The American Scream

It's a decent film but it's definitely a weird one. The story is strange and doesn't make much sense. If you like movies that are random and obscure then this is one of them.

This film is so so slow. However, I will say this, the last 10 mins of it ALMOST makes the film redeem itself. I mean how can you beat a kill sequence intermeshed with a crappy version of the bluegrass song "The Orange Blossom Special". Thats right, you cant beat that folks. So for the first 75 mins, I give it a 0/10, for the last 10 mins, I give it a 10/10, with an average score of 5/10.

Yes, this movie is bad. Badly directed, acted and produced, but it is bad like Troll 2 bad. A movie that should be on the top 25 worst movies of all time, but in some odd way is is a great movie.

The movie lacks a plot, except the fact that Wilson Creek is a town that families bring their kids to when they no longer want them. The town folk kill them off, and then the parents leave. The movie really doesn't revolve around this concept except that the town people are trying to kill the 4 main teens.

The movie has some really bad, but funny moments, and some really funny moments. The blood and gore aren't existent, and there's really nobody dying aside from an infant, a teen girl, and some of the elder townspeople. Pons Maar (Ben Benziger) added a lot of comedy with his natural ability to be goofy. His character teamed up with Jennifer Darling (Barbara Benziger) make a great and entertaining duo.

The teens played by Matt Borlenghi (Brent), Kevin Kay (Larry), Bridgett (Riley weston) and Roseanne (Jeanne Sapienza) add their own little bit of interest to the mix. Their acting is bad, but for some odd reason it I excused it. The scenes with these actors were so abnormally bad, and some of the camera shots were completely unnecessary, that it added a loot of nostalgic humor to the movie.

The ending of the movie made no sense at all, well it made sense, but it wan't a plausible ending at all. It's like nothing at all happened. One bright spot, however, was the character played by George "Buck" Flower, who always nails his roles. By far one of the best character actors of all time.

I would recommend this movie for lovers of cheesy 80's horror. Some day hopefully it will be released on DVD with extras. In my opinion, it's a forgotten gem- much like Don't Go In The Woods... Alone, Evil laugh, The Forest, and Woodchipper Massacre, which all recently got a DVD SE release.

It seems several reviews for this movie just call it weird. Well...IT IS WEIRD! If you are a fan of David Lynch and the Twin Peaks series, you will love this movie. No one asks how they are supposed and hilariously I feel our 5 main cast have a different perspective and reaction to each even in the film. Every character feels completely lived in and somehow also completely fake. From the statue dog and street clowns this will be one of the funniest and liminal movies you've ever seen, if you're cool that is. Its sad this movie never became more popular. I think it's a secret Christmas vacation sequel. Horror vacation!

Mitchell Linden, the director is only known for this weird flick. Up to this review it's only available on VHS in the US on the "An Innovid Home Video Release". The cover of the VHS doesn't attract you but still it's classified under horror. The acting was really convincing but what a weird storyline it is. It reminded me a bit of 2000 maniacs but then without the blood. Here we also have a town who can't stand youth and are killing them. But they are doing it in a strange way. This flick never becomes really bloody even as it has a decapitation. There is also a bit of black comedy in it and for this kind of flick there is a good amount of nudity. But as I said, it's so weird, the killing of a baby in a car, man, you just must see it. Or the scene in the toilet. So weird. And when someone is talking about how his family was killed, you see it happen but in slo-mo. Or the strip part...you must see it to believe it. Further on, most of the actors are so far you can think unknown but watch out for the town's reverend, it's played by Antony Kiedis' (yes, singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers)father. But the most famous is Jennifer Darling. She's nowadays performs mostly off screen doing voice-overs. I kept watching mouth wide open from WTF to OMG. Strange flick.