Terrortory

'TERRORTORY': Three Stars (Out of Five)

An ultra-low-budget anthology horror movie, telling six different supernatural tales. It was written and directed by three indie filmmakers; Dan Doran, Kevin Kangas and Mark Wenger. It stars a cast of completely unknown actors. The film is pretty cheesy, and amateurish, but there are a few quality elements to it; especially considering how low-budget it is.

The movie centers around a couple that's trying to entertain each other, while waiting for the electricity to come back on during a power outage. The guy (Brad Masters) tries to impress his female friend (Laura Kiser), by telling her five very bizarre scary stories. Each supernatural tale revolves around different people being stalked, and killed, in the woods. The segments are titled 'Gotz', 'Siren', 'The Prowler', 'Smiling Jack', 'The Drone Collector' and 'The Midnight Clown'.

At first the film was pretty painful to watch (full of atrocious dialogue, nonsense stories, and bad acting); but as it went on, I started to notice several elements I liked to it. I think to really enjoy the movie, you have to respect low-budget filmmaking; being an ultra-low-budget filmmaker myself, this is something I can do. The movie is pretty bad, in comparison to mainstream horror flicks, but for a next to no-budget film, it's not that horrible (some of it is kind of cool).

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I revisited the original Terrortory tonight. Since my first viewing, I've fallen deeper into the rabbit hole that is microbudget indie filmmaking, specifically of the horror variety.

I "get it" now, and I'm a fan. You can't come into this expecting a polished film with seasoned actors (although a few are quite good). What you can expect is a fun, well-written script, some legitimately weird, scary monsters with their own memorable trademarks (DID YOU BRING ME MEAT?), some nice camerawork, a pretty terrific score, and a palpable love for the genre.

Even if there's a segment in this anthology you're not super impressed by - for me, it's 'The Prowler,' - a new one starts up before you know it.

For me, it's the writing in 'Smiling Jack' and the nightmarish weirdness of 'Gotz' that make this one of my new favorites. Support these for-the-love-of-moviemaking filmmakers! There's a lot here to admire.

Hahahahahaha. I love to see the 10/10 ratings for this movie. Don't they realize how transparent their bias is? IMDb should require reviewers to fill out a conflict of interest form, and if someone signs it and there is later suspicion that there was, in fact, a conflict, then that person should have legal action taken against them, at the most, or banned from IMDb for life, at the least. I'm making a big deal out of this because there is so much crap out there that it is really hard to wade through all the BS to find something that is vetted and worthy of my precious time. Verrrrrry frustrating. This is a 3/10 horror movie, at best. Cheesy special effects, stupid stories, low production value, just....stupid. I actually think the acting is the, ahem, bright spot in this turd. I understand that this is an independent effort but for the love of God, if this is what your final product is, then don't bother making it. If this movie were a person it would have 3 legs, 4 arms, horns, hooves and an IQ of 12.

Just don't bother.

The basic premise of this movie is that a young couple are on vacation in the woods when all the lights go out, so they spend the rest of the night in the dark discussing "the terrortory," the portion of woods they are in that is full of urban legends. This is the frame story for all the other stories told (titled Gotz) and it definitely does not end up where I thought it would, with the final minutes including one of the best sets of lines in the movie.

The stories being told are Siren (a hunter encounters a strange woman), The Prowler (a film set has someone come shake up down time between filming), Smiling Jack (a duo of hikers are chased by a slasher), The Drone Collector (a group of hikers are chased by drones), and The Midnight Clown (a group of filmmakers are terrorized by a clown).

My favorite two stories were Smiling Jack and The Midnight Clown. I felt those were the best two executed shorts that could work as feature length films. Smiling Jack is by far one of my favorite shorts from any anthology, I considered it that amazing! As with any indie movie, some segments did have a few faults. The Prowler had audio that didn't match the other segments and was too low. The Drone Collector also had a scene of really bad audio peaking. And for a microsecond in The Midnight Clown there was a crew member crouching in the background.

Yet that is it. Everything else was great! Even the practical effects, those were incredibly well done. Especially in Smiling Jack towards the end, that had a gory sequence that was well executed.

I highly recommend giving this a watch.

This is what happens here in LA when rich people give their kids a bunch of money to blow on something they know nothing about. These hacks can't even figure out simple dialogue! Example..a bunch of friends out in the woods that were in different groups. Everything is fine, but suddenly a guy gets murdered. Girl hanging out with murdered guy runs back to others (who have no idea what's going on) and says "John just died!!" (I forget his actual name). Their response wasn't, " WTF HAPPENED!!" or "HOW!!! WTF!!!". Their response was, "Are you sure?" WHAT??! SERIOUSLY??!?!?! You're camping and your friend runs back and tells you another friend is dead, and you respond by saying, "are you sure?" without asking wtf happened?? My 12 year old could write better dialogue. That's just a taste of how bad this movie is. I will give it this...if anyone is a fan of Troll 2, you may LOVE this movie. For those who don't know, Troll 2 has a cult following as the worst horror movie ever made. So if you like movies that are hilariously terrible, then definitely watch this. My wife and I were busting up the whole time. If you're just looking for a horror movie, then watch just about anything other than this movie. Home Alone scared me more than this movie. Dead serious. 😂😂