Barricade

I was not completely blown away by Barricade but I thought it was definitely a fun, gore-filled movie. I just read a negative review and it was obviously written by someone who does not watch or appreciate no budget movies. This movie is not Hostel. It is not The Hills Have Eyes. It looks like they shot it for a few thousand dollars. But there is nothing wrong with that - as long as you know that is what you're getting.

The acting is stiff at times and the plot is rather thin, but the real reason anyone should be watching this movie is for the amazing, nasty gore. Much like Andreas Schnaas' Violent Sh*t movies or Olaf Ittenbach's Premutos, the goal here is to show as much splatter as humanly possible on a shoestring budget... and in this regard, I think Barricade's filmmakers and FX artists definitely succeed.

Timo Rose is a talented director and I look forward to seeing more of his movies in the future. I hope he continues getting releases outside of Germany. This is the first movie I have seen of his in Spain. Although his editing sometimes went a little over-the-top in Barricade, it hints at an untapped talent that a larger budget might be able to bring forth.

Also, I was not a fan of the hip hop music in the movie. It was good music - but it did not fit the scenes very well. The other music was all very good, though.

All together, I'd definitely recommend this movie to anyone who wanted to see a lot of gore done of a tiny budget. If you like big budget Hollywood horror films or you need a strong plot, then don't bother. But if you're like me, you'll have a really good time with it.

7 out of 10

Wow, after trashing the disk of Timo Roses "Rout City" after about 15 Minutes (South Park is about more than meaningless cursing... I guess some people just don't get it) I was interested in this movie. I read quite some positive stuff and the packaging and look of the movie seemed far from the total trash I expected after "Rout city".

Surprise: The movie isn't total trash but the problem seems to be exactly that. Timo Rose tries to walk in the footsteps of German Horror/Splatter Cinema like Olaf Ittenbach and the likes. That means "Barricade" is in parts extremely gory and detailed. The gore FX are not really believable but OK, the acting is OK but in some cases plain sucks. The hillbilly chick in the opening sequence is ridiculous and doesn't get better till she's shot.

So what is the problem... the movie is gory, has a typical German underground vibe (including the classic booby shots in blood), OK FX and a modern feel to it like the packaging already promised?!

1. The script is total BS. You get a typical hillbilly/lost in the woods story with some guys+gal camping out and meeting a degenerated hillbilly family. Everything is just leading towards the torture/mutilation scenes and seems unbelievably random and pointless. This is the first thing that makes "Barricade" half-hearted.

2. Random is also the perfect description for a lot of the camera work (I liked the repetitive cut to the tweezers in the extended booby torture scene... either they had no material or the editor works in a hardware store). Even worse the editing... sure, its modern and far better than a lot of other movies in the genre but its RANDOM. You got an overuse of that typical exposure effect everywhere and with no meaning ... its just there... all the time. Then there's some grainy/noisy film look which also is just thrown in here and there for the sake of it, I don't get the meaning.

3. Like the fore-mentioned effects there is a lot of repetitive stuff in here. For example most of the kills are edited with multiple repetitions of stabbing and punching. Its OK once but here its annoying and fake, especially towards the end. Annoying also attributes the "music" which is permanently used without any change in the background. It doesn't take long until it makes the movie hardly bearable.

4. From all this comes the biggest problem of this movie (and many others in my opinion). If you make a splatter movie with trashy feel its pretty idiotic to polish it with special FX and new school editing. It looks like they take it way too serious. Its no fun because the decent gore FX are plain wasted in this context. And where the classic gore FX are OK the computer FX in scenes like the stabbing in the mouth or the gunshots in the ending look rather silly(and 3D splatter mostly sucks to me even in movies with a budget and decent 3D artists).

I often wondered if the time of serious splatter movies is over and "Barricade" is just another example it might be time to put it in the tomb. Its no fun, has no character and is too trashy for its look. The script is a cheap try on "Wrong Turn" and "TCM" leading absolutely nowhere. You can take that literally... the ending is just there and as random as many other things here ("I love you" in a splatter flick... come on!!). "Barricade" tries to incorporate a lot and fails...you can sure fast-forward through this movie for some extensive disembowelment, acid face melting,nipple pinching and classic Friday the 13th style stabbing of a couple while fingering in a tent (bloody boobies hooray!). But its really hard to get through this. Total failure especially because you can see it could have been something.

I am a big horror movies fan and I followed this movie for a while on myspace. I like German splatter movies and I was excited about this one. I never saw any of Timo Rose's movies before. When i saw it, I was not surprised at all. It is like most German splat movies but with more gore than most of them. I thought it was really cool.

Some friends go into the woods and get attacked by cannibals. It is not an original plot but it is fun in this movie. Germany looks really pretty and the editing is cool. It is definitely better than most direct-to-DVD stuff that gets made anymore.

I would recommend this movie to any gore fans out there. Even though the acting is not great, it is better than most z-movies. It is great for some friends to sit down and watch with some beer. You will laugh at the cheesiness and gag at the gore.

Just another lame film about a family of cannibals taking on a group of 'normals.' What is with the fascination with cannibals? And why are the cannibals, usually inbred morons, able to outwit people whose brains actually work? And why, do they always eat the nubile women who could give them unmutated children? If they are inbred morons, how can they understand weapons and such? This is just another one for the junk pile, along with silly films like the entire Wrong Turn series. Just another excuse for torture porn like the terrible Hostel films. Unless one is a total cannibal fan, skip this and save 125 minutes of your life. By the way, the directing, acting and sfx are fairly bad.

barricade is the kind of movie i bet most typical movie fans will not like. its a bunch of really gory scenes with a small plot in-between. the story has a guy who is trying to tell the girl of his dreams that he cares about her on a camping trip in Germany but before he can do it a family of weird mutants attack them. it is a lot like wrong turn and the hills have eyes like other people have said but it is obviously made for really cheap.

everyone who wants buffy the vampire slayer should find another movie but if you're a horror fan and you like really gory movies, then maybe barricade is for you. i actually like it a lot. it is demented and sick and all the things i like to have in my horror movies. the acting is not great, but it is still pretty good. the way it is filmed is cool and doesn't feel like a normal direct to video movie.

i would give it two thumbs up, but like i said if you're a fan of normal movies, you probably will not like it.