Crazy Eights

Think session 9 meets the big chill but not as good as either. The film is pretty good however a little slow in bits but rather creepy and involving. Lords and Meyers give two great performances and the film making is original if not terribly creative. It centers on a group of friends who discover a secret when one of them passes. Haunted by ghostly visions they decide to confront it at the place where it all started. It has some nice jump out scares but ewarns it's spooky mood modeslty. A decent film and definitely worth a look. A nice additon to horrorfest library. My one big problem with this film is the questionable villain and unpolished look the film carries besides that it's pretty good.

Jennifer Jones (Dina Meyer), Father Lyle Dey (George Newbern), Gina Conte (Traci Lords), Wayne Morrison (Dan De Luca), Brent Sykes (Frank Whaley), and Beth Patterson (Gabrielle Anwar) are childhood friends. The opening text reveals a past private behavioral study used some 600 children in its experiments. The six friends are reunited after the death of another friend. Their group called themselves the Crazy Eights.

There are a few familiar faces from the 90's and early 2000's. That's the main reason to check this out. The premise is concocted simplicity. It's bare-bones and constructed only to bring these people to an isolated place. It's a low budget horror. It's a bunch of actors running around in one place. The scares are not that scary. The story isn't much. The actors are who they are. It's nice to see them again, but this is not anything.

I had higher hopes for Crazy Eights than previous films I had seen from the Afterdark Horrorfests' 8 Films to Die For lines, because after seeing a few, I thought I had acquired the ability to pick out the ones that would be good by then. That incident just goes to show you can never be too sure about a movie. Do not get me wrong, this movie was indeed entertaining, but only so because of how much you are wishing it will pick up at any moment, and it does not do so.

To start off, the main premise is interesting. "Circumstance brings six childhood friends together to face their past, and a secret they share." The performances are not bad; not Oscar-worthy, but worthy of being deemed tolerable. The film itself is watchable, in a sense, but that's all it really is and all that should be expected. It's the way the actual story/plot is played out that makes it so frustrating. There is little to no suspense, and that is only because the pace is so abrupt and confusing at times. The premise as I said is interesting, but the plot ultimately defeats this plus-side, never giving us anything short of excitement or empathy for the characters. It's like the director and writer were drunk on the job, but had potential.

I barely remember the climax/ending because I was put off by that moment, and just ready for the film to be over. I might sound a little harsh, seeing as how I did say I was entertained, but I was expecting a lot more than I got, even if this is a B-movie and much can rarely ever be expected from a wide variety of them. Maybe it is time for me to give this film another watch, but it is only for the fact that I am willing to give it another chance, as I give any film I do not enjoy that much on a first watch another chance so long as I did not hate it, and not because I am ready to watch it again out of satisfaction.

To describe the plot of Crazy Eights would be a waste of time because there wasn't one. This movie was a big bomb that would've found a home on Mystery Science Theater 3000. While watching it with friends, all we did was crack on it.

My opinion of "8 Films to Die For" is steadily lowering after seeing a few really bad movies in their line up. Previously, they had some great picks like "Grave Dancers" or "Unrest." But lately, I think they've been taking bribes to include films like "Crazy Eights" or "Tooth and Nail" (even worse than Crazy Eights). Do not bother renting this movie. I did so at RedBox and was so p----d off for wasting even a buck on this pile of dreck, that RedBox gave me a free rental.

p.s. Traci Lords sucked too (no pun intended.)

Six people come together after the death of a childhood friend and begin to unravel the secret behind a past they can't remember while trapped in some abandoned hospital kind of place, and thus begins the very many problems with Crazy Eights.

The film is basically one very big collection of plot holes, beyond what I tried to sum up never really made sense, because for someone like me who has a long attention span, I can clearly say that barely anything is explained, for example, what was the purpose of the experiments? why was the dead girl so vengeful if she died accidentally? And how can a group childhood friends remember each other but they don't remember a thing about their childhood? I don't know if the director tried to make one of those films that's suppose to stay with you for a long time after you've watched it, wondering about the same things I just pointed out, well he did, only after I watched it, I didn't really like it.

Another problem is the score, while watching the film I noticed that the score practically played throughout the film, I can probably account for less than three seconds for when I didn't hear it, and it was more annoying than anything else, for the majority of the film it just played, it didn't help set the tone or create a certain mood or help the film build any kind tension, it just played and muffled a lot of the dialog.

The acting was so so, but whatever kind of film the filmmakers tried to make obviously doesn't work, want my advice? Broaden out the storyline leaving fewer plot holes and make less use of the score and more use of sound and lighting effects to create a lot of atmosphere, I am sure it'll work better.