13 Seconds

I do not do movie reviews. Ever. Before this. I am of the same camp of those that found that this movie actually made you angry. So angry that I created this account so that I might warn others away from this horrible waste of how ever many minutes long this was. The cover graphic should have those bad smell lines coming up off of it. The only enjoyable part of having seen this movie? Reading other's reviews. I know that most people end up just picking this up as a rental, having never seen it before. I'm sorry. You are now a part of the sad secret club. Those that have watched this movie. What has been seen cannot be unseen. It's akin to warning others of a pending zombie attack; you have the disbelievers ("oh really now, I'm sure that you're exaggerating"), the rubber neckers ("are you sure? let's just go have a look then."), and the survivors. Chances are, if you are here and reading this, you are one of the battle weary, slightly shell shocked survivors. Welcome, brothers. You are among friends. There will be punch and pie.

I have been sitting here for about half an hour, trying to quantify the amount of displeasure I feel for having been subjected to this movie. To do this without the use of profanity is especially challenging.

There is not a single redeeming thing about this movie.

Someone HAD to have lost a bet. This HAD to have been a wager to see who could create the most overwhelmingly awful movie, covering all aspects. Bad lighting? CHECK. Bad audio? CHECK. Crappy script? CHECK. Special effects that really suck? CHECK. Did we beat all of the cast members with the ugly stick? CHECK. Did you get the girls twice? CHECK. Did we get the dude that thinks he's Emilio Estevez? CHECK. Did all cast members destroy the part of the brain that even allows you to PRETEND to act? CHECK.

Speculation on my part, but I am guessing they blew the entire budget on the straight jacket and the corn syrup for fake blood. The horror teeth look like they came from those coin toy machines just inside the grocery store. The make up looks like papier mache and shoe polish. Or maybe oatmeal. ...And shoe polish. I can't be sure. I didn't care about it enough to look that closely.

WTF - I am really hoping that everyone in this was included because they were all friends; you don't PAY people to do this.

Seriously.

This movie made me want to punch babies. Twice. Who ever provided the funds for this needs to be relieved of all fiscal responsibility. STAT. I even can't think of a suitable punishment for those involved in this film. Something with eggs and toilet paper and warm weather comes to mind. And bitey bugs. Or maybe papier mache... And shoe polish. I can only hope that SOMEONE learned a lesson. But probably not.

To all those responsible for this horrible waste of plastic in the manufacture of this turd, please please PLEASE find something else to occupy your time. Being forced to eat a flaming pineapple with my butt while being maced repeatedly in the face would have been better use of my time. I kept waiting for someone to come up and squeeze a lemon in my eye. Seriously. My cat has taken dumps that were not only scarier, but more expressive. If you really feel the need to watch this cinematic horror, which it truly is, perhaps I can save you the rental fee in my suggesting that you simply stand next to an overfilled restaurant dumpster after a day of rain, in the summertime heat and just stomp the squishy rotting things in your socks. Or as a deterrent, hit yourself in the face with a frying pan. ...It works in cartoons.

To borrow a line from Venture Bros' Dean: "You should see a doctor, it smells like you pounded garbage into your butt!"

tldr; I wish I could unsee this.

Do not listen to anything that someone who has given this movie a positive review has to say: they are lying to you, literally. It is pretty common knowledge amongst the posters of this movie that there is a conspiracy to improve this movies image on IMDb.com. If you look at the rating percentages, there are next to no 8's and 9's, which is a very good and reasonable score for a movie that is as good as some say it is. No, the only significant positive rating that is given is a 10, which makes no sense. Look at the rating history, look at who has commented on it, and look at their post/rating/comment history. It is quite amusing indeed.

As for the movie itself, it's supporters have one thing right: it's pretty hard to make a movie on the budget that they must have had to make "13 Seconds" (which I'm guessing is in the neighborhood of $100). First, it is not at all scary. At no point am I scared, "creeped out," on edge, nervous, or even disgusted. It only affects the viewer's emotion in one way; it makes the viewer angry, angry for having spent the money to have seen it, and angry that you wasted an hour and a half of your life on it. The special effects are very distracting (no, we cannot fault the film makers for this, but it certainly does hinder your watching experience). The acting is horrendous (I'd say bad by high school theater standards). The plot is mediocre at best. And the dialogue is painfully terrible (lines like "I found this book."--"is it old?" and many others make you rewind it to see if you heard what you actually heard). I can, in all honesty and with absolutely no exaggeration, say that this is the worst movie that I have ever seen.

I am this strongly critiquing this movie not because I have a grudge against its creators (although I'm not happy about losing 90 minutes and $4). I am critiquing it so that no one else is fooled by what others are posting on this website. This is a terrible movie and is only worth watching if both a)you get it for free (or, even better, are getting paid to see it), and b)you do not value your time at all. No, on second thought, even if those two conditions are met, there are still better things to do. Steer clear, friends. Steer clear.

... horrible, horrible. I made the mistake of picking up this movie at my local rental store based on its cover alone. Big mistake. '13 seconds' sucks on all fronts: the acting, the story, the sound, the camera-work - all sink below any standards I can recall having ever seen on this side of my father's home videos from the 1980's. I'm usually a fan of low budget and independent horror, but in this case there's no redemption possible. The combination of absolutely no talent and next to no budget calls for disastrous results. The only thing scary about this movie is that it actually manages to strike up some positive reviews... truly horrifying!

My father in law bought some kind of stock in this movie. (I think he made a bad investment.) That is how I came across it. At first, the story is confusing and you are wondering what in the world is going on. They do not explain anything at all in the beginning. On several occasions, I was about to shut this movie off but do not. The story only gets better with time. More secrets are revealed Later in the movie. They movie is choppy with the scenes and is very hard to follow. The acting killed the movie. It was the worst acting I have ever seen. The characters talk in the same tone even when someone is ripped open right in front of them. This is definitely a low budget film. The only good things are the surprises and the gore. It could have been a good movie with decent acting and a bigger budget.

Grades: Acting: D- (This would be an F but Jeff Thomas does a decent job as the lead) Suspense: C- Sometimes this movie was too slow sometimes it was too fast Gore: B- This was the best part Story: C It sucked at first but revealed a lot in the end Characters: D You had no clue who was a main character or if they were dead Overall: C- had the potential to be good but nothing was explained well Do not buy this movie! If you see it on a shelf at blockbuster, rent it along with some other horror flicks you never heard of and compare them. This movie is not worth five bucks to own. The acting is one reason to see this movie. ( IT is so horrible it is worth more than the movie itself.

but after watching it I just have to know... who the hell are these poor poor mislead souls that are giving this movie such high praise!? 13 Seconds was a god-awful piece of crap. Even the best reviews on this site mention the bad acting and the (obvious) low budget, but try to say that those aspects of the film are simply something a "low budget" or "indie" film maker must deal with and the writer/director/actor should be commended for dealing with such shortcomings and still finishing the production. This is patently untrue, and I take such comments as a highly offensive slap in the face to the REAL independent, low budget film makers who can not only deliver on a clever story (which I will admit, 13 Seconds had), but they can also get something close to a decent performance out of their actors, better sound and editing... hell, everything involved in making a movie. And I do mean EVERYTHING.

To put it into terms that most people can relate to, 13 Seconds equates to a very low-budget Halloween season haunted house. The scares are cheap and ineffective and the actors hired to pull off those scares are almost as talented as my cat. At least my cat makes me jump on occasion.

The bad acting only makes the awful dialog even more unbearable. Add on top of that the total lack of effort put into the dubbing and you have the perfect formula for a movie that even Ed Wood would find abhorrent.

Even the argument that "well at least he went out and made a movie" doesn't hold water. One of the main reasons I have not gotten my own production off the ground is because of movies like this. Watching this movie made me remember that I didn't have to settle for whatever actors I could scrape out of a trailer park, a DP who had no experience outside of a Polaroid camera and sound recorded on an answering machine while the freaking actors phone it in. Sorry, but I'll hold out until I can find people that, when placed in a soggy paper bag and told to act, would be able to find their way back into the light.

To sum up: remember kids, just because you CAN make a movie does not mean you SHOULD.