Staunton Hill

Staunton Hill follows a group of young friends hitchhiking their way to a rally in D.C., but when their paths cross with an all too eager to help stranger, their lives take a horrible turn. Their journey to the home of the Stauntons, a crazed redneck family who's involved in a very grisly, and blood soaked trade.

The storyline itself is your basic cookie cutter Texas Chainsaw Massacre type deal. You have it all from the racist gas station owner, the mysterious stranger who just wants to lend a helping hand, the abandoned farmhouse, and your over the top religious crazed hillbillies, one of which who happens to be retarded to some degree. The film takes a very long time to get anywhere. The buildup seems like it will go on forever, which caused me to lose interest quite a few times along the way. The directors attempts to show you bonds and relationships between the main characters falls short, and most of the time seemed like needless filler, only there to extend the films length.

Now the movie's only high point its beautiful special effects make up. The gore in this film is amazing, and stays true to the old school latex and buckets of blood formula that I will always love. That's right ladies and gentlemen, no CGI gore to be found in this flick, just good old get your hands dirty make up.

But in the end, the gore isn't enough to save this movie. I have to say, going in, I had high hopes for this flick, as a very big fan of George's I was hoping to see his son breathe new life into the namesake. Let's hope his next film is better than this ultimately weak attempt at a movie that's been way over done since the success of rob zombie's House of 1000 corpses.

2/5 - Ritualistic The Liberal Dead http://liberaldead.blogspot.com

I guess that George Romero's son has seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and all of the cliché movies that followed them. The story, while understandable, is not well defined. It had a very slow beginning and then the meat of the story was vague. Some of the effects were good, the acting was good, but no matter how good you are, if your story is not solid, it all falls apart. The story is about some young people hitching a ride. They make friend with a guy that has stopped at a gas station to add water to his truck. He offers them a ride and of course the truck breaks down. They go to the nearest house they can find, but no one answers the door. Since it is starting to rain, they all decide to stay the night in the barn. When they wake up the next morning, the meet the family that owns the farm. Buddy is the simple minded adult male, then we have his mom, then we have her mom. They family is very welcoming and serves them breakfast. After breakfast they try to find a mode of transportation. Then the weak story starts.

I viewed "Staunton Hill" last night, and I did so expecting it to be absolutely worthless. I have read the horrid reviews and listened to all the know-it-all crap being slung on various message boards. Having given the film a watch, I have to say that certain criticisms of Cameron Romero are unfair.

The Writing:

We've all seen it before; a group of kids in some remote wilderness get chased down and murdered by some oddball inbred family. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I can accept that played out formula if the characters take their own shape, and if there is a fresh take on said formula. However, I never saw that happen in this film. But rather than throw stones at Cameron Romero, one needs to look at David Rountree, the writer. The weakest element of this movie was by far the writing. The characters are predictable, one-dimensional, and poorly defined. The back-story is very vague, and there isn't much "horror" to the film until the last 15-20 minutes. The first 50+ minutes of "Staunton Hill" basically equal the first 15 minutes of similar films using that same "formula". That much is all true, but those criticisms should be directed at David Rountree rather than at Mr. Romero.

The Acting:

The acting in this film is hard to gage. I know that there were some talented people involved in this movie, but I fear that the poor writing ruined any chance these actors had to do their best. I've seen well- written scripts tackled by average actors in a respectable way, but I have never seen good actors be able to do good things with a poorly written script.

The Directing:

Where the directing suffered the most was in some of the jumpy edits and unsteady hand-held shots. There was good use of cam-cables and dollies at times, and there were a few really nice shots, but there was also some under/overdeveloped shots that didn't match up in certain scenes. With that said, I have to point out that this low budget film was indeed shot on Super 16, and thus presented a bit more of a challenge to shoot than HD.

The Characters:

To be fair and honest, I don't know what the script called for, but I feel that the characters could have been brought to life a lot more. I felt that the character of Buddy was a bit scattered and senseless, and I felt that the back-story on both the kids and the family was too vague. If you are going to tap that old "formula", than it is essential to make the writing as fresh as possible. I found that I couldn't identify with any of them because I didn't know enough about them. They all became caricatures rather than characters. Is Cameron Romero guilty of taking on a poorly-written and under-budgeted movie? Yes he is. However, it is unfair to blame him for either the writing or the budget. Could some of his shots have been more steady? Sure! But there are also some nice shots in there too.

The Gore:

I am picky about gore. I love it, and I am tired of CGI special effects. One redeeming quality about this film is that while we see no real "horrors" until the last 20 minutes of the movie, what we do see is decent... and not done on computers.

"Worst Movie Ever" Tag:

I watch a lot of films. My collection is vast and large. I have read the comments by people talking about this film as a "1 out of 10" worse. To be objective about it, I don't think this film is quite a "1" or a "2". The latest remake of both "Night of the Living Dead" (3D) and "Day of the Dead" were both 1000 times WORSE than "Staunton Hill" could ever be. A friend of mine brought me a DVD of 2006's "Night of the Dead". I'd dare ANY of you who gave this film a "1" or "2" rating to go view any of those films and then tell me that "Staunton Hill" is that terrible?

Don't get me wrong, "Staunton Hill" is nothing groundbreaking. Not even close. It is an old story that you have seen before. However, I will give the cast and Cameron Romero credit for their efforts. I know it's hard to please a modern horror audience when someone isn't getting their guts or brains strewn across the screen every 3-5 minutes. But with that as a given, the writing MUST be as strong as the cast and crew... otherwise you can't really do much.

I will write this film off as a "4.5" and wait to see what Cameron Romero does with a stronger script and a little more money. I think he's capable of great things if he plays it right, and I hope to see him make his own name in the horror field. We need to remove his wonderful father for a moment, give Cameron enough room to grow into his own shoes, and to learn from his own mistakes. As for "Staunton Hill", I'm going to pass at adding it to my collection... but as for Cameron Romero, I think the future might be bright when it is said and done. Time will tell.

-JB

What a blatant act of misinformation to leave out that its "Cameron Romero's" movie. Honestly I don't care for his fathers movie either so its just a hopeless way of selling a movie anyway. But i hate when they sell movies on such points... most of the time you know they are bad. And "Staunton Hill is a bad movie too. The plot is a regurgitation of the never ending "Backwoods horror" theme with and inbred family, cannibalism and torture. You get your car full of kids in the woods, a fat dumb slayer... everything was there a million times before. The acting is often very bad. When the black guy watches his girlfriend being dismembered I was laughing.

What is done pretty well in the movie are the gore effects but I have rarely seen a movie where these felt as displaced as in "Staunton Hill". The movie is incredibly boring for most of the time. The male characters get killed in a most uninspired and uninteresting fashion while suddenly female characters get a boost in their on screen time when they squeeze in a 10 minute dismemberment scene which shows every detail. What the hell were they thinking... its all a cash off. Put a misleading name in front of the title, include some gratuitous violence and then just end the movie when you don't know where to go with it.

Ignore!

After breaking down on a less-traveled road, a group of young adults camp out at a farm in the late 1960s. But the property owners are a sinister lot, and their mentally challenged son has no qualms about doing some despicable things to them in exchange for some money.

This is my first encounter with director Cameron Romero, son of the legendary George Romero. I can't say it was the most impressive way he could have been introduced to me. While it had some decent moments, and what could have been an interesting subplot, the film came off as confusing, slow at times, and somewhat derivative.

I have seen the plot about a gas station attendant who leads a group to a dangerous house more than few times. I'm sad I had to see it again. There was some sort of story about skin grafting that went over my head... maybe because I found it hard to pay attention, or maybe because it fit in very loosely with the story. And the lack of nudity, while not a deal breaker in itself, condemned this "unrated" film to be not just boring but unredeemable for salacious horror fans.

Perhaps the biggest mystery is the film's time setting. If I had not read the box, I wouldn't have made the connection that this film was in the 1960s. Modern clothes were evident, and despite the family watching riot footage, it could have been an old program. Why the year matters to the story is beyond me. Sure, it eliminates the problem of ubiquitous cell phones... but what else? The film's one quote on the box has George Romero saying this is "as scary as it gets". If the only person you can get to endorse your film is your father, you may not be ready for the big leagues yet.