The Curse of Downers Grove

It amazes me how so many people posting reviews obviously have so little experience in the genres they review. As for winning Oscars and selling out theaters no this is not for you. As an individual who watches almost anything horror or fantasy they can get their hands I was VERY pleasantly surprised by this film. It brought to mind a blend of Donnie Darko and It Follows, not reaching the heights of either film but portraying a feeling of the atmosphere that both did so well. Sifting through Indies of this genre with no prior knowledge of the film you are watching can be very disappointing. I would say that one out of every 30 would come close to the quality of this film. The acting was great all around minus Tom Arnold, if you want to name drop you can do MUCH better even on a small budget. I especially liked Penelope Mitchell (also from Hemlock Grove, great series). IF you are a fan of this genre give this one a chance it may surprise you, If you're an Oscar hoe rewatch The Iron Lady and stay off the boards of Indies

Being from woodridge/downers grove, i went into it expecting scenes made in the actual town... or not just having one school, when there are in fact two. They could have at least driven down some of the side roads and used it as scenery... but no they make it seem like we are some corn field type town. Thats not the case. I was really disappointed in this movie.

I always look at the other reviews before I make mine, not that it influences my review, but just to see what others thought. First off, this movie bombed so hard, it hit the basement. 2 Mil to make and worldwide, it made a little over 33 thousand. Yikes. As far as putting this movie in the horror category, Eh, no. I'd have to agree with some reviewers that this more of a revenge movie. I'm a big fan of Lucas Till, who plays in one of my favorite shows, MacGyver. It was good to see at least one person I recognize in this film. I've seen much worse, let me tell you. I was at the very least surprised by the ending. Gotta say, I did NOT see that coming. All in all, it wasn't terrible, but not something i would recommend to a friend to watch. Peace. P.S. I don't normally do this, but I LOVE one reviewers comment about "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." That was freaking funny!

Not sure why so many gave this movie a bad review and low rating. For me, it was exactly what I expected it to be - a high school thriller, with a good story, credible performances etc. It wasn't what I expected but that was due to the title, trailer and premise of the film focusing on the "curse", when in fact, in my opinion, there is a whole other story portrayed. Had it been titled something other than it was, perhaps more people would have appreciated it more?

The performances from Bella Heathcote and Kevin Zegers were spot on. Other reviewers have focused on their real ages with regards to playing high school/college students but that is par for the course in movies these days.

All in all, an enjoyable movie if you like high school drama.

I knew this movie was co-written by Bret Easton Ellis but didn't expect much - I really hated the title, the IMDb score for this film was very low (which in retrospect seems really sad) and for a host of reasons I thought it was just a journeyman project for Ellis and it would be some kind of standard forgettable slasher.

The first thing I noticed was that screenplay was very literary and contained a lot of recognizable deliberate sentences and mean humor of Bret Ellis (sometimes it got a little too much, i think meth is mentioned like 3 or 4 times in the first 10 minutes of the movie). Then I noticed how surprisingly good the acting in this movie was. In the end a lot of elements in this movie were familiar but delivered with a slight twist and hence worked for me.

The mix of lo-fi look, acting style, dark humor and menacing atmosphere reminded me most of Gregg Araki movies like "Nowhere" but more plot-driven (another reviewer mentioned some stylistic similarities to "Donnie Darko" and "It Follows", but I think Araki movies are the closest comparison). Araki, of course, was influenced by Bret Easton Ellis and was probably the closest cinematic analogue of his prose.

I think it's a shame that in our age of faceless mass-produced genre movies this one, which has a discernible style, has such criminally low IMDb rating and recommend it.