The Rake

The Rake ranks among the most inept horror movies I've ever seen. There were entire chunks of dialogue (as well as everything that was on the tape in the movie) that are simply inaudible. There are no subtitles. So I'm sure I missed some key plot points about the creature and the scarred guy. Characters are introduced in this movie with ZERO context or background information.

The filmmakers have chosen to leave you with the puzzle of figuring out who is who, who is related to who (seemingly, the brother from the introduction is married to his sister's sister. WTF), and what the hell they're all doing at this house. I saw it as a plot convenience so The Rake could kill everyone in one place, probably the one place their budget would allow.

I believe I saw THREE writers credited for this crap. I was SHOCKED to see someone credited as Music Composer. This soundtrack is straight out of public domain, and old sound effects CD's. I don't think anyone "composed" anything. Oh, they throw in some pretty unpleasant gore, which did not sway my opinion of this film. The only positive thing I can say about this movie is that they kept it mercifully short, clocking in at 78 minutes. Zero stars (imdb makes me give it one).

I feel like there are occasional horror films that might make better prose stories than films. "The Rake" is one of them. Character relationships seem important, and the performances are actually pretty decent, but those relationships aren't well developed or really make much sense in the film itself. The deeper psychological issues the film wants to work with don't quite land because the film can't really get beyond the surface. What occurs is a fair to midland character drama with seemingly random additions (again, a novel would allow background to be explored) and a difficult pace. A fairly lackluster ending doesn't do it any good, either: a last showdown between protagonist and monster just gets shunted, which really seems like the filmmakers ran out of money. It's not bad, just...unfinished.

I enjoyed it. Not Oscar material obviously but from a guys who enjoys B monster/slasher style films I thought this was fun.

Some nice gore effects and interesting creature (nice breasts , shame about the face lol).

Problem is there is no story to back up the CGI/Special effects and the acting is purest of pants - where did the creature come from, why is it there - duh!!! Without any details its just another formulaeic stalk and slash creature feature movie. Oh and the end of the movie is just awwwwwful!!!!!

When are they going to make a decent horror like with a story and some scares and give us a break from this toxic tosh! It can be done you know; Sam Raimi proved it with DRAG ME TO HELL - We need more Sam Raimi's and less Tom Tits!

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

+1 Star for the Opening Hook. I liked it! No where to go but up, right????

-1 Star for over 2/3 of the way through the movie and still really not much of a clue as to what is going on. This could be because I'm dumb or because the movie is just not very well done. Either way that's minus a star.

-1 Star for The Ending. Really the movie ended and I failed to get an overall point.

But the 'story' or lack thereof held me to the end! Lots of gore and creepy moments made it watchable for me! But nothing to give it more than a subpar rating here.