Frayed

This is the first time that I have seen fit to leave a comment.

I was completely unaware of this movie's existence, and usually I'm pretty good at knowing what is coming out. Out of boredom, I watched it On Demand and was stunned. It's definitely not your average slasher film - instead, it is a psychological thriller that leaves you picking your brain for hours.

I truly recommend this for anyone looking for something raising the slasher-fic bar. I was only looking for the general entertainment and was more than pleasantly surprised.

Please, take my word for it. You'll be intrigued...

I saw this at the Screamfest in Hollywood on October 18 2007. Finding out after viewing this movie that it was made on a shoestring budget with newcomer actors in Seattle, Washington, I have to give makers of this film some props. The setups are top notch, the lighting and visuals are on par with much of what Hollywood even puts out for horror. Some of the actors in the film showed quality also. There is a pitch perfect scene involving a character in the back of a pick-up truck. Everyone involved seemed to be into making a good movie.

All that being said, there were a lot of problems with the film. The makers said that the film didn't have a distributor yet, and I think when they do get one (and I'm sure that will be real soon) the distributor will have them trim some of the fat. and there is a good bit of fat to be trimmed. There was some unnecessary scenes of people talking to each other on cell phones, relating things we already knew.

They say they pay homage to 'Halloween'(the original); that's great and all, but there is a difference between homage and heavily borrowing...They didn't list 'Haute Tension', 'Identity', 'Silence of the Lambs' either and there was definitely some lending from those films as well.

If there was a grade for suspense alone this film would get a 9 in my book. If you come looking for a bloody/gory movie, this is not your flick. If you loved the first Halloween you will very likely dig this movie.

When I think of all the crap horror films that go straight to DVD, if I stumbled upon this flick I think I would be pleasantly surprised.

I wondered just how much gore and blood this film would contain after I watched the opening where a woman gets beaten in the face with a baseball bat. Over and over and over, the hitting continued past what I would consider dead.

Is this film going to be "over the top"? No problem there. It was more suspense than actual blood and gore. It was a chase to catch an escaped mental patient before he could kill the Sheriff's daughter.

For a low budget film made with inexperienced actors, it was really good. Kept you guessing to the very end, and beyond. What really did happen?

I just saw this movie last night and I must say I was highly impressed for a low budget horror film. I agree with the other comments that there is some unnecessary scenes or "fat" that should have been trimmed from this movie. For example some of the scenes involving the teenage characters are not only unnecessary but also involve sub b-level acting which is at times irritating. Other than this movie was kept me on the edge of my seat, but as the summary says it borrows heavily from both halloween and high tension...overall this is a solid film that competes with most of the horror movies Hollywood has to offer and most fans of the genre will be pleasantly surprised.

A town sheriff's mentally ill sun murders his mother and he is sent away to an insane asylum, years later he escapes and starts to wreak havoc in the community.

Of course the storyline is a lot more fleshed out than what I've summed up, like there is actually a reason why the child is mentally sick but I'm not going to spoil it, because this film is actually worth seeing for any horror fan, its probably one of the more unconventional horror films I've seen because with other slasher horror films I can actually predict who will die and who will live, with FRAYED I was way off the entire time and that was probably the first time that's happened to me in years and the array of plot twist at the end drove me nuts because that's when the film really took hold.

The suspense is kept surprisingly high thanks to the relatively casual pace of the film which helps to keep the viewer hooked and allow for some well done character development.

Note, I did say it was close to becoming a classic but there is only one flaw that keeps it from actually being a classic, its not 100% original despite having a great plot, if you look carefully you'll notice it seems to borrow from older films Like HALLOWEEN (1978) but en light of that I'd put it along with LAID TO REST as one of the more competently made slashers in a while.