The Damned Thing

I'm a fan of well-executed horror anthologies, especially the classic ones. I was hopeful for this attempt and I was willing to give it a chance (based on the other reviews). While I hate to be a naysayer and embrace negativity, I would truthfully grade this as a "C+" student film, at best. The only time a character showed any emotion instead of just reciting lines was during the third story. That just isn't good...

Film-making is (very) hard work and every director has a starting point, but compelling characters and/or a decent story can make up for many shortcomings, including poor special effects and slow pacing. While this movie attempts to tie together three "vignettes" in a meaningful way, it would have fared better if the director had just plagiarized a throwaway script from a Syfy-channel reject. Rule number for any film project should be to solicit feedback from outside your immediate peers -- that would probably help cut down on the rampancy of overused movie tropes.

All in all, this is a rather amateurish effort marred by clichéd dialogue, questionable casting choices, sloppy editing and poor cinematography.

The cameraman Will (Canon Buckingham) meets the writer Eddie Osborne (Rodney Osborne) in a derelict hotel charged with negative energy to document images for his new novel. Eddie tells three horror stories to Will while visiting the floors of the hotel with him.

"Death Hotel", a.k.a. "The Damned Thing" (2014) is an underrated horror film and the 2.9 User Rating is unfair. This film is neither a gem nor a garbage, but an average horror movie. The screenplay is flawed and the verbiage in the beginning is annoying. But the three tales about negative energy are reasonable. Lana and Michael moving to a haunted house is certainly the best segment. The slasher with the humiliated clown Lester is not bad. The cannibal that attacks Molly, Tommy and Jared while shooting a documentary is weird but also not bad. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Hotel da Morte" ("Death Hotel")

The acting is beyond amateurish and bad. It's completely horrible. The dialogue never flows. It's full of pauses and devoid of natural emotion. Everything is forced by bad actors, making it completely cringe worthy. I've seen better acting from teenagers using cell phone cameras to make short videos.

In addition, it starts off with a faux interview, with a guy throwing out words like positive energy, negative energy, dark matter and vortexes, but they are just words the writer has heard, without understanding anything about what they are. So it all comes off as nothing but meaningless double talk. Us a few "science" words to lend credence to bull. For anyone who actually knows what those thing are, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, to the point of complete idiocy. It's beyond nonsense.

Then there is the entire premise, all set up, based on pseudo science crossed with pseudo religion, making it a double dose of crap! I can suspend my disbelief fir movie magic, if the stories are good and the basic principals used, even in science fiction, fit within the realm of scientific possibility, written by someone who understands the science being talked about. So hearing a ship explode in space or the rumble of its engines, I can deal with. But this one goes too far down the rabbit hole of utter crap and complete nonsense to tolerate!

Anyone with intelligence and knowledge, will find this movie so bad as to be an insulting waste of time!

Honestly this movie can only be described as truly terrible. The abomination of horror films is what lies within.

I found myself laughing throughout the movie at the attempts to scare the audience.

I Really do not recommend this movie, and genuinely believe you'd find your time be better spent watching paint dry.

For a start, the acting wasn't particularly great. Admittedly some actors were better than others in this movie, but they were far and few between, and there was a lot to be desired. The poor cinematic techniques did not support the acting in anyway either. In some scenes, the shakiness of the camera, along with the shaky acting skills, made the movie feel rather amateurish. The lack of cinematic techniques and the inappropriate application of them, in my opinion, damaged any potential this movie had, where they may have been able to salvage it into a half decent movie if applied correctly.

The story line was rather scattered. There were 3 separate stories that were supposed to connect to a central theme. The stories didn't seem to logically connect together. I appreciate that they were trying to create something that was different from typical and overdone movies in the genre, but the execution was poor.

Just please don't waste your time on this movie.

This movie is actually titled "Hotel Hell"- which doesn't make much sense. I am confused as to why it takes place at a hotel when none of the stories have anything to do with that hotel in which he hires a videographer to tour with him. I liked the twist at the end, but I am so confused as I really thought that when he was discussing the rooms that the 3 anthologies would actually be related to the hotel in some way shape or form...It was a solid campy B-movie horror flick, so please do not go into it assuming that it will have any deep meaning or be a work of art. I just enjoyed it for what it was and, if you decide to watch it, go into it with little to no expectations.