Day 13

No pun intended - sometimes we mean well and do bad. Who am I referring too? Well you have to watch to find out. Though I am certain that most will know - quite early when watching this. It is a binary thing in a way. Of course there is more to it and the end offers something in a sense .. not sure if it is enough to make you like the movie though.

You have to have a heart for horror movies to say the least. It does look good when it comes down to the cinematography and all that. But this is to be expected with newer movies. The effects are not too great, but this is a low budget so that should be something you know. Know what this is and do not expect more. Even better suspend your disbelief to a degree that makes you enjoy watching this ... maybe you are a fan of Martin Kove for example ... hold on to that.

This movie is pretty good but is ruined by using CGI when they obviously didn't have the budget to do so. The other major flaw was that the filmmakers' attempts at foreshadowing were heavy handed and gave away what could have been a surprise ending.

Well, this 2020 horror movie titled "Day 13" started out pretty interesting, although it had that whole thing of a sole-guy-spying-on-the-neighbors-and-finding-something-creepy-going-on-and-deciding-to-take-matters-into-their-own-hands thing going on. And that is just something that has been done and seen in many other movies akin to "Day 13", so writers Dan Gannon and Walter Goldwalter just didn't really manage to bring much of anything new or surprising to the movie that wasn't already seen in other movies.

Sure, about half of the movie was interesting enough, although somewhat generic, but then things started to change. I did like the sudden change to the movie, though was insanely predictable and you just had that whole thing figured out well before it actually happened. So again, the writers weren't really dishing out much of anything grand here.

Then there was the ending of the movie. Wow. Just wow! Talk about slapping the audience in the face with a cold, dead fish after having made them sit through about an hour and a half of predictable narrative with nothing much of anything scary or surprising. That ending that the writers opted to include and end the story off on was just ridiculous. It made me laugh so badly, especially because it felt like something a preteen would come up with for closing a class assignment on having to write a horror story.

I will say that the atmosphere in the movie was certainly good, as director Jax Medel managed to stage the storyline well enough, despite it being rather predictable and generic.

And I will also say that the acting performances in the movie were actually good enough. I wasn't familiar with Alex MacNicoll (playing Colton) or Genevieve Hannelius (playing Heather), but they put on good performances. Now, the movie also had Martin Kove (playing Magnus Torvald) on the cast list, but an actor of his magnitude was just not given the proper opportunity to unfold in "Day 13". A shame really.

If you enjoy a good horror movie, then your money, time and effort is actually better spent elsewhere, because "Day 13" was ultimately a generic addition to the horror genre.

My rating of "Day 13" would have landed on a four out of ten stars, but then that abysmal ending came rolling in and just ruined everything, and effectively lowering my rating of the movie to a more than generous three out of ten stars.

For starters, for the love of God will somebody please send hollywood some real light bulbs!? Every single movie made today is "lit" in the exact same way - with light bulbs that are dimmer than 4 watt night light bulbs! In one scene, the main character is reading and the only light in the room was a light on his desk. Even with that on, the entire room was almost pitch black. Other scenes were filmed om complete darkness where you just have to guess what's going on. Plus, apparently in 2022, people are still using candles as illumination! :eyeroll:

Outside of that, there are so many plot holes, the whole thing is like swiss cheese. The main character is using what looks like a night vision camera - judging by the characteristic green tint of the image - yet it uses a visible light source. Not only would that overpower the night vision optics, but it would defeat the whole purpose of using night vision in the first place - stealth!

The "mother" in this story should have her kids taken away from her. Apparently she leaves her teenage kids home alone for two weeks because she needs some time away with just her and her girl friends. She's never heard from again. Apparently, she can't even be bothered to call home and check on her kids.

And I want to know where this kid is getting his stuff ordered from. He must shop at the same place Wile E. Coyote uses because he was going online, buying surveillance equipment, and installing it that same day! I mean, even Amazon ain't that fast!

I won't give anything away, just in case you decide, for some reason to watch this train wreck, but just know that the last three minutes of the movie are about the most interesting in the whole thing!

I felt like I was watching a rated PG family movie; No cursing, no killings, no gore, no nudity, no creatures, no violence. The ending was okay, but the cheesy cgi ruined it. If they remade this movie with the above examples, it could be great horror movie.