is it old?" and many others make you rewind it to see if you heard what you actually heard). I can, in all honesty and with absolutely no exaggeration, say that this is the worst movie that I have ever seen.

I am this strongly critiquing this movie not because I have a grudge against its creators (although I'm not happy about losing 90 minutes and $4). I am critiquing it so that no one else is fooled by what others are posting on this website. This is a terrible movie and is only worth watching if both a)you get it for free (or, even better, are getting paid to see it), and b)you do not value your time at all. No, on second thought, even if those two conditions are met, there are still better things to do. Steer clear, friends. Steer clear.

My father in law bought some kind of stock in this movie. (I think he made a bad investment.) That is how I came across it. At first, the story is confusing and you are wondering what in the world is going on. They do not explain anything at all in the beginning. On several occasions, I was about to shut this movie off but do not. The story only gets better with time. More secrets are revealed Later in the movie. They movie is choppy with the scenes and is very hard to follow. The acting killed the movie. It was the worst acting I have ever seen. The characters talk in the same tone even when someone is ripped open right in front of them. This is definitely a low budget film. The only good things are the surprises and the gore. It could have been a good movie with decent acting and a bigger budget.

Grades: Acting: D- (This would be an F but Jeff Thomas does a decent job as the lead) Suspense: C- Sometimes this movie was too slow sometimes it was too fast Gore: B- This was the best part Story: C It sucked at first but revealed a lot in the end Characters: D You had no clue who was a main character or if they were dead Overall: C- had the potential to be good but nothing was explained well Do not buy this movie! If you see it on a shelf at blockbuster, rent it along with some other horror flicks you never heard of and compare them. This movie is not worth five bucks to own. The acting is one reason to see this movie. ( IT is so horrible it is worth more than the movie itself.

This movie is an embarrassment! It is so atrociously bad that it even makes you angry while watching it. I couldn't even tell you what it is about since I only watch 5 minutes, and my husband, thinking it would get better, watched 10 minutes of it. But, anyhow, I couldn't care less. I cant believe I rented it! It made me so angry that I almost went to blockbuster right away to get my money back. I should have, since it is a rip off they have that kind of "movies" to rent. I makes me angry the fact I made the director a bit richer by renting it!!! DO NOT WATCH this movie unless you want to waste 5 min of your life (I say 5 minutes since you wont get further than that). It is the worst movie I have ever seen. It looked like those videos the teachers used to make us watch at school to learn Spanish. Do not trust the first reviews of this movie. They are probably written by the actor's (If you can call them that...) family, friends or even themselves...

I saw this at the video store and it caught my eye. Ooooh I told myself, look at these awards, this could be a low budget B-movie worth watching. Boy was I wrong.

This film was written bad, the actors did a bad job, the story was... well how can I put this...LAME!!

I couldn't believe how boring and how bad the acting and story was all at the same time. Do not waste your time with this movie.

If you are watching this for horror, don't bother. If you just want something bad to laugh at, this may be for you that is if you don't fall asleep.

Directing - F; writing - F; Acting - F; story - D; Over all movie F-

but after watching it I just have to know... who the hell are these poor poor mislead souls that are giving this movie such high praise!? 13 Seconds was a god-awful piece of crap. Even the best reviews on this site mention the bad acting and the (obvious) low budget, but try to say that those aspects of the film are simply something a "low budget" or "indie" film maker must deal with and the writer/director/actor should be commended for dealing with such shortcomings and still finishing the production. This is patently untrue, and I take such comments as a highly offensive slap in the face to the REAL independent, low budget film makers who can not only deliver on a clever story (which I will admit, 13 Seconds had), but they can also get something close to a decent performance out of their actors, better sound and editing... hell, everything involved in making a movie. And I do mean EVERYTHING.

To put it into terms that most people can relate to, 13 Seconds equates to a very low-budget Halloween season haunted house. The scares are cheap and ineffective and the actors hired to pull off those scares are almost as talented as my cat. At least my cat makes me jump on occasion.

The bad acting only makes the awful dialog even more unbearable. Add on top of that the total lack of effort put into the dubbing and you have the perfect formula for a movie that even Ed Wood would find abhorrent.

Even the argument that "well at least he went out and made a movie" doesn't hold water. One of the main reasons I have not gotten my own production off the ground is because of movies like this. Watching this movie made me remember that I didn't have to settle for whatever actors I could scrape out of a trailer park, a DP who had no experience outside of a Polaroid camera and sound recorded on an answering machine while the freaking actors phone it in. Sorry, but I'll hold out until I can find people that, when placed in a soggy paper bag and told to act, would be able to find their way back into the light.

To sum up: remember kids, just because you CAN make a movie does not mean you SHOULD.