Blood Snow

Had a chance to watch this over the weekend, and found that I enjoyed it despite a few shortcomings. As a fan of Heroes, I was really happy to see James Kyson Lee not playing a token "Asian guy", but in fact takes center stage and does a good job, IMO.

The rest of the cast holds up well too. The pacing is good for the most part, but a little slow where is shouldn't have been. Which leads me to my only real complaint about this film and that it doesn't have the amount of blood/gore/cannibalism I expected to see based on the trailer and DVD art. They only touch upon the cannibalism in a few flashbacks (which looked cool) but I was really looking forward to seeing more of that stuff appear later in the film.

There are some decent blood scenes (removing some buckshot comes to mind) that might make one a bit squeamish, but as a whole the movie fell a little short to be considered a true "horror" for my tastes.

A group of 3 men and 3 women head off to a remote cabin in the woods, with both them and the audience getting flashbacks of what the Donner party did in the mountains near Lake Tahoe back in the 1800s. What I did like is that they didn't stereotype the Asian guy, as his character slowly gets scarier throughout the movie. What I didn't like is that all three female characters really got on my nerves, like why their men would bother saving them from something dangerous with all of their nagging. Furthermore, the acting is low energy from everyone. The one highlight was that they dug up Michael Berryman of The Hills Have Eyes fame, and he can always be relied on to play some weirdo well.

Michael "Mike" Scottfield (Robert Michael Ryan) invites his girlfriend Karen (Tiffany) and his friends Matt (George Stults), Jerry (James Kyson-Lee), Samantha (Danielle De Luca) and Megan (Penny Drake) to travel to Sierra, Nevada, to spend the weekend in his cottage in the top of the mountain. When they stop in a bar, the strange Seymour (Michael Berryman) advises that the top of the mountain is not a safe place, and Mike explains to his friends that in 1846, a group of travelers was trapped for months in the mountain while traveling to California. They go insane with the starvation, and without any food, they start killing each other to eat. The episode was known as the Donner massacre.

While driving a snowmobile, Jerry sees a ghost girl that advises him that the place is not safe. The six friends are surprised by the severe snow and are trapped in the cabin. When they go to the shed to start the generator, they find the body of the caretaker Lyle (John Dobroth) lying on the snow. Sooner Jerry sees other eerie creatures wandering around the cabin. When Matt learns that Jerry is under the medication of the antipsychotic Seraquin, they fear that Jerry may be driving crazy.

"Necrosis" is a low-budget psychological horror movie that uses the idea of "The Shinning" combined with "Evil Dead", with a man that goes insane in an isolated cabin threatening the lives of his girlfriend and friends. The plot is slowly constructed and the greatest flaw is the lack of explanation why Mike brings his friends to a cabin that belongs to his family for many years in a season of severe snow and without supplies. He certainly should have an idea of the difficulties that they might have in that season. When I saw the IMDb rating, I was afraid that "Necrosis" would be a deceptive film; however, I realize that actually this film is underrated in IMDb. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Sangue na Neve" ("Blood on the Snow")

A group of friends head to the mountains for some wintry R&R but their chosen locale shares a bit of history with The Donner Party legend and from there it's pretty easy to see that there won't be a lot of rest or relaxation for anyone involved.

All the pieces are in place: A great legend to jump off from, secluded location, foreboding locals, elements of the supernatural, paranoia and a mix of characters at various stages in their lives ensuring potential conflict. While Necrosis incorporates all of those elements, unfortunately it doesn't succeed with any of them. Well, the location is nice and there are a handful of shots that reflect this.

As with most low-budget indie flicks, the technical shortcomings are plentiful; edits are either too choppy or linger unnecessarily and the sound too often feels looped. However, these faults could easily be forgiven were any other intended aspects accomplished. The films greatest failure is in its soulless facade. The dialogue is flat and stock and the actors do little to breathe any life into it. Not that they've much to work with at all but seriously, there are some professionals here turning out low-rent work. There are moments where you can almost see their thought process; ACTOR: "Recite dialogue, drink from cup, pause, frown, hit mark, speak again". There is nothing organic going on here and that is the most glaring issue of which there are many.

The female cast come out slightly ahead, not that it is saying much, but at least during the more intimate and dramatic moments Pop Star Tiffany (in her film debut), budding Scream Queen Penny Drake and to a lesser degree Danielle DeLuca come close to conveying genuine emotion. Funny (or is it sad?) when you realize their male counterparts are the more seasoned acting professionals. This includes wasted cameos from genre vets Michael Berryman and Mickey Jones.

In early interviews, director Jason Stephens tagged the formula for his film as "The Big Chill meets The Shining." This is somewhat telling of his approach because after watching Necrosis, one cannot help but wonder if Stephens has actually seen either film. Ultimately, Necrosis screams amateur from start to finish and it is unfortunate because there were mounds of potential to mine from.

I've recently been going through a whole stockpile of bad films, although this film I wouldn't necessarily call it bad but it wasn't good either, it had an okay premise and was able to draw my attention but it wasn't long when this film started feeling like the plot was going nowhere, I mean the pace was as if it didn't move at all it just floated around for 90 minutes.

The acting was average, although the characters weren't really developed and came across as cardboard cutouts and sometimes the cast looked more like they were just reciting a bunch of lines instead of really acting.

The plot itself actually did have potential but the execution is the main problem here, the pace like I said is as if it just floats around and feels like its never gonna go anywhere and neither one of the characters are likable and you never start to care for them because they are so under developed they might as well be rocks.

Honestly, the only good quality about this film is that it could just be the cure for insomnia because I've never been so bored for 90 minutes.