A Face da Vingança

After watching this movie I ca plainly see that the problem lies with the script and especially the director.

You can't blame the actors, well except for Niko Foster, who needs to stick to producing. The boy can't act and comes off like a dime store Jack Palance with zero skills. When the script and direction has them doing outrageously stupid stuff.

The plot holes were humongous and plentiful. Add the badly choreograched fight scenes, because both female actors have training in that arena. And the end battle was ridiculous.

As this film opens a man is held captive. He is tormented before his throat is cut and his blood drained into a bucket. The action then cuts to protagonist Erin; she has been invited for a weekend away with her boyfriend at his parent's remote house in the Scottish Highlands. On the way she learns that his brother and his girlfriend as well as his sister are to be there. When they arrive we see that his parents were the killers from the opening scene. It soon becomes apparent that the 'girlfriends' are intended to be the next victims. What they didn't reckon on was the fact that Erin was kidnapped before and now fuelled by perpetual rage she is more than a match for them.

This is not a great movie but if you are in the mood for trashy violence then it is rather fun. There aren't too many surprises; the opening scene lets us know the parents are murderous and we are soon informed of the reasons they want to blood. The only real question is how the various bad guys are going to die. The action is nicely varied and fairly bloody but unfortunately the fights don't feel real as we can see that blows come nowhere near hitting their target. The acting is okay; a bit of hamminess adds some unintended humour to proceedings. The setting is good although one would expect some of the characters to sound at least vaguely Scottish. Overall I'd say this is fun enough if you are in the mood for an hour and a half of trashy violence.

Some years ago, I remember watching BECKY. This movie has some of the feels from that other movie. It doesn't speed through at all. A big action film, this is not. It's a slow burn that will deliver on most of its promises, but asks for a little work along the way.

But they do put in a couple of really odd and surly performances to keep you busy with the obvious: are all these people after the same thing?

In my humble opinion, you can't ask much more from a film that encompasses The Hunt with a touch of Becky and Wolf's Creek. It delivers its biggest promises, even though it falls short of making some of the bad guys as "bad" as they can be.

A low budget movie, not a bad sound track, but weak acting and effects lets it down. Also the character in the cowboy hat has an amusing resemblance to Gary Glitter from the 70's british rock scene, it's an unfortunate look for him!

It's one of those movies that intrigues, you have to watch it despite the shortfalls to find out what happens.

Filmed in the Highlands of Scotland, it's a great advertisement for the beautiful landscape up there and, surprisingly, the weather appeared to be kind during the shoot.

The lodge location is available to hire should you want to experience the wilderness of the Highlands.

Overall, if you have nothing else worth watching this is worth a try, just don't expect a blockbuster.

I actually quite liked the premise of this one... a nasty ol' bloody-drinking cult kidnap young men and women and steal their life essence. Only this time the adduct the wrong woman - someone with extreme anger issues and who definitely needs stronger antidepressants.

It's a nice idea and was enjoyable enough as a simple B-movie, but my main complaint was that it could probably have been much better. When the two female protagonists are lured to the mansion, there are some major red flags that all is not good. If you're relaxing in the bath and some old woman sneaks in and pretends to be your boyfriend and starts washing your hair and when you try and say something, starts yanking it painfully. Plus their hosts don't let them change clothes in days (would any woman really put up with not changing clothes for that period of time and just not say anything?!) and when it comes to dinner, their hosts seem only too keen for them to drink dodgy-looking liquid with glee.

The first half was pretty slow, but it gets a lot better in the second half when the bodies start piling up. There's not too much gore, but the practical effects are simple and realistic. However, its major let-down was its dialogue. The two female leads are pretty good, but all the bad guys just come across as cliches and one-dimensional evil dudes with no real depth, other than to be the antagonist. The spout cliched villain lines at every turn and are more of a joke than the serious film probably wants them to be.

There's a bit of over-the-top gore at the end that feels a bit out of place, baring in mind the limits the characters were capable of during the film's runtime and you may have to suspend your disbelief for that one. But, despite its faults, overall the film is a solid little watch if you have nothing better to do and fancy some mindless hunting/action. But, if you have 'Ready or Not' in your collection, probably best to watch that - it's better in every department and a very similar premise.