Chain Letter

The movie starts out very well and the whole movie has the golden rules for horror, which most of us have gotten tired of since it makes movies too predictable, and this movie is no exception.

The movie builds up very well and with good pacing. You get the chance to get to know a few of the characters on a deeper level, but nothing to stand up for. The gore is very well made and not over done, that's actually the best about this movie, the killings. The ending was very weak, very predictable and didn't leave you in awe as Secret Window or Identity did.

Chain Letters, we have all received them and we all hate them, and most of us delete them before finishing reading them without thinking about it. That's what makes this movie quite alright on the plot part, it's a nice fresh idea to what Wes Craven started back in '96 with "Scream" (the teenage horror flicks) or perhaps he started it with "A Nightmare on Elm Street" back in '84, depends on how you look at it.

I kind of liked the movie, but it's a one time watch. You should watch this when you're in the mood for a simple flick with minimum amount of brain activity usage, because this is not one to watch when you're actually in the mood for a movie evening with your partner or friends.

I rate this ******

CHAIN LETTER is yet another SAW derivative, this time made with a plot that copies that of THE RING. It involves a viral chain letter that's being spread by the Internet and mobile phones; little do those who receive the letter realise that it's been sent by a masked killer who's ready to bump off those who refuse to forward it on.

Yeah, the plot makes little sense when you look at it like that, so what we're left with here is a series of gory set-pieces combined with a police investigation into the murders. In reality CHAIN LETTER is an excuse for some very gory murder scenes inevitably involving chains, although they're handled quite cheesily and are never disturbing.

That's pretty much all the film has going for it, because the characters are extraordinarily dull and the it also manages to waste the talents of not one but two cult actors: Keith David (THE THING) plays a detective, and Brad Dourif (CHILD'S PLAY) is a teacher. Elsewhere we get Betsy Russell to hammer home the SAW connection while Michael Bailey Smith (THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake) is the hulking but brain-dead bad guy. Other than the fun gore there's nothing going for this one whatsoever.

This movie was not at all what I had expected it to be. Was it better? No, quite the opposite actually. This movie was really boring and was suffering from a rather silly storyline.

The concept of this movie was about some chain letter that was sent out to a group of people, and those who deleted the message ended up dead in gruesome ways.

Nothing much interesting happened throughout the movie, aside from the odd brutal killing here and there. But the characters in the movie were fairly one-dimensional and you never really cared for any of them or formed any kind of bond with them, so you ended up just shrugging most of the time and looking forward to the way that the next in line was killed.

If you enjoy brutal horror movies with inventive killings, then you might find some enjoyment in "Chain Letter", but if you enjoy horror movies that are driven by a deep, captivating and interesting story, then this movie is a poor choice to put your money on.

Personally, I was drifting off a couple of times throughout the movie, and my focus started to shift elsewhere. This movie didn't make any lasting impression, and it will never make it to a second time around in the DVD player. It simply just wasn't worth it.

A well intentioned movie. One that never really feels like it starts until your at the end. Or should I say, "the end?". I feel like this is a director to look out for. The deaths were great and the overall look and feel was really good and fresh. Dialogue and acting could really could have used more help in general. I would say that i would recommend it, but only for the deaths. In all it would have been a great movie had there been a completely different editor and a more cognitive storyline. A lot of buzz words and frantic talking do not a plot make. Oh well. Do yourself a favor and go check out the remake of "I Spit On Your Grave"

Chain Letter (2010)

** (out of 4)

Rather routine slasher has a group of friends getting a chain letter e-mail saying that if they don't pass it along they'll die. The group all delete it and soon enough they start getting killed. If you've ever seen a slasher movie in your life then this here really isn't going to offer anything you haven't already seen. The one gimmick is that the killer is stalking the people through their phones and other online devices but this really doesn't add up to much nor does the mystery of who the killer really is. While watching CHAIN LETTER I couldn't help but feel like I was watching a film where the writer and director didn't know too much about the genre and before making the film they watched several recent horror movies and tried to copy them. It's obvious from the violence and gore level that someone had watched the SAW films as several of the deaths are quite lavished and built up to something a normal person couldn't do. The death scenes are at least done in good fashion as they are quite graphic at times and the make-up department doesn't play shy with the red stuff. Those wanting gore are going to get quite a bit of it here but sadly these scenes are spread out through the running time so there are a lot of dry moments with nothing much happening. The mystery of who the killer is really never grabs the viewer so trying to unveil that is never as much fun as it should have been. The performances are actually better than average and we get small roles from Keith David and Brad Dourif and it's always nice to see them. CHAIN LETTER also goes for some "flashy" style that just never works. In the end, there are certainly much better films out there but this one here needed a touch of life and energy to make it more memorable than it actually is.