Homestead

This is not a movie. It's the first episode of a TV show. DO NOT waste your money going to see this. I wouldn't watch this even on a free service like Pluto TV.

The storyline started out interesting but at every turn it went the wrong direction. The dialogue and acting are also terrible.

There were audience members that left half way through the show. It's absolutely terrible. I've never said anything like this before about a movie. I seriously want my money back.

And at the end they ask you to scan a QR code to buy someone else a ticket. The only way I'd scan that QR code is for a refund. Hollywood just scammed me.

I was expecting a decent western flick. The story had promise but there was so much missing. The acting was decent and some of the dialog was well written. What ruined it was all the missing ingredients for a decent western. Using a brass frames pietta 1958 Remington black powder pistol was a big sin. Remington never made brass framed pistols, Those are cheap replicas made today. Pa stated he had a heifer and was waiting for a bull to start breeding. Where did the heifer stay? All they had was a one room shack with a good electrical service as the lighting was poor and too bright. No corral, barn, of any kind for animals, Not even a single horse in the whole movie. There was too much un-needed conversations that drug on forever.

Having a guilty pleasure for what read as the "darker" element of the genre, checked it out.

The cinematography just brought back the 70s westerns that I grew up watching almost immediately, so settled in. Like most westerns, the antagonist is usual prevalent in the onset. Solid enough acting on all fronts, but what felt like it might head in the direction of interest...it plods along with very limited content, and even more limited expansiveness. Even the scenery, which can elevate these films, fell flat.

It's basically a broken family, a cabin, and some bad dudes out for revenge. That's it. Where some take this next level, the more recent (and pretty excellent) "Old Henry" excelled in bringing forth that classic feel...The Homestead just spins it's tires for the better part of an hour filled with unspectacular series of missed opportunities. I found it reminded me of a made for television (are these still a thing?) film. Very short, very uneventful, short on captivating violence that comes with even the most modern of the genre, and certainly mislabeled along the way as "horror", which confused me about the half way point, as the violence was pretty tame throughout. I can handle crossover appeal with the implied supernatural elements entwined with western films (High Plains Drifter) and horror element (Bone Tomahawk), this was more comparable to a Little House on the Prarie reinterpretation.

What comes is a very predictably boring run into the third act and an anticlimatic finish. Nothing stood out as anything more than mediocrity and a dud of a film.

It sure had me going until it bogged down. Characters mumbled their lines so I missed 80% of the dialog. So contrived. A bunch of bad guys.. an outlaw band.. and they don't have a horse? It has its moments, but ultimately turned boring. The soundtrack music was cheap and out of place... like from some cheesy film from the eighties. It was ultimately an amateurish production. Filmmaking is an art, and this movie lacked expertise in direction. Very good premise... the beginning really hooked me... but as it deteriorated, and revealed itself to be an amateur production, I lost interest, struggled to stay awake, and turned it off. Must have been a shoestring budget... no horses! A western and no horses....the bad guys just walking around for miles.. like something from Monty Python.

1. Animals. It is set on an isolated homestead. Yet, there is no livestock. This is a western with not a single horse. How did the gang of bad guys get across country..bus?

2. Injuries that stay, well, injured. Bad guy gets stabbed in the foot. In following scenes there is a total absence of blood on, well, boots, floor etc.

3. Dead guys that stay dead. Dead man's buddy picks him up from the porch, and dead guy lifts his arm to hold on.

The plot holds together, but is highly derivative. And why do they keep the ammo in a box on the hill, and not in the house?

Had some attention been given to continuity, and stitching together some plot holes that were overly large, and given the gang horses and not Shank's pony, it would not have been such a frustrating watch.