13 Eerie

Regarding '13 Eerie', that it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there (though there are decent to good ones as well), made me apprehensive, as well as that there are more bad zombie films than good ones. Did like the idea though and the cover gave the impression it would be fun and creepy.

'13 Eerie' is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws present in those films are here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. It is weak despite a promising start, with so many huge flaws and doesn't do anywhere near enough with its potential, which was quite a good deal. There is hardly anything good here, just amateur hour for most of the film

What stops '13 Eerie' from being unwatchable is the first 20-30 minutes or so, very promising, does maintain intrigue and actually does live up to the title.

Katherine Isabelle also tries hard and carries the film quite well.

Unfortunately, '13 Eerie' falls completely downhill once the zombies appear, and the rest of the film is a complete and utter mess.

Going on to the negatives, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it comes over as vague and under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less unsettled and never gaining momentum. All the characters are too sketchy and with cardboard thin and colourless personalities and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates. The chemistry is bland and unfocused.

The sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and all of the acting is lacking severely on the whole excepting Isabelle, that's actually an understatement as the worst of it is horrendous. There is no sense of horror or engagement with the awful predicament they're in, and no connecting with the character, it just reeks of indifference which makes the viewer not care less too.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace and film drags on forever after the promising first twenty minutes, interest is lost fast. The ending has no build-up and just ends ridiculously and anti-climactically. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Thrills are few, thanks to stodginess and excessive over-familiarity, and found myself never invested in the drama, which tended to be indifferently acted, interminably paced and statically directed.

A lot of '13 Eerie' has really dull and going nowhere plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you shocked are far from creative or unsettling. It all feels rather mean-spirited. The zombies are as far away from intimidating or creepy as you can get, the unintentional goofiness of their appearance is where the problem start, followed by the lack of personality, how poorly used they are and how severely lacking the zombie action is.

Very little freaky or interesting, no development and too derivative, while everything once the zombies appear is unimaginative and are more odd than scary, completely failing to show any sense of dread. There is very little interesting or illuminating with what the film was trying to do and the drama is overwrought, the zombie action has no guts or adrenaline and basically just lumbers along. Some badly sagging momentum too and a lot of weirdness. The direction is leaden, got the sense their heart was not in it and it lumbers just as much as the zombies, and the music is ill-fitting. '13 Eerie' is very amateurish visually, making one feel nauseous and actually did feel a headache coming on. It is haphazardly edited and the zombies look awful.

Overall, eeriness is sadly minimal. Started off well, felt like a different film once the zombies were introduced and it stayed that way until the end. 3/10 Bethany Cox

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.

This movie was great, although probably not a big budget, it was hell of a lot better than some of the things I have watched of late. This is 50 times better than Purge, and some other zombie movies of late, just hope there is a second.

I thought the cast was good, the gore was good, and I did not mind the story at all.

Overall I give it a 9/10, which is a big call.

Was nice to see they named Michael Shanks Daniel like in Stargate.

I would recommend this to any zombie movie fan.

It was also good to see they did not use complete nobody's for the cast also.

A lot of you will probably dislike the movie, but as I said I liked it.