Cornered!

Five people play poker after hours in the upstairs of a liquor store, only to be picked off one by one by a serial killer. Much of the first half is centred around this game, frankly very boring. The acting isn't great, especially Duval as the heroin addict going cold turkey. The temptation to hit the FFWD button was great. Once the killing starts there is an attempt, with some success, to substitute gore for tension. Many slasher fans will feel short changed however, with only one killing near the end producing the gory goods. I guess making a film in pretty much a single location takes skill, so credit to them for trying. Could've been better, I'd pretty much lost interest after the first half.

In Los Angeles, a serial-killer with unknown identity is slaughtering clients in convenience stores. The steals the surveillance tapes and the police department has offered a US$ 500,000.00 reward for him.

In a trashy convenience store, the owner Steve (Eduardo Antonio Garcia), his clients Mona (Ellia English) that works with phone sex and the whore Jess (Elizabeth Nicole), his employee Donny Donut (Peter Story) and his junky nephew Jimmy (James Duval) discuss with the carrier Morty (Steve Guttenberg) what they would do with the serial-killer if they capture him.

Morty goes away and Steve invites the group to play a poker game, with Jimmy is affected by the forced abstinence. Out of the blue, they are attacked by a masked killer during a night of terror.

"Cornered!" is an unpleasant and stupid low-budget film with fake reviews promoting it. The uninteresting and dull story has lowlife characters and never holds the attention of the viewer. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Brutal! A Face do Demônio" ("Brutal! – The Face of the Demon")

Yeah, it's somewhat slow. And yes, the characters are exceedingly dumb. I mean they figured out how the killer is killing them but not who - which could be gleaned from the exact same information. And even before that, there is a massive clue who the killer is because information that only they would know is tipped to the entire group and audience.

Things the film has going for it. The killer's mask. Yep, I am a fan of that. While it is impractical, it is still a pleasing aesthetic. And some of the character studies are fun. Mona's business phone calls. The addiction subplot. The kills. The theatrical roaches. The VCR aspect. The ending.

Stuff that was meh. The owner is insufferable and his financial woes are lame. The fact that Donnie was not a long-lost Kevin James/Gary Valentine (Knipfing) brother but just some guy named Peter Story - which totally sounds made up.

Anyway, this movie is watchable. Because I apparently had already seen it, rated it, never left a review and then rewatched it, thinking this seems familiar.

Being a hardened, jaded horror buff this reviewer was tired of seeing a bunch of clichéd, attractive teens with the personality of a thrift store being killed over and over by the same kind of stalker. Along came Cornered! and I must say that I'm glad that I didn't listen to all the negative feedback on this site.

A group of real people are trapped in a liquor store after a killer breaks in and begins stalking them. This killer has an odd penchant for murdering convenience store clerks and the like before stealing the security footage and watching his own handy work.

The pace is what scared a lot of people off and it does tend to be a little slower than one would hope for. But it's just a minor complaint as the rest of the cast performs quite well, the villain is interesting, and it held my attention for eighty-two minutes. And wasn't it nice to see Steve Guttenberg again?

(2008) Cornered!

HORROR

Co-produced, co- written and directed by Daniel Maze directing a rather low budget, straight to rental crap, about a convenience store owner, getting together with friends and co-workers to play a game of poker located on the room above the store itself, unaware that theirs a serial killer in the midst. If people were to watch enough slasher films, the twist toward the end becomes to be not that much of a twist. As a matter of fact it's totally stupid. And the actor Steve Guttenberg of several movies including "Police Academy" and "Short Circuit" also stars as the beer delivery guy. Bomb.