Feral

Feral is not a good movie. I wasn't that impressed with the ads and mostly just saw it because of the leading ladies. Scout Taylor-Compton (Rob Zombie's Halloween films), Renee Olstead (Unfriended), and Olivia Luccardi (Channel Zero) are the leads who, along with a couple of lame guys, go on a camping trip after finishing college then run across werewolves er, ferals.

This movie starts with a gore soaked cold open in which special guest star Lew Temple (The Devil's Rejects, 31, The Walking Dead) seemingly tortures a monsterous female to death. While watching this, I had two thoughts. The first was that this is a pretty cool start to the movie. The second was this terrible feeling that this was probably the best part of the movie. And, aside from endless cleavage shots of its lead actresses, it is.

And yes, this movie is so bad that the cheap, juvenile thrill of pretty girls in tank tops ends up being a major highlight and that is a majorly bad thing.

The five kids on the camping trip are boring and annoying AT THE SAME TIME. There's a sort of vague, millenial SJW vibe to these kids that made me think I wasn't even supposed to like them. There's a listless, bored quality to the most of the actors, who never seem that worried about what is going on, to the characters, that are lucky to have one trait a piece, and to the pace, which is just slow and dull.

This movie could REALLLY have benefited from a sense of humor, some gratuitous sex and violence, dumb humor, anything! It's just so boring. By the end I was checking emails and just waiting for it to be over.

I like Scout Taylor-Compton but her character is such a Mary Sue. She kind of reminded me of the ridiculously capable gal from You're Next but lacked even that character's charm. She's really just too capable too early and the character has nowhere to go. Lew Temple is equally one note and Renee Olstead isn't even in it that much. Olivia Luccardi is the only one that manages to develop much personality and I had the impression that was mostly because of quirks the actress threw in herself, like flipping a character the bird behind his back because he's being a jealous prick to her.

The only memorable thing here, if you can call it that, is that the lead couple is two girls instead of a hetero normative couple. The movie doesn't do anything with them though so, really, instead of getting a bland, underwritten romance between a man and a woman, we get a bland, underwritten romance between a woman and a woman.

The creature effects are okay but that's about it. I didn't like this movie and only gave it a 4 because I had the impression that at least some people involved were trying. The DP shoots the film well, the makeup effects are solid, and Scout and Olivia Luccardi do what they can with their roles. Still don't recommend spending money on it though.

In short, as I said at the beginning, Feral is just not a good movie.

'Feral' is an excellent example of a low budget horror movie done wrong. We've recently had some low budget gems in the horror genre (for example 'Starry Eyes'), but it's movies like this that make the genre take a step back, especially considering this is another 'college kids go to a remote cabin in the woods and die' kind of horror movie, which should've died after 'The Cabin In The Woods' proved that these sorts of horror movies have overstayed their welcome in cinema.

This all brings me to the question: why was this movie made?

I still ask myself that now having watched it but this movie shouldn't have been made at all, especially considering it has basically been made already. The Australian horror film 'Primal' came out in 2009 and has an almost identical plot to this movie. This wouldn't be as big of an issue as it is if that movie wasn't so godawful, and unfortunately 'Feral' is even worse in its execution.

Firstly, despite the plot being unoriginal and generic, it still had the potential to provide for an entertaining movie, but this film is sleep-inducingly dull. This is mostly due to the movie's terrible pacing, with characters being killed off 10 minutes into the movie (bearing in mind that there's only 6 of the college kids to begin with), meaning that the remaining 80 minutes goes by incredibly slowly as we wait for the remaining college kids to die. This is made worse due to the boring characters presented to us, who have no development, no personality and apparently no intelligence as they constantly make the dumbest decisions that no real human would ever make unless they'd been lobotomised.

The quality of the acting doesn't make the film worthwhile either. I had some expectations for the performances considering that Olivia Luccardi was playing one of the main characters (having given a solid performance in 'It Follows'), but even she gives a bad performance in this movie. Scout Taylor-Compton easily gives the best performance but that's hardly saying much considering the performances from her costars. The worst performance in this movie easily goes to Lew Temple as the movie's antagonist, who sleepwalks through his role with the most monotone delivery of every single line that he speaks. It's clear that he only starred in this borefest for his paycheck.

Taking into account that this is a horror movie as well, I might as well talk about how scary the film is: it isn't. There's absolutely no tension because of how dull the movie is, and the creatures themselves look like poor imitations of the creatures from 'The Descent' (go and watch that instead), but it's not like that matters anyway because the lighting is so bad that you'll barely see the creatures at all.

This movie was doomed from the start. An overdone concept with weak actors and a terrible director could have never made for a good movie, let alone a low budget horror movie like this. Just watch something else, because this movie is a complete waste of time.

I've seen much worse, but it's still not a good movie by any means. As everyone else here has already said, very weak acting and script. Just another generic cabin in the woods story that we've already seen done so much better, so many times already.

The nicest thing I can say is that the effects are passable, but not in any way impressive. Not that you'll be seeing much of them anyway since this is yet another cheap horror movie that didn't have anywhere near the budget it needed to do what it wanted to do, and so the majority of the movie just time-wasting filler.

And oh man, can someone PLEASE get Olivia Luccardi to a dentist already? I think that gap is actually getting bigger.

This movie is about a zombie virus and 6 people.

The zombie virus is the most likeable character.

The trailer was good. The movie started well with a man in a cabin waiting to kill a tied up zombie/infected person n cut the scene n we get to c a group of friends trekking in the woods. During the nite, one fella walks out of the tent to take a pee n we get to a c a creepy creature lurking in the dark. The first kill was decent but the movie turned bad after this. There is absolutely no tension or suspense. Most of the characters r shown to be medical students, especially one studying to become an epidemiologist but the kind of stupidity they show towards the infected victims is annoying. The source of the virus is never explained n the ending was meh. The director's earlier effort Tooth n Nail is much better than this lousy film.