As always...no spoilers. I'll stick to the movie facets and let you decide.
First and foremost, this is not a BAD movie. Rather, it illustrates nearly every trope seen in American horror, including some of the comedic aspects, translates it to Brazilian Portuguese, films it, and calls it a day. It should be noted that unless you speak Portuguese, this will be a subtitle movie. Thankfully, there is not a ton of dialog during sequences where you really wanna have your eyes fixed on the action.
Second, it's a really slow burn. The film runs about 10 minutes shy of 2 hours, but there isn't even the faintest bit of action for the first hour. That is not to say the time is wasted, as it's spent on character development and setting, but for a film like this I question the need to devote nearly 2/3 the run-time to "development." If the entire film was as exciting as the final 20+ minutes, it would not have felt bogged down.
With regards to the film characteristics, this won't win any awards, but every aspect was at least average, except the CGI FX, which I thought ruined many potentially good moments. The acting was fine, the cinematography was fine, the editing was fine, the direction was actually quite good, and the writing (while cliché) was not bad either. I enjoyed the (multiple) twists, and didn't mind that aspects of the film and its characters were lifted directly from other movies (eg man in a skin mask with a chainsaw, anyone?). Due to its Brazilian connection it felt "new." Now had it been an American film, the possibility exists that I would be ripping it apart for the same reasons. Thankfully, it's not!
While the story takes place in a "new" place (ie Brazil), with no known actors, and is spoken in Portuguese, there is absolutely nothing new or prophetic about this film or its mishmash plot. That doesn't mean it's not worth watching, as there are a few tasty little twists at the end - the last thing seen is something you WISHED for earlier in the movie. In fact, had the first hour+ contained a little more than development-only and the fx not been horrible CGI this would have been a very good, gory film to watch. Be that as it may...I give it a solid "average" rating.
Some notes on content and the rating. The film is listed as NC-17. I found very little info online about it and can only assume this is an MPAA rating, but for my money there was no need for the NC-17. I've seen loads of current and aged R-rates horror films with similar content.
- very little profanity. Some colloquial name calling in Portuguese and a few direct translations, but there is not an abundance of profanity.
- if it wasn't for a total of 2 seconds, there would be no nudity, and what skin there is, is extremely brief. There is a fair amount of suggestive dialog considering the horny-teen trope, but it's tame.
- adult situations and intense scenes...well...if you made it through the first 2/3 of the film you would say there is none. The last 1/3 has several tense scenes and would be categorized as not for children.
- violence and gore. Nothing for the first 2/3, but the remainder is on-and-off violence until the end. From a gore standpoint, it was a total letdown. I'm a gorehound, so I look forward to movies that I think could shine...and this could have shined had the fx not been CGI. Nearly all actual bloodletting and violence is CGI, limiting practical fx to only what is seen after any action. The realistic fx were actually ok, but anything that occurred with action is CGI, and ruins the moment. That said, there are a couple brutal sequences toward the end. They just don't reach their potential due to the CGI.
Overall, it was worth the $1.99 watch on Amazon. Nothing new, and dragged a bit, but it still held my interest.
