The Rain

So said this character in this cheese-ball from hell.

'Yes, my dear,' MUCH worse - if you sit and waste ANY time watching this poorly acted. Ridiculously plotted nightmare.

There's no words to describe how dreadful this is.

In a nutshell: Town has poor (pun?) rain.

So, they sacrifice kids. Evil spirit, then more rain probs, then the current residents of this rain-challenged place has the rain - and evil - probs themselves.

One simple idea that's NEVER thought of: MOVE!!!

This is one move where the sound-cues - so important, but, so rarely noticed in most films - are on prominent display - and I'm not saying that in a kind way.

The only way you 'sense' bad things, are from the 'ominous' music: creepy tinkling on a piano, or 'jug-bottle whistling sounds - all the cliché's are on PROMINENT display in this muck.

Not ONE of the people in this (other than Keith Carradine) , has any sort of a career - before they made this, and, I'd seriously doubt, if they ever would.

It's like the director went and got...friends-of-friends-of-friends together, and said; 'hey! You ever thought about being in a movie?'

A typical scene of 'ominous approaching bad;' the girl, who only moments earlier was sweet, fun, wearing white, shows up all in black - eye makeup, et al. Then, her mobile rings. Tight close-up of mobile, while 'ominous chord' plays.

I'm only guessing here, but, I think I found the TRUE reason Mr. Carradine passed away - this was coming out.

Dear Lord!! HOW have people reviewed and rated this so well?! Seriously, unless you want to slip into a mindcoma, do not touch this with a barge pole...

It's another low budget horror that could have done so well. A good idea in principle (a bawdy, ragged-toothed Native American curses some farmy people about something to do with rain) but fails on all levels. It's one of those horrors where the cast plod around a small set over and over again while nothing makes much sense. The acting is DIRE, in fact the plucky young lad from the bygone era was the only promising talent and he's in it all for 5 minutes. The rest of the cast look like they're practising their lines off camera in low effort mode and absolutely no- one adds anything to the silly storyline.

I cannot actually remember more of this because as well as losing the will to live soon in, my vital functions slowed down to a crawl making memory impossible. All I can recall is that there was a lot of wood panelling, a hat that kept reappearing and some black lines on everyone's skin. Oh and a bit of rain. Those were the highlights.

AVOID.

This movie had a well written script and outstanding special effects plus the cinematography was excellent. It also had several well known actors and they did an outstanding job along with the rest of the cast. Also on the DVD I watched there was an outstanding commentary track by the director along with animated storyboards,a deleted scene and behind the scenes footage which all worth watching.

The plot: A cursed town holds a lottery to sacrifice three children from every generation to ensure rain.

I was kind of excited to see a movie starring some B movie legends (Richard Lynch, David Carradine, and Dee Wallace Stone), but none of them really has all that much screen time. In fact, the movie splits its time almost randomly between half a dozen characters, each of whom wander in and out of the main plot while telling their own story. A talented writer/director could have pulled this off, but it just ends up being annoying and confusing here.

The story is a bizarre mix of Dark Romanticism tropes that never really settles down into a coherent story. There's a cursed bloodline, a small town with a hideous secret, Faustian bargains with malevolent spirits, some kind of demon guy who comes out of nowhere, exploited Native Americans, Machiavellian adults, and innocent children. Throw all these things together, with a few modern horror clichés (such as a deus ex machina in the form of a friendly dog), and you get... well... to be honest, I'm not sure what you get. The movie was so erratic, random, and disorganized that I was constantly wondering exactly what I was supposed to be taking from each scene.

If the writer/director had just settled on telling one story without spreading the exposition through three vignettes that barely even interconnect, I think he could have had something that would be remembered fondly by B movie fans. Instead, he tries to pull off something like Pulp Fiction and fails miserably.

There are some scenes that worked well, but, overall, the movie was clumsy and amateurish. As far as Shirley Jackson ripoffs go, this wasn't the worst that I've seen. It was able to channel much of her pessimism about human nature while preserving her faith in children. It also hit all the right notes that a story inspired by The Lottery should hit, though it hit them in a haphazard, lazy way, burying them under a mountain of subplots and extraneous characters.

If you're into independent horror, then you're probably pretty forgiving of even the most egregious flaws. For you, this will probably seem like an enjoyable waste of time. If you're more into mainstream, big budget horror movies, I have to warn you away from this low budget mess.

It's a beautifully shot and composed indie horror film which strays from the standard, boring slasher and/or torture porn elements so prevalent in the genre and actually delivers a story! With characters and plot! It is at the end of the day a low budget film so it's not perfect but it's still a lot better than most of the crap released direct to DVD in order to keep a steady stream of new arrivals on the shelves.

Best Parts: the cinematography, score, production design and Richard Lynch and Ellen Sandweiss' acting Least Impressive Parts: Some of the CG effects aren't great, story is kinda slow and some of the other acting is a bit stiff Overall it has some flaws but makes up for them by being a tremendously ambitious and interesting classic style horror film.