The Anniversary at Shallow Creek

Six best friends find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time. They fight for their lives against a serial killer who has more in store for them than death.

This film defies expectations. I was not grabbed by the title, and the press release made the selling point be that pro baseball player Eric Fischer and his wife Brianna Lee Johnson share acting and producing duties. I do not know Fischer, so that did nothing to spark my interest. But despite the failure on my part to know sports, Fischer and Johnson are quite good and this is an exceptional film.

Once you read the plot, you may think this is like many other films you have seen before -- it relies heavily on the slasher stereotype of a group of friends drinking in a remote place. But it is actually much more than that. I mean, a slasher film alone might have been good - I love slasher films -- but this has some twists and plot changes that you may not expect. As the press release says, the film "never leads exactly where the audience suspects."

While all the cast was adequate or better (no amateurs here) and the directing was top-notch, I have to single out the boy who played Corey (Corey Landis). His acting is not flawless, but he played his character well and was the number one reason my interest remained strong. He was the unpredictable one. Fun, funny, a little bit quirky -- and once the fit hit the shan, you (or at least I) want to know what will happen -- will the kid live or die?

The film's only shortcoming is the budget, as the film quality itself is not perfect. But again, the acting is decent and the directing is wonderful, and combined with a great soundtrack, the picture is easy to overlook. Oh, and the gore. How can I forget the gore? Whoever designed those head wounds, there is a best makeup Oscar in your future. Check out this DVD for a good film and be sure to watch the special features -- interviews, audio commentary and a behind the scenes featurette. Breaking Glass Pictures is the company to watch these days, and films like this are the reason why.

The Anniversary at Shallow Creek is everything that I feared that "Truth or Die" might have been (I was pleasantly surprised by the latter, sadly not by this one) A group of obnoxious, oblivious, young-adult cannon-fodder go on vacation to a secluded vacation house where they're stalked by a masked killer.

No surprise here, no real thrills nor entertainment either for that matter. The movie did however have the common decency to put the word shallow in the title and thus make a reviewers life that much easier, so I'll be grateful for that. About the only thing in regards to the lackluster lazy little film.

"Anniversary at Shallow Creek" starts off just as many mediocre slasher movies do, and just like many of its kind, it saves a twist that's supposed to surprise viewers. Unfortunately, this low budget production quickly shows to be a low quality one too (literally a few minutes into it). The acting is awful (child actor Corey Riley is particularly bad),the script equally awful, and even on a technical level, the film seems to have rather poor audio, and basic cinematography ruined by the use a blue filter for it's daytime shots, the point of which totally eludes me. Add to this an anemic score, and you've got the type of horror film even those who enjoy the genre would admit fails to meet even lowered expectations.

It couldn't be any worse all around that what I have just watched. I can't believe there are people, who probably call themselves "creative," out there do not mind wasting so much energy, effort, and wealth to come up with this sort of movie. It's really sad.

After reading the reviews on the site where I got the movie from, it was evident that this wasn't a great movie, but had interesting twists. After watching the first half hour of this movie though and realizing that the killer would take out most if not all the people made me wish that they would do it faster.

I wish I had skipped the first 35 minutes or so. There are a few bra and pantie scenes but no nudity, or anything interesting in the start except 6 people go away to one guys uncle's cabin. Until the scene where they go for the drive to get beer, the movie is pretty boring and I wanted to kill those kids too. They are annoying as hell and make you wonder if people actually behave like that.

The gore is interesting and enjoyable. The sniper as you see in the opening shot has amazing accuracy and you root for him unless you like annoying teenagers of course.

Not a great movie, but worth a watch through. Few small acting scenes are good, the rest pretty average.