The Cutting Room

Darrlareviews.uk

Oh now come on! This is just the most unfair set of reviews on a harmless enough found footage horror I've ever seen.

Yes it's found footage so if you hate found footage you won't like it.

There's a massive hint given early on and it will only make sense at the end. Yes there's plot holes such as most people having more than one pair of shoes in their life and why was the killer reflected in a mirror at one point but the acting is fine, the script is meant to sound like townie college students and it does, the location is creepy, the twist is pretty obvious but still fun to find out.

There's many questions left in the air but that's a staple of British horror especially.

This one needs digging back up and reappraising as it's undervalued and underappreciated.

Right, well I wasn't familiar with the 2015 movie "The Cutting Room" prior to sitting down to watch it. So I wasn't sure what I was in for here, aside from it being a horror movie.

And a horror movie it was. Well, not in the terms of it being a scary or frightening movie. No, not at all. But a horror in the terms of it being a ludicrous 'found garbage' movie and having a really laughable storyline, complete with dubious acting performances and characters that no one cares about.

Yeah, "The Cutting Room" from writer and director Warren Dudley was a terrible mess of a movie. I loathe 'found footage' movies with a vengeance, and had I known that "The Cutting Room" was one such movie, I wouldn't even have given it a second glance.

The storyline told in "The Cutting Room" was just utter rubbish, and I must admit that it didn't take me long before I had my mobile phone out and were doing stuff on the phone and only semi-paying attention to the rubbish on the screen.

Do yourself a favor and give "The Cutting Room" a wide berth, because this movie is not worth the time, effort or money. Seriously? Why waste time on something that is filmed with a handheld camera that is all over the place? The camera work in these 'found garbage' movies is so shoddy that it is just not worth the effort. I mean, my 11 year old son would fare better operating our digital video camera.

My rating of this 2015 'found garbage' movie lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

The Plot.

College students Raz, Charlie and Jess are about to start work on their end of year Media Studies project... unaware of a malevolent force lurking deep below their sleepy town.

A recent wave of apparent Cyberbullying and the disappearance of two local girls lead the group to an abandoned army barracks situated deep in the forests that surround the college. What they find there is a terrifying labyrinth of tunnels from which there seems no escape... and a dark figure hell bent on tormenting them.

Hunted, frightened and lost, Raz, Charlie and Jess must now escape the barracks or suffer the unspeakable fate that awaits them.

ZZZzzzzz.

One of the cheesiest movies I've seen in a long time.

Incompetently directed with the shakiest cam you have ever ever ever seen.

Literally NOTHING happens for the first 47 minutes! And the movie is only 73 minutes long and that includes the credits! A good portion of the film is out of focus too and the front and back songs during the credits are horrendous.

You will be bored out of your mind. Trust me. It really sucks. I'm not even all that sure why it's called The Cutting Room.

Reading some of the other reviews, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who was literally angered by this crap fest. Even if you like found film-which I do not-this is bottom of the barrel stuff. There is no talent here, just opportunistic scammers masquerading as "filmmakers," armed with a smartphone camera and a bunch of "actors" who just answered the ad.

The beginning of the film starts with a young woman who is apparently being dismembered alive. We assume this because we aren't shown anything. We aren't shown anything of horror at ALL. Just really annoying kids who we WANT to see die just talking. Just talking. For 45 minutes NOTHING HAPPENS. Just walking and talking while apparently an earthquake was occurring because this was not shaky cam. This was way beyond shaky. I truly felt motion sickness trying to watch this. I started fast forwarding because I did not care anymore about the story, the characters, what they were saying-I just wanted to get to the end. And when I did...

It was just kinda over. All we ever got was dark hallways, brief glimpses of a scary figure...and that's it. We were subjected to all that for clickbait. Like I said, these were scammers who showed us just enough to get us to watch so they could make a profit on something a 2yo in a haunted house could do with a camera taped to his forehead. And now I'm angry at myself for getting fooled again.

If you want to see a good film, this is not it. This is a waste of time.

This is a British found footage film and, as such, is similar to the template set out by the phenomenally successful 'Blair Witch Project'.

The three characters take time to like. Raz (Parry Glasspool), the sole male, is a cocky, good looking lad who will say inappropriate things for 'a laugh'; Lucy-Jane Quinlan plays Charlie, who spends most of the first half of the film frowning at Raz's antics, and Lydia Orange plays Jess, possibly the 'nicest' of the trio - while their very patient teacher Mark is played by TJ Herbert. He is openly ridiculed by Raz, particularly for his 'four stripe' trainers - a detail that is worth remembering during the closing shots.

It takes too long to get going, but during that time, I warmed to the three youngsters. Raz is a bit of a twit, no question, but he's often genuinely funny, if foolhardy.

The third act is where the scares finally come along, with the kind of stumbling confusion and terror synonymous with the found footage genre. The descent into dark, isolated tunnels is creepy and unsettling, and the final scene serves us with a good twist.