Alive or Dead

It's rare these days I don't come and check IMDb before I go ahead and watch a film, unfortunately there wasn't a review of any description here. I figure that for two reasons, either no one has seen it yet, or those who have couldn't be bothered wasting the time to write one to tell everyone how bad this film is.

These modern day slasher films are in abundance at the moment and seemingly each one worse than the last. This one was particularly bad. There was no story line, I was waiting until the 59th min mark before I began writing this and it still hadn;t made any sense. At that point I realised I wasn't going to get that 59 minutes of my life back so why waste more.

The acting is bad, the plot is bad or non existent, hardly any gore until the end and the continuity was appalling (follow the tyre flat/not flat sequences and you'll see what I mean) This is painful to watch, I recommend renting or streaming something like An American werewolf in London which I watch the other night for the first time in about 10 years, that is still a fantastic film, this belongs in the garbage can with Oscar the grouch.

To set the scene, its a Sunday night Im Feeling a little hungover and there's nothing on TV so I decided to watch this movie. On reflection I feel my time may have been better spent naming each hair on my chest or perhaps attempting to carve a miniature Statue of liberty from a grain of rice.

Its starts good enough for a B movie, the acting a little pants but thats OK,the setting seems the same as 10 other movies you have seen that week but thats OK too.. I mean as long as there's some sort of story to it how bad can it be? Very Bad!!! Thats how bad! After 60 mins of boredom you are rewarded with nothing more than the dumbest "twists" ever and plot holes so big you begin to wonder what the plot was in the first place. Save yourself and hour and a half, let the girlfriend win and pick the movie this time, earn some brownie points...your missing nothing here.

The story we have all seen a million times before if your into horror movies anyway. Girl gets stuck on a lonely road at night and runs into a creepy dude and captured hooded woman. The woman tried to help said captured woman and winds up at some one story castle in the middle of the desert.

I have to say that I really didn't understand what was going on. There is a huge, crazy, infantile-like man who kills people and there is a lizard looking boy who is a cannibal. Than there is a doctor. I don't know what the lizard is boy is doing there. But regardless of the major plot-holes I did enjoy the movie somewhat. Ill have to watch it again. Maybe I'll understand it a little better. Overall, the gore was OK and the production was good. The story, however, needed a little work.

Hmmmm OK lets start off with the GOOD of this movie....The female actresses...NOT their acting Ann Henson annoyed the hell out of me,but they were both very attractive and the phone sex scene was pretty steamy(guys you know what i mean). Now the BAD(Besides the whole movie).OK From beginning i didn't know what the hell was going on the movie was pretty easily identifiable when she of course broke down in the middle of nowhere at night. Blah blah blah ill get to the very descriptive part of this comment.Boring, no gore, didn't show any of the killings which were very very minimal, the story(if any)was very dull,the directors attempt to add a story and twists were very poorly attempted(that is of course if they were even noticeable),characters were just planted in the movie and somehow became part of the story(again if there was one) and then when the lead characters got away somehow this fat beaten and shot hillbilly cannibal gets to the destination at the end before they do in a vehicle. OH I'm not done you crazy little goats a cabin is discovered and a bunch of letters were signed to the crazy hillbilly guy which is where the TWIST "Wink wink" is planted ,then a very similar scenario is also discovered a bit later(there's a pregnant hag tied up to a bed signifying that the crazy cannibal uses her to breed sound familiar????) All in all i think i would have rather of masturbated to fat women porn then watch this.

Maria (the particularly lovely Ann Henson decked out in very flattering tight fitting clothes) is trying to have some fun on the phone while driving down a dark road when she sees a seemingly abandoned bus on the side of the road with 'help me' written on it. She decides to investigate and soon finds a chained up and hooded girl begging for her life. The abductor comes back, so Maria quickly hides. Soon the girl duo find themselves at a secluded castle trying to figure out what's happening while being chased by a deranged hillbilly (and others but I won't give away the, admittedly silly, 'twist').

The movie is entertaining enough if you're an indiscriminate fan of slasher films, but not really all that horrifying in the least and only gets really picks up steam in the last half hour or so. The movie is also extremely generic and this plot has been seen a million times over (and mostly better) All in all a silly forgettable little horror flick worthy of a rental if you have nothing better to do.

My Grade: C-