Talon Falls

As a local, I was wanting to hate this movie. I live within 3 miles of this haunted house, and have been to the new one as well as the old one they had in Paducah, Ky. From the very beginning I had a good laugh with the country store. A store my boys went to at least once a month from pre-k to 6th grade with the elementary school across the street. Then the drive from the store to the haunted house, with it getting dark on the 3 1/2 minute drive from one place to the other. But, as I said i was expecting to hate it, but it was redeeming. It has a decent story line. Much more then I was expecting. The acting was not horrible. Again as a local and running across abandoned trailer parks out in the middle of no where, missing people that haven't been found in years, it makes you wonder what may be going on in the area....... It makes you stop and think about some of these rural haunted houses you go to out in the middle of no where. Some of them credit cards are not excepted. Hmmmm i wonder why. Can't trace you back if no name involved. Your in the country, you think they don't have connections with the local tow company, just around the corner from the country store. Cell phones, what service?????? You're not within reach of a tower. Some haunted houses are scary. Sometimes the area around you is scarier.

So, the movie is not poorly made, per se, but I was hoping for a gore flick and very let down.

Most facets of the actual movie are decent. I mean, we're not talking Oscar worthy acting, but it's certainly passable in that regard.

This is mostly a review for those hoping to find a bit of gore to brighten their days. You will be sadly disappointed. All the setups were there; decent enough body horror and other such intrinsic qualities, but aside from a little bit of blood there is really nothing here. I'm assuming the director did not set out to make a gore flick as all possible aspects of that quality were passed over for some light blood and lots of screaming.

As mentioned, if you're just in the mood for another retelling, with some dark light, screaming, and a decently made movie (at best), then go for it. If you're looking for serious horror gore, there is virtually none, if any here.

So I will rate this movie much like how I rate all movies...for what it is and sells. This is supposed to be a horror / splatter movie. It is not good enough to watch it again...it is not bad enough to watch it for fun...it is just...meh...the story was not origina!,but this is fine for me...the acting was bad...but I could live with that as well...but for a horror/splatter movie,stealing so many elements from other movies of its kind...one could at least expect some more blood,more Gore,more imagination in the tortures,and at least a bit more tension!the "victims" either get caught too easily,or escape too easily!even the "twist" in the end is expected!in a nutshell...I don't regret seeing it,but there definitely are greater movies of this kind,and one can waste his time watching something else.

Heading out for a road-trip together, a group of friends out for a camping trip get detoured to a local amusement park along the way, where they are captured by the organizers of the carnival and kept to be used as unwitting and unnoticed victims in the event, forcing them to try to escape the group.

For the most part, this one was a solid enough effort. The initial start here comes from them arriving at the funhouse attraction in the amusement park which is rather fun and chilling. Starting off with the usual carnival attractions as they tour the maze filled with ghouls and deformities popping out of the darkness to scare people, messing with the lights going out constantly and featuring plenty of blaring noises constantly around them, there's some cheesy fun with the setup that allows for their shock at the scenes of the kidnapped victims they see being tortured along the way which they don't realize are real people being tortured. The nature of it is effective and gives this a strong introduction to the later scenes inside the park. Once they get kidnapped and held captive, there's a strong sense of brutality that comes about here due to the torture that's inflicted. The scenes of them being held down in the steel cages with the guard dog and then taken out to be put on display in the carnival attraction adds a wholly disturbing tension to the scenes as they try to wait out a plan of action to move forward and escape. The plan is a logical enough endeavor with the general idea of distraction and ambush providing this with plenty of action and logical enough twists to showcase the organization to be right there on their tails and delivering several solid and outright thrilling scenes of them chasing each other through the back-alleys of the carnival. With some great gore as well, these here make for a lot to like here. There are several big flaws with this one. One of the main issues is the fact that the entire operation makes no sense how it's operating as long as it has been going through victims the way they are. The idea here is that every one of the shows they put on within the community has been done with the group torturing and killing victims they've grabbed along the way from the pile of corpses left in the woods nearby which makes no sense how they've dumped bodies in the area with little regard to their discovery. That also dives into the cliched nature of the film as there are so many scenes and setups that emerge here taking its cues from other efforts that it diminishes the suspense heavily, especially the ending twist which doesn't come off as any kind of shocking action at all. These here are what hold this one down.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Some of the scenes were cool... but I couldn't get over the severe lack of imagination for story. EXTREMELY FLAT!! The haunt was cool, the idea was OK... but the beginning SCREAMED "House of 1000 rip off".

I met the guy at the gas station the other night. Someone even asked "Is there something wrong with that guy?" Kept asking us if we wanted our picture with him. I'm sure he may be a nice guy, but he was annoying Sunday night.

I rated a 3 / 10 and I was feeling generous. Much of the acting was bad... even for a low budget horror film. But the idea of the torture setup etc was pretty neat. We finished the film but we won't be adding it to our shelf.