davannacarter

Within the first 2 minutes I knew this was gonna be amateur. One of the main characters has pictures of his family members facing away from him. The pictures are facing toward visitors. I've worked in many office settings and have never actually seen someone face their family pictures away from them. No one does that. For the director to make such an amateur mistake, it means I should lower my expectations.

Lowering my expectations helped like this movie. There were many flaws: the acting (like another reviewer noted, the bald guy talked way too low and was pretty unconvincing). The unsteady swaying cam was also annoying (it wasn't shaking, just swaying all the time). But it was only made for $25,000 and it had around two set locations and 7 cast members. So I have to give it some leeway. The pacing was good. However, they really could have tried harder to increase the tension, suspense, and mystery.

Personally, I give this guys credit because they were interested in making a good movie and did good with what they had. Way too many indie filmmakers seem like they don't care that there's an audience watching the movie. These guys recognized their limitations. As a result, they made a movie that's worth watching for a fan of werewolf horror films. Nothing groundbreaking. But it wasn't a cliché-filled predictable mess like so many other horror movies. It had some gore but no hot chicks get naked, unfortunately. Recommendation: give this one a shot if you have nothing better to do for 75 minutes. It's one of those "Okay. That was all right", shrug your shoulders type horror movies. I'd like to see more from this director as it looks like he could improve with time and better resources.

As one reviewer noted, this is like a Twilight Zone episode stretched into a movie. However, it's actually a mystery/drama movie that could easily air on the Lifetime Channel. There is nothing scary in this movie. Not one thing that in this movie is scary that'll classify this as a horror movie. So if you're looking for a horror movie of any kind, gore or psychological, you won't find it here.

This mystery genre lacks suspense or thrills until the last 25 minutes. This movie was an hour and 50 minutes long. Up until the last 25 minutes, there was no tension, chills, thrills, moody atmosphere, or engaging situations. Nothing happened. The entire movie's story was revealed within the last 25 minutes. That kinda stuff simply does not work for an hour 50 minute movie. At first, I kept saying, "Any minute now something interesting is gonna happen." repeatedly until the 60 minute mark. Then after that, I said, "I don't care what happens. I just feel like finishing this flick because I have a vague desire to see what this is all about." All in all, a totally pointless movie. As another review noted, nothing happens. Not a thing. The characters weren't engaging for me to care about their fate. So what was the point of this flick? I'm not sure even the director knows the point of this movie.

This is not a horror movie. I repeat: this is in no way a horror movie. The only good thing I can say about this movie is the opening scene with the bleached blonde getting entirely butt naked. That's the only noteworthy thing about this movie. I think the director put that scene in there to keep the audience interested. Otherwise, I would have turned it off within 20 minutes. Yes, it was so boring, without the opening nude scene, I'm positive I would have stopped watching 20 minutes in.

At the 30 minute mark, I realized I hadn't seen anything, not one thing, remotely horror related: no suspenseful music, no tense atmosphere, no villain, no one getting killed or disappearing, no blood, no screaming, no running in fear, no victims, nothing, absolutely nothing horror related. I didn't turn off the movie, but I fast-forwarded. I fast-forwarded to the end and still saw nothing horror related. None of the horror elements I mentioned above showed up in the movie at all.

As a result, this movie is mislabeled as a horror. It's a drama fantasy. So if you've been mislead into believing this is a horror movie, either psychological suspense horror with little or no violence, or a gore/exploitation horror, or any other kind of horror, you'll find no horror here. At all.

As far as being a good drama/fantasy goes, it's not. The only thing horror related about this movie is the typical horror plot: unsuspecting young people spend a weekend in a secluded rural area with no cell phone reception so they can have fun with booze, weed, and free sex. The acting is mediocre, at best. The director is flat and uninspired. The cinematography is dull and unimpressive. The dialogue is pathetic (Characters say stuff such as, "Like totally whatever, cakeboy"). And the story is all over the place and nonsensical. Instead of the token black character, we have the token gay character. So there is some heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual sex going on in the movie.

All in all, it is mislabeled as a horror movie. There is nothing horror related in this movie at all. It's a drama/fantasy. But as a drama/fantasy, it fails for all the reasons I described above. Don't bother unless you like wasting your time watching amateur cinema.