Hold Your Breath

In the intro a guy is about to be executed by electric chair in a hospital for the criminally insane in the 50s. For a moment he frees himself, kills some guards, and recited religious warnings to the witnesses. But he's caught again and executed.

Back in our time, 7 kids go for a road trip to camp. When they drive past a cemetery one of the girls screams out that they have to hold their breath, because as legend has it, spirits of bad people could roam around cemeteries and could possess you if you don't hold your breath. They all do except one of the guys who's too busy smoking pot all the time.

When they make a pitstop they discover the abandoned hospital nearby and go to investigate, except dope-head who is indeed possessed by the spirit of our villain from the intro. He kills a cop and acts like a jerk toward his friends.

Eventually they make it to camp, but the evil spirit jumps to another guy and he drives back to cemetery with one of the girls, whom, he kills gruesomely. When the rest of the kids go looking for them they run into an old cranky hospital guard who knows exactly what is going on and wants to put an end to it.

I haven't seen an Asylum horror movie in a long time. Things have changed quite a bit. The movie looks good, except during the night when all the actors have some glow in their eyes. The acting is very good by the entire cast. Unfortunately, the script is a bit unfinished. Direction and editing are amateurish. One wonders whether some of the mistakes are on purpose, that's how silly they are. But the cast is attractive, the girls are gorgeous, there's some nudity, some gore, however some of the special effects look like they came from an 80s movie. Overall, a botched B movie saved by the charismatic cast.

I never thought that I was going to say this ever, this is a flick from the asylum that I liked. To be honest, it's my age that made it watchable. You don't get it? Well, I grew up with all those old eighties and seventies horrors and have seen the cheapies this surely reminded me of the copycats out there still unavailable or know to be cheesy.

If you watch the Blu Ray cover then you should already know that this isn't going to be a horror that stand up to today's standards. It just looked like those Italian covers back then. And it even reminded me of Shocker (1989)

For an Asylum flick it contained rather good effects although some were a bit laughable like the police car catching fire or a girl being ripped in two. Nevertheless, it even contained nudity a few times and a sexy scene were one of the girls actually goes naked but not full frontal. The cheesiness lays in the fact that the possessed ones have red glowing eyes and the good ones blue glowing eyes. The ghosts towards the end are pure CGI and of course the CGI used throughout this flick is one of the cheapest kind.

Newbies in the genre will hate this flick, and it shows but old school B flick lovers or cheesy horror geeks should pick this up. I enjoyed it.

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

No spoilers here, just basics.

The acting was fair to OK. The story/script was fair/OK (interesting, but maybe a little to detailed and over-thought, which COULD be OK or great).

But the direction and production of this just blew any "watchability" elements apart. What was reoccurring themes got lost in the convoluted mishmash of the director over emphasizing things that didn't matter, and letting things that do matter just slip right past. Then throwing in totally unneeded special effects that added nothing, and actually detracted from the ability to get into the story. On and on and on, ever 10 minutes part of me went "ok, I get why the actor played it that way, but why did they shoot the scene like that, and edit it that way, it might has well of been a live play on stage..."

If you can see past the horrible production of this movie, there is some decent acting and an interesting story underneath. But, to be honest, it's SO difficult to see because of the horrible production, I couldn't recommend ANYONE try to watch this movie (unless you are only doing so to get horror movie story ideas and see if the actors in it are any good).

My 5 Reasons 2 Skip It

1. It is a bad rip off of Fallen (1998) - See It instead - Link below - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119099/

2. Terrible acting - The cast is terrible and the acting at times is obvious and painful.

3. Terrible special effects/editing - No excuse for how bad it is. The spirit leaving the bodies is hysterical

4. I watched it in Chill Network - I have yet to see a solid movie on this network. Not to say I expected this movie to be solid.

5. It is made by Asylum - Enough said

Recommend for:

1. Katrina Bowden fans - she is one attractive specimen, but I can't say much for her performance in this film.

2. Nudity fans - there is some modest nudity in the film, but Katrina Bowden isn't part of it.

3. People who love cheesy movies - it definitely fits the bill

Email me your thoughts - why2seeit@gmail.com

This movie, like a number of horrors of its kind, are better when you're younger. Once you get older and realize you bought the movie a few years ago and decide to re-watch it, you be like why did I buy this. With that said, it's something about corny horror movies that I like and this one is no different. When that police car blew up though, I was rolling, the effects were so bad. Acting could have been better and some of the dialogue needed to be revised. I'm not gonna say don't watch it or you should, but it is a little entertaining and probably is something for the horror collection.