Mental Scars

David TAGGART RULES!!!! This movie felt a LOT like an 80's slasher film! Richard Myles and Mischa Perez did an excellent job on this film! There are unique and creative kills, and the plot turns keep the audience guessing! Some of the acting could have been a bit better though. Apparently most of the people who worked on this movie had never gone to film school, so considering this fact, they did an EXCELLENT job. Richard Myles also did all the music himself, so this film shows off all his talents. Mischa's directing was more than satisfactory too. With the acting however, he DID let some things slip a bit. Still, all in all, this movie was AMAZING! Even Michael Berryman of the original Hills Have Eyes loves it! So, horror fans DEFINITELY need to see this!

The guys who made this movie did some work with a guy I knew so it was on my radar for some time. I was looking forward to seeing it at the local theater for the premiere until i found out they were charging $20 for a ticket!!! $20 for the "honor" of being first to see a low budget movie? My dopey friend coughed up the bucks, one of the few nitwits willing to do so but had little to say after it was over. Having watched it on video I now see why.

First off, understand that any place you go an read reviews about this movie that rave about it--they were written by the guys who did it. You'll start to notice certain phrases or patterns that keep popping up. Like the emphasis on the music (which is just stuff you could do on a computer, no big deal there) and the fact that it was shot on film, which would mean something if it didn't pretty much look like most of the shot on video movies that are coming out now. Hate to break the news guys, but you would have been way better off investing in one of the high end digital cameras. (The theatrical showing was on a digital projector so I guess they ran out of money to strike prints, pretty much the whole point to shooting on film!) The acting ranges from terrible (no need to pick on any amateur actors) and pretty good (Teresa Alexandria, whose nude scene is the main highlight of the movie--it's completely gratuitous but so what?). The photography is good.

None of that matters much in a story that goes nowhere. Give them credit for trying to be more than just a slasher flick but the "message" and "shock ending" are so dreadfully done that the film collapses by the end. You hope against hope that it's building up to some big...something...but when it comes you realize you just wasted your time.

Regretfully, the movie does not have enough laugh out loud bad scenes to make it MST worthy, though it does have a few--a hysterically low budget car crash that must have been filmed when the money ran out, the weird logic of a white kid growing up to become a Native American played by an African American, scenes that go from day to night, a set that is supposed to be big but is obviously the size of a parking lot, a May/December romance subplot that goes nowhere, strains belief to the breaking point and has one of the worst actors in the movie playing December (was he an investor?)...cut this down to 25 minutes and you have something entertaining.

But what makes this movie more than a footnote is the sheer balls to the wall chutzpah of the guys who made it, flooding every venue they can find with fake testimonials. Not content with just giving it 8 stars more than it deserves (which would give it a 9) they pretend to be casual uninvolved fans who just happened to stumble across this movie and think it's the scariest thing since cancer and that the villain is pretty much Jason, Freddy, Pinhead and Lindsay Lohan all wrapped up. The sad thing is, I think they believe it! (You may also note that some of the comments they get in reply seem to also be from a particular group of people, evidently folks they ticked off along the way. Whether any of them have actually seen the finished product is unclear.) Bottom line--it's a lousy movie and it cost more than a movie this lousy should cost. I'll give them credit for getting it made but given the results will anyone let them do it again?

ADDENDUM: to the reviewer above (who sounds suspiciously like one of the people making the movie! Give these guys credit for persistence!) 1- No, the people who went to the "World premiere" did not get a DVD. They got a film that was shot on 35 mm but projected on the screen with a digital projector. In fairness, he did get to meet one of the nice young ladies in the movie and the opportunity to get the seat of his choice in the near empty theater. 2- I have seen the movie on DVD. Sorry, an east Indian kid (I'll take your word for it since you were clearly there!) who is supposed to be half white half Native American is probably not going to grow up to become an African American! ("Sometimes darken with age" good grief.) Not a big deal but with the day to night transitions and ridiculous "car crash" sequence it just adds to the sense that the makers of the movie did not care. Which is unfortunate, because they clearly did care. (For that matter, at least one of the "Indians" at the end sure looked like your average potbellied white guy!) 3- The sound is No. Big. Deal. Unless you are the guy who did it, or his mom. It was passable, it wasn't so bad it took you out of the movie. 4- I think it would be smarter to promote the movie for what it is--anyone renting it and thinking they are getting an 8-10 scale movie is going to be very ticked off. For a real movie it's a 1-2. If one looks at it as a low budget affair by first timers it probably deserves to be bumped up to a 5-6.

I'm not sure what the budget for this film was, but they would have saved a ton of money if they shot this on video. I don't care what anyone says, a bad script is a bad script whether its on 35mm or HDV. The trick is to own up to it before you blow thousands of dollars on an end result that got 12 one star reviews on this site. That's just sad.

And I'm sure someone from the crew or some fan is gonna argue how film makes everything better. But truth be told, it doesn't. A turd is still a turd no matter how much you polish it. If this were my movie and I was heart set of keeping the script the same, I would have done it on HDV this way my investors would save a bucks.

I wish the producers all the luck in the world on their next venture. Hopefully they learned something about movie making from this experiment.

The 80's slasher film! were milestones in movie making and similarity made to the 80's to do with Mental Scars is simply laughable. There is less wood in my table than in the acting in this film. It's shot by somebody who said mummy can I have a camera for Christmas - Hurray II'm a movie maker.

There is nothing in the film, no script technique, no technical knowledge of shooting. It was made on 35mm so someone had more money than sense. It looks like it was made on the cheapest miniDV camera sold at Walmart.

These guys have only made this one film - hopefully it will stay that way - unless they have more money than sense or they actually learned something from the process.

My suggestion - lie down and avoid!

My son, Alex Nicholson was in this movie. That's him on the gurney (uncredited). He was going to school in Indianapolis when these guys came into his class and talked about making a movie. They were looking for help and Alex volunteered to work with them for several weeks. He learned to set up cameras on a track and helped film the junkyard scenes. I believe he has a third assistant director credit. Mischa and team, who made this movie, treated Alex well. Alex had a very positive experience working on this film.