Famine

Sloppy Secondary, Home of the Nailers. . . Mr. Balszac . . . 'Nuff said. Just know what you're getting into and you MIGHT enjoy this comedy horror.

Needless to say that I was not familiar with the 2011 horror comedy "Famine" prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2025. Given my love of all things horror, of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch the movie.

The staggering 3.3 rating the movie had landed on IMDb sort of set the expectation bar rather low for me. But I still opted to watch the movie and give it a fair chance. Perhaps I was in for a nice surprise.

Now, usually movies that is written, directed and starring the one and same person tend to be questionable movies, and "Famine" was co-written, directed and starring Ryan Nicholson, so it didn't bode well for the movie, if I have to be honest.

However, the movie was os oddly far out there, not to mention goofy and strange, that it was actually a fun and enjoyable movie to sit through.

Of course I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, which is actually something that spoke in favor of the movie, as I enjoy watching new and unfamiliar talents on the screen. So we were to believe that the actors and actresses on the cast list were high-school students? Sure... The acting performances in the movie were fair, but some bordering on being amateurish.

The effects in "Famine" were actually surprisingly good. And that most certainly did elevate the viewing experience quite a bit.

Oddly enough, the version of the movie that I found was released as "Detention Night".

This was a watchable enough movie for what it was, but hardly an outstanding horror comedy. Nor is it a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

My rating of director Ryan Nicholson's 2011 movie "Famine" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Being a fan horror films, anticipated seeing this film very much, but Famine is beyond campy horror, it makes bad campy horror look good. I am a huge fan of Ryan's films Gutterballs and Hanger even Star Vehicle was good for me, but this time Ryan opted to find the worst actors he could find, along with using a story that showed he was obviously drunk when he wrote it. This film was bad bad bad, acting, story, lighting, anything you can think of, all was bad. I'm still trying to figure out why this movie was titled Famine? Whatever the case if you're a fan of Ryan Nicholson's previous films then you'll wanna watch this just for the sake of being a fan.

This is the work of Ryan Nicholson, an accomplished makeup effects artist and the special effects makeup in Family are really quite good. Nicholson's work may remind some viewers of Tom Savini's work in the 1980s. While the cast is inexperienced most of them handled their lines just fine and most of the girls are absolutely gorgeous.

People who sit down to Famine with the expectation of a horror film may be put off because it's more of a comedy with elements of horror. Famine won't give you nightmares - it doesn't assault the senses the way Evil Dead does but it also isn't as successful at melding comedy & horror as Army of Darkness was.

Famine may suffer the most from the writing; the story (not the script) leaves a lot to be desired and the editing took the wind out of the sails for the suspense in one scene after the next so the climax is more like a mercy killing of this interesting feature.

I hope Ryan Nicholson will take a wider view of the talented people in the world and avoid trying to do everything himself next time. With a better story, I think Famine may prove to be a starting point of some great films to come from this talented man.

Famine is one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. Writer-director Ryan Nicholson should be banned from the industry and deported from Canada to an island in the middle of the ocean, with no electricity and no chance of getting behind a camera again for the rest of his natural life. A group of valley girl types and guys as equally vacuous wander the halls of a school and mostly spend their time in a gym talking about a yearly "famine" where no one can eat for 24 hours. The acting is incredibly bad, and the script and non-existent storyline is beyond belief. Someone is bludgeoned to death about every ten minutes by a killer in a life size Howdy Doody outfit, while heavy metal music blares in the background. The only positive note is the fact that this piece of sh** ends in a merciful seventy seven minutes. Oh Canada, how could such a travesty have escaped your border to be inflicted upon the rest of the world.