Lemon Tree Passage

Don't bother with it-its really a stupid movie with a plot that doesn't know where its going and poor acting and its all a waste of time. I didn't even bother to see the entire film. I watched an hour of it and then I was absolutely finished with it. Its a shame in the sense that it had a promising beginning but as it unfolded it became evident that the people making it couldn't even decide on a plot line as one plot line gives way to another and then the whole thing merges in a nonsensical dogs breakfast. Usually Australian films are a bit better than most but not this one. Junk cinema. If I compare it to some other Australian horror films-Wolf Creek-Rogue or The Tunnel from 2011, this one doesn't even come close to matching the former titles. There is nothing worse than watching a film disintegrate before your eyes and this one does exactly that. Pitiful film making.

American youngsters travelling the world, possibly on their a gap year, meet up with locals Down Under, a bit of romance, maybe, and a ghost tale? Drive down a certain road late at night, and you will see a mysterious light behind you. For real? Yup. Whacko, let's do it again! Not a good idea. In fact not a good anything, because that is as good as it gets. Sure, there is horror herein, a body appears and disappears, one of the girls sees a ghost neither of her companions can see, and is lured into a lake. After apparently spending minutes underwater she is brought to the surface conscious but none the worse for it, although maybe possessed by the spirit of a murder victim, which appears to be the reason they are out here in the woods.

The trouble is the whole thing is so confusing; there is even terrestrial menace afoot, but what is the viewer to make of it? Added to this, most of the action takes place in the dark, which is where you will probably end up if you sit right through this one.

The American Maya (Jessica Tovey), Amelia (Pippa Black) and her brother Toby (Tim Pocock) are spending vacation in Australia. The meet the locals Geordie (Tim Phillipps) and Oscar (Andrew Ryan) on the beach and Oscar tells a ghost story at the campfire. He tells that a ghost of a motorcyclist appears at the Lemon Tree Passage intersection when a car with teenagers speeds up at the spot. They decide to go to the location to see the ghost with tragic consequences.

"Lemon Tree Passage" is a horror movie with a story that is a senseless mess. It is impossible to understand the plot that begins with the ghost of a married motorcyclist and ends with the fiend of a raped girl that was murdered. Is Sam the older brother of Geordie? Why the evil ghost seeks revenge against the teenagers and not only against Sam? Why Maya is connected and possessed by the evil spirit? There are so many questions to be made that better off not waste time watching this flick. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "A Lenda Negra" ("The Black Legend")

Austrlian horror films have a good track record (at least in my book). The best ones like 'Wolf Creek' however don't rely on the supernatural. The Austrlian people and their country are very dangerous and can make for great characters, especially in horror. 'Lemon Tree Passage' relies far too heavily on the supernatural, more than any film should. It starts off as a story about an urban legend based on a long strip of road and by the end is something else entirely (what I'm not exactly sure). The writing is so poor throughout that it's almost impossible to get a grip on exactly what is happening and why.

There aren't a lot of frights at any stage of the movie. The opening scene is bizarre and poorly directed and things don't get any better from there. From a very early point it becomes hard to care about the fate of any of the characters. The only one with any personality isn't in it for long and the rest really have nothing going for them. There's no time spent creating any tension is any scene and the suspension of disbelief is far too great to ever buy into (or care) about the story that's trying to be told here. A real misfire.

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.