The Traveler

Sometimes movies with potential try hard and fall just short of being good. In some ways "The Traveler" falls into that category. In other ways it falls so short of what should be considered film that it's downright sad.

Let me start by saying that if this is a student film, it should probably get a decent grade. It's story had potential, the effects are fairly good given the budget, and it genuinely made me (a real horror fan) cringe from time to time. The problems? First of all, the production values are are poor. Extremely poor. In fact I think I've made home movies that took longer to produce. Half of the fun of watching horror flicks can be the bad production, but this is just too much. Then you have to deal with the "actors". I use quotations because I'm fairly sure the makers of this film just asked friends and possibly strangers on the street to be in this movie. It's so bad that it makes a somewhat promising story and makes it almost unbearable to watch.

Why the 2 extra stars? As I said, the story isn't bad (think TV show "Survivor" meets your gruesome untimely death by way of creepy British guy)...it's just executed very poorly. Add another star for some practical special effects that were more than I expected (probably where the entire budget went for this film if it had one to begin with). All of this gives you a finished product that, if more time and a little more money had went into it, could easily have been a real contender for a good horror flick. I really wanted to like this piece of indie horror...I just couldn't.

Okay, so this is a low-budget horror flick. I get that. That's no excuse for not having at the start a solid script. I mean, before anything, get the script in the best shape possible. Don't just hope it'll come together on the screen. It won't. The script would've been much better if there was more of a connection between the characters and their fate. The philosophical note at the end rang empty, because, frankly, we just didn't care.

The directing was just as bad. There was a sense that the director rushed it without considering the flow of the scenes. You think that everything was just padding to get to the gore shots.

The acting was on an even keel with the script and directing. Doesn't anybody rehearse any more?

The one star I give it is for the gruesome effects.

So why did I watch the whole thing? I'm one of those people who has to finish what they start watching. (I need to stop doing that...)

Oddboggle

Even with about 25% of the Tomb of Terrors box set to watch I can safely say The Traveler is the best thing in it. I kind of already knew that as it was one of the few films I had watched from it when I first purchased it many years ago along with another good film Soul of the Demon. The Traveler has some of the same deficiencies of other films in that set- an overlong length (almost 105 minutes), dodgy acting and very limited sets and production values. Where The Traveler differs is in having a fairly interesting and unique mysterious plot, an unsettling ambience, a good villain and some stunning low budget gore scenes.

The Traveler is played by a guy with a British accent and is easily the best actor here. The rest of the cast are kind of poor though not awful. A group of people end up trapped in a deteriorated house and he makes them vote on who he will brutally torture to death in front of them. His sinister motives have something to do with one of the women in the house who has a dark past. His true identity isn't too hard to figure out.

The true highlight of The Traveler is the utterly brutal and innovative torture/death scenes. I won't spoil them but it's as if Olaf Ittenbach moved to the US and decided to add a dose of pretentiousness to his gore-fests. The gore here isn't quite as plentiful as Olaf's movies but it has his nasty, brutal, mean-spirited feel like in Black Past or The Burning Moon. It's not the fun, party gore of Premutos. I won't spoil the gore scenes but they are both innovative and unflinching in their brutality. The best is saved for last in a truly harrowing, vile, brutal and reprehensible torture death. I adored it of course. The dude doing the gore effects here went on to a healthy career including some big budget films. The effects aren't top notch and vary in how convincing they are but the sheer brutality and innovation make them stand above countless low budget splatter-fests.

The Traveler isn't perfect- it is overlong with about 10 minutes of a couple driving around at the beginning and another 10 minutes or more of people exploring a decrepit house. Some of the drama feels very forced and the dialogue can be weak at times. Also, the story manages to be both confusing and obvious at the same time. The gore isn't relentless but the torture deaths are placed at a regular interval throughout so you don't go too long without carnage. There's even a nasty, bloody scene of the survivors trying to take out The Traveler with conventional means. Despite some downsides the upsides of The Traveler makes it not only the gem of the Tomb of Terrors box set but a gem of ultra-low budget splatter/horror cinema.

Think you have a strong stomach and have seen so many horror effects that nothing can bother you anymore? Ask yourself that again after you've seen this flick. This is very bloody, disgusting fare but supported by a very interesting script that makes it all plausible and very entertaining if not always palatable.

The story revolves around an arguing couple lost while driving to an aunt's house and drawn inexorably to a strange house in the woods. Several horror pilgrims are camping out in this house because of the strange and bloody things that have happened there. Little do they know what will happen to them soon.

The horror works so well here because it is so unexpected and happens so matter-of-factly. And while gruesome to the extreme (things happened here that I've never seen before and I've seen a lot of horror movies) it is not just violence and gore for it's own sake, it is all part of a bigger story that unwinds to a fascinating conclusion.

I'll admit this movie had my skin crawling and that doesn't happen much from movies anymore. The direction is great, the acting passable, the effects phenomenal, and the writing is very original and entertaining. I highly recommend this movie but be careful what you eat beforehand...

The Devil (with a proper British accent) holds a bunch of people hostage in a infamous abandoned old house.

Among them are a married couple who got stranded there because their car broke down. The other four (or five?) are hikers who were camping out at the old house before said couple showed up. They get cozy and the hikers tell the couple stories of evil doings in the house years ago and how it's a regular pilgrimage for them. Enter the Devil shortly thereafter, Britishing all over the place, telling them they can't leave and that he wants to play a game. They have to choose which of them is to be tortured and killed first.

What can I say? --Low budget, using the tried and true 7 or 8 people you've never heard of out in some remote or secluded area. In this case, a house. Very graphic, gory violence. Acting at, or slightly above porno. What's that you say? --You're innocent? --Never seen a porno movie? --I don't believe you! --But let me put it this way: If you randomly picked out someone off the street, their performance would be as good if not better. But to be fair, and not use a broad brush, I'll except the guy who plays the Devil. He seems to have some experience.

The movie had "some" merit for me (I gave it 3 stars, didn't I?) because I found the situation the people were placed in an intriguing psychological one though this aspect unfortunately was not explored in any real depth and took a back seat to the violence which I thought was exploitive, over-the-top, and unnecessary. The psychological angle, the real dilemma of people leveraged by someone (if not the Devil) to choose another human being for torture and death, intelligently explored, could have yielded a very tense, nail-biting, on-the-edge-of-your-seat film. My loss, I guess. This movie is what it is. It's not pretending to be anything else.

Finally: While it has some merit, as I've explained, I don't believe this is a movie one rushes to see. Rather, you should just let it come to you. For example, you could wait until one day a friend or relative buys the DVD and invite you over. Or, for a day when you're not thinking straight and buy it yourself. Love, Boloxxxi.