Esconderijo Maldito

I've seen a bunch of mix reviews on here but I rented it anyway and thankfully it was entertaining. Yes, the film isn't perfect but it's still a watch from me. Good acting by Katie Lyons in particular as she really made this film come alive. The special effects and plot twists were excellent and the ending had me by surprise. It's really a crime thriller movie but then it turns into a supernatural horror type of flick. We loved it.

It held me to the end and that's more than I can say for a lot of horror pics these days. Sure, the plot is familiar, I've watched a couple over the years with almost exactly the same setup, but the actors give it their all, the direction is crisp and efficient and on the whole it's an enjoyable watch. In short, to paraphrase Pope, 'May this put money in your purse For I assure you I've seen worse'.

Story was weird enough to keep my interest but the actor who played Kyle was just terrible!!! I mean a little bit of tweaking and this movie is probably a solid 7. Not a total waste of time if there's literally nothing else to watch.

When I sat down to watch the 2021 horror mystery "Hideout", it was without knowing a single thing about this movie from writer and director Kris Roselli, aside from it being a horror movie. I have to say that I was initially drawn to the movie given its cover. And, of course, it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen also helped to win me over.

Let me just say right away that "Hideout" is a slow paced horror movie without much of anything overly thrilling or exciting really happening. Sure, there were moments where the excitement was amped up, but it was just simply not enough to make up for the painfully slow narrative and lack of interesting contents to the storyline. So writer Kris Roselli wasn't really delivering a wholesome horror movie here.

The acting performances in the movie were adequate. They weren't exactly overly convincing some of the times, if not actually bordering on being dubious. And that sort of rendered the movie with a low budget and amateurish feel to it, for better or worse. I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, and that is something I enjoy in movies. So at least that was working in favor of "Hideout".

Visually then "Hideout" was fair enough. There wasn't an abundance of special effects. But whatever effects were there came off as being passable and actually adequate enough to serve their purpose. Watchable, yes, but not innovative or bedazzling.

For a horror movie then "Hideout" was a walk in the park. There was nothing scary about this movie actually, unless you consider the insanely slow pacing of the story to be scary.

My rating of "Hideout" lands on a generous four out of ten stars. While "Hideout" was watchable, it is not a movie that I would recommend horror fans to rush out and watch. Nor is it a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time.

I write this being purely objective. Also, rating it for what it is, and Indie film on a budget.

The filmography and perspective created by the director were spot on. It was very easy to see his intent for the film. The acting wasn't the best, but also not terrible. The length of the film could have been a bit shorter. I believe getting the story into a tidy 90-100 minutes would have been achievable without compromising the integrity of the film.

As an entry level film, it was good and the actors/actress's as well as the director will only improve from here! Hope to see more from Kris in the future.