Hoboken Hollow

Never has a horror film so spectacularly failed to include any of the ingredients needed to make a film scary. the tone is one of mild sarcasm, the actors seem amused to be a part of such a mess and the scriptwriter is assumably a monkey of some sort. There isn't a plot, just a bunch of toothless morons grinning at each other. Yes, there are gory bits, but just showing a severed arm or a bucket of blood isn't enough to terrify anyone these days. Oh, and don't be fooled by the presence of Michael Madsen and Dennis Hopper - they're hardly in it. Guess they just took the money and ran. Dennis Hopper is one of the greatest living actors, and yet he seems happy enough these days to plod along making ten or twenty of these straight-to-DVD obscurities each year.

Tagline should be - "Watching this movie....IS TORTURE"

Supposedly based on real life events on a Southern State ranch, the premise of this move has all the ingredients for a cult classic - murder, torture, cruelty, survival....... However the film seems to have been written and directed by someone who has never seen a movie before. The dialogue, editing and continuity of the film are all laughable. What on earth were Messrs Connery/Madsen/Hopper and Howell all thinking of ? Sure, none of these actors are A-Listers and have appeared in their fair share of turkeys but to stoop this low, I can only imagine the money must have been good or the Producer was one hell of a salesman. The movie even features a voice over sequence for much of Jason Connery's scenes that defies all logic. Dennis Hopper must have contributed about 25 minutes worth of his time for his particular paycheck, and the less said about Michael Madsens performance (or even a reason for his characters presence) the better.

If you see this in your local video store I recommend that unless you are a student of truly poor movie making, you walk on by and select any random film and you will have spent your money more wisely than hiring this garbage.

An absolute turkey.

PS If you enjoyed this movie, you may also enjoy watching paint dry.

I chose this movie on a damp bank holiday weekend when funds were low and there was nothing on TV. The video shop had very few options, and to cut a long story short - I've had a thing for Michael Madson ever since Thelma and Louise, and even Kill Bill 2 (at a push).

Not only was he barely in it, he looked fat!!! "Never mind," I thought, "this is meant to be really scary and should be good," snuggling up to my boyfriend and turning the lights down low.

By the end of the film, my boyfriend was barely speaking to me, half furious, half bemused he stuttered, "I can't believe you brought that DVD in to our house".

This really, really is an awful film, the writing is so bad the "scary" bits are hilarious, so poorly acted that the "moving" bits are, again, hilarious. The characters are far-fetched and the plot is ridiculous.

The Dennis Hopper good cop/bad cop thread is predictable and boring, the bad characters are like pantomime villains (a woman with five warts on her face?!), the good characters are so dull, boring and naive for getting themselves in to the situation they are in leaves you tempted to track them down and torture them yourself... the rape scene was the only part of the film I found difficult to watch - and that is merely because rape in itself is a disgusting act that makes most people uneasy, and not that I was moved by the crude/ludicrous representation of such abuse by lame acting and the vision of ol' five warts lingering in the door way licking her lips... it was borderline insulting.

At the end I didn't care what happened, I just really didn't care. Incidentally, I also chose March of the Penguins on the same trip to the video shop.... How an unsuspecting an unpaid penguin can give off more screen presence and charisma is beyond me.

The comment during the credits that the film was 'inspired by true events' sets the scene for a truly dreadful piece of schlock that is more a pastiche of slashers such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, than it is likely to have anything to do with any real and tragic events.

The voice-over is wooden and unnecessary, highlighting the writer/director's lack of confidence in his ability to carry the story via the characters. Considering the quality of the dialogue, IMHO his lack of confidence is well founded, albeit it's his first outing as a director. Reasonable (and in some cases quality) actors struggle vainly with execrable passages - the tone is set early on in the dialogue between C Thomas Howell and Randy Spelling with their first van-load of transients. As both chew grimly on their lines and giggle inanely they seem more like naughty schoolboys who might slip a frog into Harry Potter's bunk than the seriously deranged, or dehumanised, monsters they attempt to portray.

How Dennis Hopper and Michael Madsen got involved in this piece is beyond understanding...and Hopper in particularly does seem to spend his few scenes looking embarrassed for all concerned.

If Glen Stephens goes on to direct further features, this viewer can only hope that he learnt plenty from his mistakes on this one.

this is not a good film to watch if you have ever seen any other 'theres strange related people living out their on the ranch' films. it offers nothing new and just plods along between shots of various transients getting tortured to 'look here i am eating some strange sort of jerky' shots....oh i wonder what that could be. well at least the pigs always get fed, which is probably why they do some of the best acting in the film and you learn never to eat bacon with a tattoo on it. but apart from that unless you live on a ranch,look like your strange relatives, are short on food and need some good evening 'party game' tips it might be better to give this film a miss.