Playback

I'm a humongous horror fan. Hostel and Saw are amazing. So when I saw this at family video, I thought why not? I absolutely love Johnny Pacar, so I knew it had to be decent, right?

Right I was! The acting is solid, the gore is realistic, and the plot twists are believable. I read all the reviews beforehand and expected a stinker, but do NOT read most of the reviews. They're either making fun or they were expecting something else.

Yes, there are plot holes. Yes, the ending is predictable. But it's fun, it made me jump a couple times, and the gore doesn't look ridiculously fake like most B movies!

Will I watch it again? Heck yeah! Will I buy it? Possibly. Do I recommend it? Absolutely.

I don't usually do this, but some of you might stumble upon a review by IMDb username tlsmith-569-716188 as the visible review on this film's page. Aside from mistaking Christian Slater for Christian Bale, it's obviously biased and written by either someone who took part in the making of this film, or someone to related to such a person. Do your part and click "no". We deserve more integrity.

Having said that, let's get back to "Playback". I must say that while I did enjoy watching it, I couldn't help but finding the screenplay and story lacking. The idea is nice while not all that original (The Ring has already given us "evil from a videotape" and this was simply too similar), but the twist was too obvious and predictable. A good plot twist is one where the balance between the hints given and the element of surprise upon the discovery is kept. In this case - the hints were too thick, and the surprise was gone. That might be because I'm a Horror freak and have watched many Horror and Thriller films, but I can't help but expect more.

The second thing, which was really sad for me, was Christian Slater's roll. Oh my, how the great ones have fallen and been humbled to a shady background role of a semi-pedophile creep. I'd hate to think that after his illustrious career Slater has been degraded to his role here. Depressing.

However, while not being the best film ever, Playback is far from being bad. The effects and cinematography were very impressive, the original indie-rock soundtrack was great and is in my opinion good enough to purchase if available, and the way some of the scenes shot by the kids in the movie end up realized by the killer was very nice. But the best thing about this film is for sure Toby Hemingway's acting (and a great job by the make-up department). Hemingway was superb, and I look forward to seeing him in other films!

All in all, like I've mentioned, Playback wasn't the best film ever, nor the worst. It had its moment, and while it could have been a lot better - it could have been a lot worse too. I personally rate it a 6, but recommend that you give it a shot.

This is a low budget genre flick that has countless flaws but also a rather interesting story and a decent payoff. You could tell that the budget was not very high which honestly kind of drags the movies watching experience down. The acting is okayish and the effects are somewhere between good and pretty bad at times. The movie definitely borrows some material from other more famous flicks but never straight up copies anything and tries to be its own twisted little story. Overall it's decent and if the plot synopsis sounds interesting to you, you might enjoy this, however don't expect something great out of this because it is not. [4,7/10]

If you read some of the reviews for Playback, you may notice it receives more than its fair share of negativity. In some ways it deserves it, in others it doesn't. A lot of the criticism comes from how it's been sold. If you read the blurb, you'll see it mentions an 'ex cop (played by Christian Slater) investigating a mysterious killer.' This is simply not true. For a start, Christian Slater's part in this film is little more than an extended cameo and it seems to be a blatant attempt by the studio/promoters to do their best at cashing in on the one and only (semi) big name attached to the project.

The film is actually about a group of teenagers who are trying to make their own horror film when they stumble on a particularly nasty supernatural force that links back to their town's past. In many ways, Playback is little more than a (supernatural) slasher film that loosely borrows from superior works like The Ring. You may even forget that Christian Slater is in the film because his character has so little to do.

Playback is okay. If you can ignore its miss-selling and are just looking for a run-of-the-mill horror to fill an hour and a half, then this one will probably do. Yes, there are a fair few unexplained bits that may leave you with a question mark or two over your head, but, like I say, it's far from perfect, but it just about makes the grade.

http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

When a group of film students attempt to document the brutal history of their town's past, they unleash the evil spirit which inspired the rampage and must stop it's current rampage before it exposes the secret behind it's existence.

This is overall a pretty lame and barely worthwhile effort. The only true sense of credit that this one really has is it's plot line about the body-hopping spirit that can only be transfered through video, which is pretty creepy and doesn't get used often-enough as a concept since it generates some really impressive moments here and there of the possessed beings out and about with their unknowing victims. Otherwise, this here is a gory, low-budget boring mess that seems to fling itself around in ten different directions without any sort of inner compass to determine what it wants to do, a low-budget feel that never lets it's full scope become apparent despite the feel it's going for and a laid-back pace that rarely lets on it's a horror film and never really goes for any sort of excitement or enjoyability. A true let-down and not really worth it.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity and underage drinking.