Smothered

I had the great pleasure of watching the premier last night at the Scare-a-Con at the Turning Stone Casino in New York.

The film was an absolute hoot, and had the audience laughing and gasping at the same time. The horror icons (too many to list - see the cast list) did their jobs admirably and with perfect execution. The camera work and post-production work was very well done. My only concern was the non-linear time line jumps, but as John Schneider pointed out in the subsequent Q&A session, it keeps one focused on the film, but in the same breath he assured us that a completely linear version will be on the DVD when it is released.

In short, I'm probably going straight to Hell for laughing at a lot of this stuff, but I guess I'll see you all there. You'll know me, I'll be the guy in the trench coat black-marketing ice cubes!

RR

I love low budget horror, even the lowest of the low and have an appreciation for 'so bad it's good' cheese-fests. This movie is so bad that it is basically unwatchable, and it doesn't help itself by having editing that makes very little sense.

For no apparent reason the story is broken up into chapters(?) that don't really correlate and don't help to reveal anything or enhance the story in any way, so I have no idea why they didn't just make a linear film. Sure, there is actually very little in the way of story to tell, but at least you could have made an average lame horror movie, rather than some chopped up piece of garbage that thinks it is saying more than it is.

Finally the premise, it barely has anything to do with what happens in the actual movie and the smothering plays so little a part that it is nothing more than a gimmick. There is nothing redeemable about this movie apart from the names in it and they are completely wasted so that means very little. I was really hoping this would be a fun horror comedy watch and it just wasn't, it was a pain to sit through. Avoid!

Horror that is, indeed, not in the way you might expect. Comical, not one bit, except if you are rotten inside or in a drug induce haze. I stop watching 46 minutes in, 24 of which where I try to justify the existence of such a piece. So tedious, badly done and overwhelmingly boring that I ended up laughing, laughing at the poor Scared Movie fan who paid $3.99 to buy it out of the leftover bin at the flee market delighted at the idea of such an epic actors reunion. John Schneider should have taken is buddies on a all you can eat buffet trip and spare us this garbage self indulgence. Editing with is non-linear story telling, post-production with is distasteful choice of music are serious contestants for a Golden Raspberry. 3.4 out of 10

A hard film to review, overall.

First, as I have mentioned before in a few of my 1100+ reviews, most film-makers secretly yearn for the "trifecta" of movie making -- which is low budget, small cast, single location. Since film (like everything else in our society, and I mean LITERALLY everything) is a business, even a moderate audience for such a low-budget film means profits, which means you are a hot ticket, which means you get new money for more product. Which means you have a new career.

So in this light Schneider (and I am a fan of his TV work) did the smart thing all the way. He not only went after the Holy Grail of film making (as above) but did so with a sharp concept (name horror stars hoisted on their own petard) with many of the cast playing against type. Clever. Very clever.

So what went wrong? Not much really. The problem is that, with such careful and meticulous preparation, this film can never aspire to be more than it was originally designed to be.

In other words, you have (perhaps) an instant "cult" film, designed to appeal to a youngish demographic that "gets" films that deconstruct themselves, and are looking to fill some two hours with harmless and forgettable fun.

On the other hand, this is not a true horror film (like Conjuring) not a true comedy (like the films Leslie Mann appears in) and is at best a super-lite version of the "ensemble films" that the late Robert Altman was known for.

Not bad for a first effort. But you are not going to see it mentioned at the Oscars.

I really enjoyed this, I don't usually get to see this much Bill and Kane in a movie! Yeah, it is kinda cheesy, but that is what I loved about it! I laughed at several parts and I thought everyone did a great job.

I think this is great for those that love all these horror icons, R.A's secret cracked me up, lol. I am not going to give spoilers, why read a movie review for the spoilers!? Instead, I will say this is great for what it is, and I could tell everyone had a great time making the movie, that is what counts! We all know that no one in this just did it for the money, they did it because they love what they do! This is a fun movie and I will be watching this again!! Great job!!!