Lemon Tree Passage

Lemon Tree Passage looks like a movie made from three different rejected screenplays. It's utterly inconsistent, shifting its tone multiple times and using cliché base premise that doesn't pan out in any way. It even has stupid teenagers cast who mock how ridiculous campfire story is, and then the movie proceeds on doing that exact same ridiculous cliché.

This is the same old story about a group of teenager who try an urban legend. The characters are identical to almost every other horror movies, the main lead brunette who has visions all the time, the possible love interest cool guy, the blondie and the comic relief. They behave in a very predictable way, this might just be a copy of bloopers from 80s horror movie.

After a while the logic crumbles as both the characters and even the haunting act in such arbitrary manner. Splitting up in crisis is foolish, but these people split up off-screen without any reasons. The supposed entity even haunts sporadically, it jumps from scene to scene as urban legend, possession and whatever horror gimmick the mood takes it.

The movie is a consecutive series of random occurrences which lose any sense of continuity or even structure after thirty minutes, which is already thirty minutes of your life that could've been saved.

I will begin this by saying I am a horror/thriller lover. Anything from Evil Dead to Shutter Island to Saw. Love them!!! I watched this honestly because A) I try and watch all that i can get my hands on and; b) because my family live in lemon tree passage and I thought I may be able to freak them out with a tale. The story was..... mundane. You really didn't care who died or lived through it and the twist at the end is not what you would call a twist. The story was sorely told and there was no real information or moments to give you the gasp factor. Neither was there enough blood to go the B grade blood bath movie that needs no real plot to go on. This movie wasn't terrible. It wasn't good either. The actors were average and kind of cute. Honestly they didn't even show the best of the area they were in (which is gorgeous) It is a very easy watch with nothing that could catch up even the drunkest of watchers. It is average.

Okay so I'm forced to write a real review as there are only 1 or 2 which are from someone close to the movie crew. So this movies might be OK if you'r a teen male under 16 and you saw less than 100 movies in your life. If you aren't then don't bother. it's a pure waste of time. Why ? well all the cliché and stereotype are here. The funny thing is one guy starts telling a story " on a dark and stormy night" and they reply : "what a bunch of clichés"..Oh irony :) It takes too long to develop. Just the 2 first minutes perspire bad student movie. It's a copy of a copy of a copy of a bad movie.. no imagination just the kind of movie you do in school to learn how to direct and place cameras. But This movie is not made to be shown anyway it's one of those project that are paid by subvention so the crew is paid doing it and then no matter it does 10 or 1 million entries they wont get more money anyway. It's just excuse to get public money and have a salary doing something. In France that kind of system exist as well the result is 83% of produced movies have less then 10 000 viewers. concerning the scenario well , one can write the synopsis in 3 minutes. that's the kind of story you already saw thousands of times , nothing new here. a big AVOID tag !

The primary failing of this movie is a lack of communication. There's a lot of great atmosphere and sound design -- I found myself legitimately creeped out by a couple of scenes.

The problem is the movie is too in love with its own mystery, to the point where up until the last ten minutes, you're not quite sure what's going on. There's no identifiable villain, no motive, just a bunch of seemingly unrelated events mixed with hallucinations, flashbacks, and generic jump scares.

You can't ever quite be sure what's really happening. In some movies that's a benefit, but Lemon Tree Passage really could've thrown the viewer a bone earlier in the movie. Without it, a lot of this feels like nonsense. Occasionally spooky nonsense, mind you, but still nonsense. It gets boring when you aren't provided a reason as to why anything is happening.

The answer to the movie's great mystery has almost zero payoff, too. It hardly even feels like an answer, and is more of an excuse to have a somewhat non-sequiturial slasher flick.

It did make for marginally fun riffing with friends, but even then, it was largely just a lot of exclamations of "WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING?"

So close to give this one a solid 6, but I rated it a 5, tho I think it deserves a 5.5 overall. Why such a good grade? Well because it is confusing, has more to offer, quite a dark tension, the only thing that killed it for me, was the plot. In the end, you'll get to see what this is about, a subject used 1000 times at least!

Thus, I approve to the execution, the style, acting, it has a lot of things you've seen before, many familiar horror scenes, but they did make the most of them and about 80% of the movie, everything is a blur. It keeps you guessing and has a lot to offer for such a little production. Once the end approaches, you kinda anticipate where it is heading and it really feels like a tired old formula, but, you did get so far, so most likely you'll find the strength to watch it till the credits. Anyway, it is a good movie, I enjoyed it, far better than most, overall, a cute little indie production.

For a "in the woods" horror, I think Lemon Tree Passage is definitely a "try it once" movie, because it is a nice add-on to such productions and it would be a shame to let it pass unnoticed. Quite glad I got my eyes on it, don't expect a master piece, but surely some good ol' fun.

Lemon Tree Passage has a lot of the old, in a new mix, that manages to offer 90 minutes of good time! I think most of you will agree on that. Remember, I did grade it a 5 star, so I'm not head over heals impressed here, but considering the budget, the plot and so on, I think it did OK.

Cheers!