Knucklebones

I don't want to waste much time writing a review. This movie was terrible. I would rather spend 90 minutes at the dentist. I really feel bad for the cast. To put this movie on there resume is like a pedophile applying to be an early childhood worker. The best part of the movie was the end credits. I find it very difficult to put this movie into the horror genre or any genre at that. If it was possible I would like to wipe my ass with this movie after a marathon chipolte dinner. I've spent several hours trying to think of a worse film.....but nothing can compare to this. I recommend this movie to anyone who is blind and deaf. If there ever is a sequel to this I'm positive that would be a sign of the end times.

Directed and written by Mitch Wilson, Knucklebones is a 2016 film with a run time of 85 minutes, which primarily stars Jennifer Jean Guhlin and Tom Zembrod. This is supposed to be a straight up horror film which at times feels similar to "Friday 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street", however it's done on a shoestring budget in comparison, with a lot less style and substance.

Neesa Avery (Jennifer Jean Guhlin) gets dumped by her boyfriend and tries to commit suicide as a result. After recovering, her friends take her on an outing to try and lift her spirits which involves driving to an abandoned factory to drink and do teenager things. They find a box filled with Nazi paraphernalia, amongst which is a box that contains human bones - apparently it's a game to summon a demon called "Knucklebones". The play the game and summon the demon, which they immediately regret as he starts killing them one by one in bloody and grizzly ways.

This isn't the most original film you will see; at times it behaves like classic 80's horror films such "Friday 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street". It's a slasher film but the titular demon enjoys making a witty quip as he kills off the teens. The setup has been done before too; unwitting teens accidentally summon an entity that they don't understand and can't control, and then immediately regret it. I had a lot of issues with the film, which seems to be a general consensus amongst other internet reviews too. There were lots of plot holes throughout, the delivery was weak, it felt cheap and it felt cheap and tacky throughout. If the film had of being labelled as a tongue in cheek horror which makes fun of itself, maybe it would have worked. As it is a straight up horror though, it is a big let-down.

Some of the problems I had include:

• The titular demon of Knucklebones just looks like a man in a cheap Halloween customer. I have genuinely seen more convincing costumes at fancy dress shops. The quips and humorous lines he delivers are distorted to make it seem more menacing, but it's almost distorted to the point that it makes it difficult to make out what he's saying.

• The kids were supposed to be a in a factory that has been abandoned for 30-40 years - but yet the factory was clean, there was no dust anywhere, no cobwebs on the ceiling, nothing. The electricity was working, lights were on and working despite the factory being unused and locked up. The factory had relatively modern machinery sat in it too. The furnace was turned on and worked perfectly.

• The concept which tied the Nazi paraphernalia to a factory in the heart of Texas felt cheap and ill conceived.

• The script was weak and predictable, at different points I was able to guess the next lines which were coming. The actors delivering the script did it in one of two ways, they were either un-emotive or wooden, or they completely overacted the lines and made it seem ludicrous.

• The casting choice too irked me a little bit. The impression I was given is that these people were supposed to be teens or in their very early twenties at least, in realty though they looked a lot older than the characters they were supposed to be portraying - late twenties or easily in their thirties. This added to lack of belief I was able to feel in them. Furthermore the film seemed to intentionally objectify its cast - the girls were all in skin tight boob tops, while also wearing tiny Daisy-Duke-shorts. Of course there is nudity too; one of the girls completely strips off to have sex in the middle of a room while her friends are all around the room.

• The way the plot unfolded was at times random with little sense of justification. New characters were thrown in, just to increase the body count of the killer and allow more gruesome murders.

• The twist at the end of the film was predictable early on in the film. It also didn't help that the Samantha character was looking at where she had been impaled and had no scarring. Even if she had of had cosmetic surgery done, in the time scale that is suggested there would be some visible issues.

Was I fan of the film then? No, not really. It was cheap and ill conceived. It was executed and delivered poorly. It isn't the worst film I have seen by a long way, but it's far from being classed as an average film either. It isn't that bad that it's a good film, it's just a bit bad. The pace was decent enough; it's just unfortunate that things were thrown at the delivery of the plot that made it messy. The gore is decent at times but used as a comedy element rather than using actual humour. Ultimately I was disappointed watching this film and can only recommend that you don't waste your time on this if the question arises. Even if, like me, you enjoy watching bad horror movies, this isn't one that ticks many boxes. 4 out of 10 is the best I can award this film - it does set itself up to have follow-up films, but hopefully I don't experience those.

Okay so the first half of this movie is frankly terrible. It is just a whole lot of exposition, alongside completely unnecessarily gratuitous shots of young women in skimpy clothes. The dialogue is awful, the background is unnecesary and long and boring and by the time you get half way through you may want to turn the movie off.

The second half though is great! Once the demon actually comes it turns into a riotous slasher movie which is as fun as it is gory. The deaths are good, the demon is sort of funny and it has all the right ingredients for a very good b movie.

I would suggest just fast forward until they are summoning the demon and watch that half of the movie.

I caught the world premiere of this at FrightFest and was glad to have done so. I've been a big fan of the Friday 13th formula for a long time and it's something that's been missing in recent years.

Slasher movies since the 90s have often tried to extend or adapt the formula to keep the genre fresh but in all honesty, the Freddy/Jason format is hard to beat.

Need I explain much? Some randy teens find a disused warehouse and summon a demon, by mistake, which then leads to him dispatching them one by one. I'm not going to get heavy on the story here, it's not what I went to see the movie for but it is a reasonably decent premise when revealed which I'll leave to you to discover.

The acting is good but I'm not going to suggest we have any Oscar-worthy stuff in it. The beautiful Julin, who plays Neesa is pretty solid in her lead role and the rest work well around her.

As a splatter flick, this movie rocks. Knucklebones, the demon, is the real hero and whilst the kills are more Jason-style, as far as the tool set used is concerned, the one-liners and general inventiveness are more from the Elm-street book.

A fun 90 minutes of midnight, popcorn horror. Check it out if it's your thing.

The Nazis create a demon that you can summon by rolling knuckle bones and saying a few words for the purpose of wiping out enemy troops. This demon is a Jason type with a Freddy voice and his sense of humour. Years later the bones are found in a box stored in an old factory. Wouldn't you know it some teens play the game and summon Knucklebones.

This one had so much potential. When Knucklebones is summoned he needs a body to come through. Your bones will just start snapping and sticking right through your skin then he crawls right out of the person leaving a spent corpse. When you see this you think this film is going rock but then it never does. It just seems muddled.

One problem was his voice which was a distorted Freddy. You could make out his one liners sometimes but mostly not. Everything seemed to wrap up quick which I think the writer sort of wrote himself into a corner. He has Knucklebones stop pursing one of the last survivors only to leave the factory and go all the way to the survivors house to go after the young sister. What's even worse is the sister is waiting in bed with a bow and arrow. What? The one thing I laughed at the hardest was what she went through to get some new knuckle bones. She makes Ash look like a sissy.

I hope a different writer gets to do the sequel.