Paintball

I really don't care for modern horror films that much. Many of them just seem so terrible that I usually don't bother with them. "Paintball" is yet another example of unoriginal and cliché horror. "Paintball" is another great example of not just a bad horror movie, but also a bad action movie.

8 people are dropped into the wilderness to compete in a paintball tournament. However, they come to realize that the game is more deadly than they thought as they find out that the enemies are using actual guns instead of paintball guns to hunt and kill them.

Firstly, my biggest problem with this movie is how badly written the characters are. There is literally no depth at all to any of them. I didn't care at all when they died off. In this case, however, I was actually looking forward for the characters to die because the movie was so bad, I was eager for it to end. Character development matters. Take these 3 words and tweet it to everyone who has ever thought of directing a horror movie.

Also, most of the characters are idiots. When one of them was being shot at, he ran right out into the middle of combat making him completely vulnerable just to get himself shot and killed. Also, some of the characters behave in ways no one would behave in in real life. When one of them was in trouble, instead of helping him, his friend just took his bulletproof vest and left him to die when he had more than enough time to save him. At one point in the movie, one of the other characters pushed someone into a trap causing her to die for no apparent reason whatsoever. There is no reason for him to do what he did. The movie tried to have him go insane but that was a very unrealistic and lazy way to kill off one of the characters. Also, one of the characters lost his mind and ran away from the group leaving himself vulnerable and he got himself killed because of his action. That was another unrealistic and lazy way to kill off a character. Also, when one of the characters picked up a machete and turned around, she stabbed one of her friends, killing her. That was yet another lazy and stupid way to kill off a character. Because of this, I was easily able to predict when each character was going to die because of their stupidity and how predictable the movie is. In short, this movie has some of the most idiotic and deficient movie characters ever put to screen.

As for the action, it's just typical gunfights and not much more. There was nothing impressive in any of them and despite a long take near the beginning, nothing else stood out whatsoever. What I really hated about them was the shaky camera. I have no idea why so many people still do this. Moviegoers hate it when movies have this. It distracts us from the movie and it gives me a headache. It is also bad cinematography in my opinion.

Like most low-budget, modern horror movies, the acting is garbage. The reason this is so common is because many good actors know better than to star in modern horror movies because they know that they will ruin their careers by doing so. Many horror movie directors are well aware of this so they hire those actors who are very untalented and take any role to get a paycheck. They hope that they will be successful enough to hire great actors. However, the movies they make are so bad that they usually sell poorly so their careers usually don't last very long. None of the actors in this movie are impressive at all and I felt that none of them gave a good performance.

Also, the ending left me more than underwhelmed. I was hoping for an explanation for what went on in the movie and I didn't get much of one. It barely contained any exposition and I was more confused in the end then I was in the beginning. Its ending is much too thin. The movie doesn't provide enough clues in order for me to be able to speculate a theory about what I think the origin of the area they were in is.

The only reason this doesn't get a 1/10 is that the premise is actually pretty good and creative for once. The movie shows some promise in the opening 10 minutes and it actually has an original concept. Also, it actually has a pretty decent long take. Unfortunately, the movie ruins any minimal hopes I had for it after 15 minutes.

In conclusion, if you don't mind the style over substance, idiotic characters, and unoriginal and poorly-executed action sequences and if you just like watching senseless gun-battles then this movie is for you. However, if you don't like that then you're likely going to find this to be yet another worthless horror movie which is completely inferior to dozens of other classic action, war, and horror movies out there which are actually well made. My tip is to avoid this at all costs.

I'm reviewing this as a curiosity, possibly the worst I've ever seen. It's not one of those so bad it's good, more so bad that, yawn, who could ever care? So what are the problems? No story – but that's not unusual in a film like this. No characters – can also happen in this kind of softish horror, but there's usually someone, even if badly acted and paper-thin, to latch onto. Not here. Makes no sense – frequently a problem in horror of all kinds and here it's made worse by the fact that there's absolutely nothing to hook you in and pull you along. Unexplained stuff happens all the time - example: why not take the car with keys in it and how did we get from there to railroad tracks? Maybe if I'd cared even a little bit, I'd have paid more attention and just maybe made a bit more sense of it.

So what does happen? People run around a lot, rarely for any sensible reason. They shout a lot, usually all at the same time so you can't tell what any of them are shouting. The women (and only them) scream, gasp and sob a lot – not that unreasonable when nasty stuff starts up, but I suspect plenty of men would do the same in the unlikely event that real life could ever be remotely like this.

This movie is a perfect 1. There's nothing here worth seeing, the kind of thing I never get to see because I walk out/ switch channels/ throw the DVD in the garbage if even the opening 5-10 minutes are this bad. This time I made myself watch, waiting for something interesting to happen. It never did and I wasted 90 minutes of my life. Don't make the same mistake.

I'm still waiting for the day that I'll break my duck and participate in a paintball game, especially if going back for in-camp training every year isn't enough that I'll want to wield a rifle with paint ammunition, and go around fragging peers or strangers in the opposite team. Best played with a big group of friends (or against people you dislike), this sport is picking up momentum, and specialized shops selling paintball gear have been sprouting up, giving indication of its popularity.

If only the cost of the game would go down, or if the terrain could be a little more challenging, like this one in the film Paintball, set in a fictional Redball Woods, touted as Europe's largest renegade paintball field, which would give infantry junkies a run for their money in terrain topology, with plenty of space for section movement and the application of section movement in order to organize and take out the enemy. But that's a dream playground, and as its advertisement touts, you have the power to choose whether to live or die.

The horror here, besides the fact that it's a film that failed to exploit its potential and chances, is of course for someone to have a weird sense of humour, and decided to substitute their paint ammunition, for real rounds meant to kill. Imagine the odds when all you have is a weapon firing paint, and the other party having a weapon meant to kill. Then there's this mysterious, savage player who doesn't seem to play for either side, from whom we adopt the POV from, and behind his thermal mask we see the bloody atrocities that he gets himself into when dispatching innocent players.

The story is pretty much standard, introducing us to the group of strangers who have signed up to participate in the game, and have to work together with great difficulty when they know that they're in for deep, deep trouble. It's like an amalgamation of Battle Royale and Hostel, where rich dudes sign up for something, only to find the tables turned and it's a fight for survival, with every man for himself. Their mission is to go from checkpoint to checkpoint and pick up stuff that they could use, such as bullet proof vests and a real machete, together with constant bickering as to who gets to use what.

You can't help but to apply horror film sensibilities in wondering which caricature gets to be killed how, and in what order. In fact, with their lack of unison, this is something of a given, and with characters who don't appeal, you'll just switch off automatically. The other drawback is of course the story by Mario Schoendorff being really lacklustre, with director Daniel Benmayor not being able to bring out any sense of tension or thrills, having everything played out in a rather flat manner, despite the slight revelation toward the end which was a little to late to make any impact, coming across more like a sick joke played by Redball Woods.

The only redeeming grace that stood out from the bad acting, caricatures and weak story, is the occasional flashes of brilliance in its initial long tracking shot of pandemonium. And that had given the film a lot of promise, only to be let down right after. I was impressed by how much was going on with people running, firing, taking cover, paint ammunition flying, with the entire mayhem played out for a constantly moving camera without breaking into a cut. I had expected more, but as the body count rose, the brilliance unfortunately diminished. The money shot was at the front, and was just about the best thing in the entire film.

And the final nail that sealed the coffin shut, was the inexplicable final scene. I have no idea what gives, and it could have ended one scene before, though conventional but at least it provides the film a proper closure rather than the hokey open ended finish that just made it look plain silly. I suppose with more experience under their belts, the filmmakers would know how to bring out the best of a story, and know when to pull the plug when things go awry, rather than to prolong the misery. Strictly for paintball fans, but even then you'd rather prefer to be playing the game, than to watch a horrible horror film about it.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

The premise behind this abysmal action thriller has a group of people going for a good old bit of paint ball, only to find themselves really fighting to stay alive as a barrage of real bullets are fired at them. But the characters are never developed or explored in any way, so it's impossible to care about any of them. Needless to say, there is no air of tension or suspense whatsoever, and the acting is so bad none of them have any life anyway, as though just running around shouting and screaming incoherently at each other gives them any life. Not that there was anything special to see there anyway, just the usual generic stereotypes typical for this genre. And here we have yet another film that hasn't learned the modern trend of shaking the camera around and darkening the lens is an off putting and annoying one rather than an endearing one. One to flee all round. *

First off, Paintball bets the farm that the viewer has never seen a movie before. If this is your first movie, then you're in luck, as it only gets better from here. Paintball's storyline is a combination of recycled, yet shockingly under-developed, themes and settings that attempts to create an air of mystery and horror by keeping the viewer in the dark. This is respectable approach, however, nothing ever makes sense in the movie… and not in the cool Donnie Darko way. It's like a bunch of 8th graders wrote a story in a half hour and never even bothered even coming for a reason why any character in the movie acts the way they do or any situation in the movie would be plausible. You can tell a movie stinks if the only way to move the story forward is for the characters to do the opposite of what any rationale or irrational human would do. Example 1A: People are dying and everyone still walks around inexplicably yelling with their paint guns cocked and loaded. I would think that even the dimmest bulb would realize that staying quite would be to their benefit.

Second, the movie is made horribly as well. You can tell that no shots were thought out ahead of time. The camera will follow someone, they'll drop a helmet, the camera will linger on the helmet, and the helmet will never be heard from again. I can see who a little misdirection can help a movie, but after repeatedly seeing useless visuals, you start to get the feeling that they were just letting the camera roll with hopes of making it work in the editing room. Also, the special effects are terrible. Every effect looks like it had a maximum budget of $5. I can watch a horrible movie and laugh along with the best of them (see American Ninja 3). However, they took so many short cuts in this movie, that there is nothing remotely redeemable about it. You can surely finding something to disappoint you that isn't 85 minutes long.

This gets two stars only because I've seen Gourmet Zombie Chef from Hell.