Skeleton Crew

Utterly dreadful. A pitiful slasher with no redeeming qualities. Drags on and on like a train wreck in slow motion and the acting is not camp, it's just plain bad. What is so unforgivable about this movie is that with all the ingredients: a derelict asylum and a lunatic movie director making snuff movies on the fly, its difficult to see how the makers could fail to make at least a halfway decent horror film. This one misses the mark by a mile. Spurious sex scenes and tiresome adolescent remarks about mainstream slashers such as Saw and Hostel weigh this plodding mess down even more. Only good as a cure for insomnia.

Skeleton Crew is definitely a weird movie. And I guess it's because I kept telling myself (and my friend) that this is going to be so bad, that I'm almost positively surprised. It was bad, but like with so many movies like this, it's kind of the point. If a movie like this would be made completely seriously and well, it wouldn't have any kind of charm, would just make you wonder if the writers are okay. When it's done with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, it's usually more entertaining.

Skeleton Crew plays with horror movie tropes in a fun, fourth wall breaking way, while being brutally violent and just... f###ed up. It's been hours since I saw the movie, and I'm still confused about... well, everything.

It's a bad movie, but I definitely had fun when watching it. So if you do watch it, make sure you watch it friends, because this is one of those movies where it's just sad when you watch it alone and can't really laugh about it at the same time.

1) Get a million dollars 2) Assemble a cast and crew 3) Rewrite a script. Repeat. Repeat again 4) Procure some film/video and lighting equipment 5) Locate a current/old or abandoned asylum 6) Make movie 7) Read reviews on IMDb 8) Try again

This movie would have worked much better if the video makers went deep into XXX territory. One reviewer suggested a spoof. Hmmmm. Maybe. Anyone agree? Makes more sense that way. And there were hints of spoofdom...but spoofs are hard to pull off. The Naked Gun series and Scary Movie series were very funny movies.

But then they had lots of talent too.

NIGHT: INSIDE ASYLUM

The Director is watching a "found" snuff film from former denizens of the asylum. He becomes what he beholds. Shouldn't an alert siren go off with the klangon bells like on a destroyer, signaling "battle stations".

I think Skeleton Crew is best labeled as an OK B movie, get for drive-ins where you can make out during the movie. Or, was this totally tongue in cheek. Has anyone talked with the director. No special features....which would reveal his intent. This would have helped.

There are plenty of old,decayed, abandoned asylums everywhere and aspiring filmmakers. I am sure we will see many more ASYLUM films.

UPDATE: I did some thinking and decided it is a SPOOF. Why? Everyone seems to be doing a tongue in cheek performance. And at the end of the credits a guy makes a satirical comment. The director is over the top. Europeans love to dish back our own culture to us. And they often do it in a very subtle manner. And the "found" films try to one up our version of horror films. That's why there is confusion for us on this movie.

Did anyone catch the reference to Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM. One crew member gets skewered by a huge spear at the end of a camera, which films his agony. In PEEPING TOM, the killer does the same thing and uses a tripod with a mirror attached. I think it is all a spoof on several films, including the stormy weather and accident that propels them to the asylum (this has been done many times). So if you look at as a spoof with European sensibilities and as a B movie, it is OK. I may even rent it again, as I ony paid 25 cents for rental due to a special.

I actually quite enjoyed this little flick. Then again, I rarely go in to any film with expectations. Tonight, all I wanted to was low budget horror. This turned out to be right up my alley.

• cheesy overdone acting (but not so bad that it wasn't at least convincing)
• horror story with at least a little gore
• low budget
• pro equipment
• standard horror tropes (sex, killing, blood & gore)

While I enjoy low budget horror, I have a hard time with anything that looks like it was shot on an iPhone or a home camcorder. Not that I won't watch them, but I prefer tighter looking camera work with the 35mm grain.

All of the above is true. This is not a masterpiece, but I enjoyed the story- unique, and different than I expected, especially the ending - as well as the fx, which were not top notch but were adequate. The direction was fine, as well as the post production. One thing I noticed in many of the reviews was a lack of understanding.

***THIS MOVIE IS MEANT TO NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. DON'T QUESTION IT!***

So many bad reviews, saying "that couldn't happen...that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen...no way it would go like that." It's not meant as a fully serious film, especially since the script has so many subtle nods to other b-class horror movies and directors. Don't question why...don't look at the holes in the story...don't do anything other than sit there with your choice of adult treats and enjoy.

Personally, I wish it had been more gory, but that's just me. They could have really souped this up and easily gotten away with it, but whatever.

It's worth a watch, for sure, especially if you have Amazon Prime. It's free.

I wondered why i had never heard of this film and its directors and after watching the film for the first thirty minutes i understood why that is the case. This film is absolutely ridiculous with horrible delivery of the lines, amateur actors and on top of that it has very little plot. The film started of pretty good and it was quite promising but the grin-worthy English accent ruined it. It's so painful and i just couldn't resist a feeling of mutual shame.

I think it should have been made in Finnish completely or with broken English and then dubbed over with professional sounding voice actors.

It's also noticeable that the film falls apart just after 15 minutes. All the ideas got wasted and probably there was a lack of imagination involved or they didn't have a script at all.

It doesn't look as if the movie had 1 million budget. It could have been made for about 50 000 euro at most. I've seen many professional looking low budget films and if 1 million budget was correct i'd have to say that it was wasted completely.

For its merits i could say that it may be the one of the first really trashy, gory and "tongue-in-cheek" films made in Finland. That's just about it all. There's nothing original about it and many film directors have done it better. In fact this is even worse than some Uwe Boll films.

In overall this film is trash and completely avoidable.