The Bone Garden

You know how sometimes you are hoping that a character ends up dead early on. That's exactly what I felt watching this movie. Unfortunately the main character rarely dies at the start. Even her insane, nymphomaniac best friend was an improvement. Needless to say I did not finish this beyond lousy movie.

Well, for a thriller then this 2014 movie titled "The Bone Garden" wasn't actually all that bad. Wait, at least it wasn't all that bad right up until the last quarter of the movie, then everything just fell apart. And I have to say that the last quarter of the movie totally ruined everything that writer and director Mike Gutridge had managed to accomplish up to that point. And I will actually go as far as to saying that the change of events and what happened in that last quarter of the movie was definitely some of the worst I've seen in a movie in a long, long time.

The storyline told in "The Bone Garden" was actually fairly entertaining, and it had that whole 'who did it' vibe going on, and director Mike Gutridge actually managed to make a wholehearted and entertaining movie.

But then he shot himself in both feet with what he opted for in that dreadful and ghastly last quarter. That whole plot twist was just so outrageously bad that it totally killed off the movie. It was so bad that I think it will be imprinted into my memory for a long time to come.

The acting in the movie was adequate, though it was very clear that it wasn't award-winning material that you are in for here, when you sit down to watch the 2014 movie "The Bone Garden".

Ultimately, then "The Bone Garden" is not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on, especially not so with that abysmal last quarter of the movie.

My rating of "The Bone Garden" lands on a mere two out of ten stars. I would have rated it a five stars actually, but then that horrible last quarter rolled on to the screen and it just knocked the movie down so hard. Of course, I am not going to ruin it by revealing what happened, you'll just have to sit down and see for yourself - or actually, you better not.

The Bone Garden is a tough film to review. On one hand, when looked at for pure cinematic value, it is dismal. It's a cheaper than cheap thriller that would make the Asylum give it a hard pass. A lot of the cast are known for their various roles in the Friday the 13th franchise and there is a reason none of them ever went any further and most have all but disappeared: they can't act. Add a completely abysmal script and kid-with-his -first-camera level directing and you have a film that no one should ever have to see. But then, on the other hand, this film is unintentionally hilarious in a way few films have been since The Room. The overacting, fhe laughable dialogue, the clueless directing and editing...by the halfway mark I was beginning to wonder if they were trying to be this bad. So, as an actual film this is a complete trash heap but as a midnight movie with a crowd that's in on the joke, it has a future.

Alice Hardy is a middle-aged woman living in an idyllic country town. Everything seems to be going just right until new, unfriendly neighbours move in. Now townsfolk are being murdered.

I had low expectations for this. It looked like a typical B-grade horror movie, complete with a cast and crew of unknowns and poor production values. Yet, for more than half of the movie it was quite interesting. The plot was intriguing and the characters, especially Alice and Laurie and their relationship, quite engaging. Direction was hardly brilliant but worked and the performances were fairly solid, especially considering the cast.

The plot was set for a great conclusion, with the primary suspect as to who the murderer being so obvious as to clearly having to be a be a red herring, making the identity of the actual murderer even more intriguing.

Then it all fell apart. The red herring wasn't a red herring. Not satisfied with this, writer-director Mike Gutridge then takes the plot off on a random tangent. The ending is nonsensical and massively disappointing after the potential shown for the bulk of the film. Ended pretty much how I suspected the whole film would be before I watched it.

Go watch What Lies Beneath. Then, stop. Unless you want to roll your eyes a lot. If you really want to be annoyed, watch this movie.. which takes bits and pieces of that movie and spins it into an incredibly stupid waste of time. I'm honestly not sure how the people who made this weren't sued by the creators of What Lies Beneath. Except the creators of that movie probably didn't want any parallels drawn because this one is so bad. So bad. Even copies the names at times. The main characters in WLB were Claire and her husband Norman, a professor at the local college. This main character in this isn't named Claire, but her husband is Norman a professor at the local college. Both suspected of an affair with a coed who's missing. And the lake that's a pivotal part of the plot is "Claire lake". Ha. There are neighbors in both movies that the main character suspects the husband of killing the wife. And there's a dog in both movies who frolics in a lake and stumbles upon a piece of jewelry. It's all so badly copied it's laughable. Even the best friend... A cheap ripoff of Diana Scarwid's character in WLB. There is even an almost exact conversation about a cool new car post-divorce to pick up guys in. Save yourself the hour and a half of watching this... Just watch What Lies Beneath with Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. This movie is a joke.