Scare Campaign

"Scare Campaign" is a new Slasher flick from Directors (& brothers) Colin and Cameron Cairnes. Their first film "100 Bloody Acres" was a great horror/comedy that got slightly over shadowed by "Tucker & Dale Vs Evil" due to having a similar tone/storyline. I really enjoyed their first film a lot so I was excited to see what else they had to offer, and "Scare Campaign" definitely did not disappoint.

So the storyline follows the cast and crew of a TV show called Scare Campaign (a prank show that aims to scare the hell out of it's stooge), very similar to the real life TV show Scare Tactics, they are in their fifth season and the show has gotten a bit stale so they are asked to step up their game. So the creator of the show hatches a plan to boost ratings and things don't exactly go as planned. I liked the storyline, it's kind of simple and I saw most of the twists coming from a mile away, but it's a solid backdrop for a slasher movie and kept me interested as I sat their waiting for the killing to start.

Once things get going (and they do fairly quickly) the whole thing turns into a very entertaining blood bath, just about all the kills were done really well and the gore level was pretty high. For a lower budget flick the cast, effects, etc were all very impressive. Really from start to finish "Scare Campaign" had me entertained and interested to see what would happen next. The ending could have been better though, was kind of hoping they would go another way with it but it didn't really take too much away from the film.

If you are a fan of gory slasher movies that don't take themselves too seriously then you will most likely enjoy this film, one of the better slasher flicks to come in recently.

7.5/10

Sometimes when a film goes a little overboard on trying to be hard to figure out it loses direction so much it messes up the whole thing. That's sort of what I see happening here. A prank on a prank show and a little dose of real kinda made this one come out just about even on the score card.

To the person(s) who almost immediately rates my user-comments as "non-useful" as soon as they are published: why? Are you so sad and miserable that only diminishing the work of others brings you joy? Try contributing something yourself, first.

In my home country, somewhere in the late 90s, there was a big scandal as a result of a misplaced joke on a hidden camera TV-program. People who worked in the morgue of a hospital got the fright of their lives when so-called corpses under a sheet came back to life and sat upright. Some of the pranked victims filed a complaint, which meant the inglorious end of the TV program, and the career of the creator/presenter. Why this anecdote? Because the basic premise of "Scare Campaign" reminded me very much of the incident, only this (fortunately 100% fictional) script goes much further.

The title refers to an Australian TV program in which unsuspecting people in sinister locations are confronted with terrifying scenes, but they don't know that it is all fake and staged. As TV figurehead Marcus goes further and further, one of the employees, Emma, is worried - and rightly so - that one of the next pranks will end in tragedy. Of course she is right.

Until a few months ago, I had never heard of "Scare Campaign", even though the film is almost ten years old. After enjoying the genius "Late Night with the Devil" - which is truly a must-see and an unnegotiable instant cult classic - I promptly accelerated my purchase of the other two movies written & directed by the Cairnes brothers, and "Scare Campaign" was one of them. The other one, "100 Bloody Acres", admittedly was somewhat of a disappointment. "Scare Campaign" is certainly not a masterpiece of the caliber of "Late Night with the Devil", neither, but at least it is a very entertaining slasher with suspense, absurd plot twists and - most of all - awesomely extreme blood and gore effects!

The script comes up with several twists. The first few twists work very effectively well (but it is advisable that you know as little as possible about the plot in advance), but the twists that come later in the story are unfortunately less successful. The Cairnes' brothers also work themselves into a bit of trouble with a few plot twists too many, which in turn leads towards a too open and disappointing ending. But, again, the gore and the poisonous black comedy make "Scare Campaign" a must-see for slasher fanatics.

Who doesn't love a good prank gone wrong video? Where a pranker is acting like a douchebag and finally gets what's coming for them?

And here we have in a sense the movie version of just that (except more extreme of course as it is a horror) so this should technically be right up my alley.

But it just didn't quite hit the right mark.

First of all it's a little bit too silly at times, especially in the first half, where as I think it would have worked much better if they took a more serious approach.

Don't get me wrong I don't mind a good horror-comedy, but if the comedy is not funny (as in the case of this) then I prefer it to do more of the former than of the lesser.

Especially since the actual scenes of horror were fairly well- orchestrated and it had some cool twists.

The acting could have been a bit better as well, but partly of that could be because of the direction.

Had a look at the directors' resumes and it turns out that they directed '100 Bloody Acres (2012)' which I actually thought was stellar, and that was a horror-comedy as well... So it is a genre that they can do well in, in this it didn't quite come together though for some reason.

I did enjoy the previous movie from the brothers. While it never achieved what Tucker & Dale did (no pun intended), it was a fun little movie. Though it would depend on your definition of fun I reckon. Something that can be also said about this movie right here. It is also very bloody and does not pull any punches.

But it is unfortunately very predictable. I can't imagine anyone being really surprised by the twists thrown here. Red herrings and all included, you'll see them coming. It's still set up nice and it's enjoyable enough, if you don't have problems with the amount of gore this includes and the obvious scare tactics it uses ...