Community

The setting was great, the story was delightfully strange, and the acting was actually pretty good for low budget. Not a lot of jump-scares, but more of a twisting, winding tale of brutal insanity. This movie is very reminiscent of early Troma films, before they went for the buckets of gore and back when they relied more on the shock value of the story itself. The characters in this film were very 'Rob Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses' oriented in that they were believably trashy and appeared honestly completely insane. I was hesitant going in due to the 3.9 user rating, but was delightfully entertained and pleased. I'm giving it a 6 for it's harsh and unashamed originality and execution.

For a low budget British horror film, COMMUNITY has potential, it's true. It's a grittily realistic little movie in which the budget fits the storyline, chronicling the adventures of a couple of student film-makers who decide to do a segment on a local run-down council estate. Unfortunately for them, their college project soon brings them into contact with some very unsavoury individuals indeed.

COMMUNITY boasts an absolutely wonderful location in its depiction of British at its worst: grubby, run-down streets, overrun by feral youths and occupied by adults who have more in common with some of our simian cousins than the human race. There are some truly icky ideas behind this, and some bizarre characterisations (like the transvestite) which stick in your mind.

A shame that it all falls apart in the second half. The first half boasts an effective atmospheric set-up, with lots of foreboding, but the second half reverts to type: a couple of people trying to escape their captors, and nothing else besides. It's typical 'torture porn' territory, with slim characterisation, although not as gory as it could have been, which is at least something. The acting is only acceptable and the silly twist ending drags things down still further.

Two student film makers decide to make a documentary about the Draymen estate which is a crime ridden , violent place blighted by drugs . They are intrigued when they hear about a super strong strain of marijuana and decide to track the production factory

A rather strange type of British horror movie that is part horror , part social commentary and part thriller . Unfortunately while the horror and thriller elements are well done to a degree any pretensions and attempt at social commentary soon becomes lost as the story turns in to a British urban take on " The backwoods brutality " sub genre of horror featuring protagonists finding themselves all alone in a desolate landscape full of mortal dangers . Writer/director deserves some credit in taking a tired formula and trying to do something new with it but everything collapses very quickly when examined in any detail . It's easy setting a story like this in some remote American woodland where psychotic rednecks can abduct and murder people travelling through the location but not here . Britain is a very bureaucratic country where everyone will be on a database and the number of residents and visitors to Draymen going missing would never go unnoticed . Police would investigate , social services would investigate and perhaps more importantly Daily Mail journalists would be splashing the Draymen estate all over their front page . In other words it would be a cause celebre

You have to also stop to ask how far reaching this conspiracy is ? For example a character runs away and jumps on a bus . The driver who is no doubt in league with the cannibalistic marijuana growers lets the characters pursuers on to the bus where they hack their victim to death which is very messy . Ask yourself this though - how do the cannibals clean up the mess within a credible time frame ? The bus would have to be driven somewhere , floors mopped , windows cleaned and probably seats upholstered and yet would no passengers complain that their bus didn't turn up ? Maybe the entire bus station are in on the conspiracy but this seems unlikely . You also have to turn off your brain big time in not realising that this super strength skunk is nonsense . You fertilize it with human flesh and this some how makes it the most addictive substance ever ? I don't think so .

All this is a great shame because COMMUNITY is a low budget Brit horror flick that dares to do something a little bit different and while it does bring up a few tense and suspenseful scenes you're constantly noticing the plot holes these scenes throw up . It's a good example of no matter how well a horror film works on the surface suspension of disbelief is always needed which is why the horror genre isn't well regarded amongst critics

I wasn't expecting much from Community given its 3.9 rating here on IMDb, however I quite enjoyed this creepy little Urban Horror. Now I watch a slew of movies, horror movies in particular and there are simply mostly average and below average made movies. Community however, despite it's low budget, was I though above average. Taken in the light of an Urban Horror short story I thought the acting was decent and the use of sound particularly good; this isn't a particularly gory film a lot happens off camera. Taken points few horrors are not formulaic - the likes of Martyrs being an example of a great horror few have seen which breaks that mold. However Community was not a dumb movie like a lot of US horrors. There wasn't academy inspiring material as to why things happened as they didn't however it wasn't just plain dumb, could have been smarter in some points but was smart enough at times too. The premise resonates some points which added to creeping me out, as I grew up in a place where there were estates the police did not enter and some terrible things happened within them, and there's certainly use of symbolism within this movie. And Auntie..creepy or what. Finally I am always one for joking about female leads in horrors generally making bad decisions that causes disasters and I thought this was another one of those, however I was able to suspend disbelief because this wasn't the case entirely here.

This movie has everything necessary to achieve a nice little tale of horror. A fairly original plot line, reasonable acting by everyone, a good setting, nice editing, directing and sound effects. What more could you need right?

Unfortunately, it makes the mistake of being utterly predictable almost all the way through. It's really sad when a movie tries very hard, only to fall into the too often used clichés that are the salt and spice of horror films.

I won't bother listing these clichés. If you watch the film you'll see them easily enough, and you'll probably agree with me that they sort of pull the originality out of the film. Even that would be forgivable, but the clichés themselves seem to actually DIRECT the flow of the film, leading it to a predictable finish.

It's almost as if I could ask myself leading questions every few minutes:

"They're doing _____, so that means that later _____ will happen." "The main character won't stop doing _____, so later on _____ will happen." "The whole plot is based on _____, therefore _____ type of ending will occur."

etc. Sadly, I was right at least 90% of the time.

It's not a waste of time to watch though, all in all it's a reasonable little thriller. Watch it with a friend or two.