The Canyonlands

Why are we still writing movies accusing the only black characters in them of hallucinations and being absolutely brainless because they smoke weed? Why is this a false narrative that we are still, still in 2022 having to hear and see in movies? By about the fourth time someone accused this character of seeing things, hearing things, and even being a killer "cause he smokes weed" I turned it off. Bad writing. Bad bad writing. Bad acting. Bad story. Yuck.

What the hell happened to HORROR MOVIE'S these days, I mean what happened to the good ol horror film maker's like Wes Craven and Rob Zombie and not to mention Stephen King, what the hell these guys die off or something!

Good start, nice quadcopter landscape shots and some decent sound and music but that is where it ends...sadly!!!

This ain't no Deliverance.

When you create a stalk and slash horror these days you need a gimmick , a scary killer with menace; not some goofy old guy with black rings around his eyes and a bad pair of gnashers (Love the other reviewer's comment about Mick Fleetwood its spot on lol) and all we get is a series of lame pickaxe deaths; c'mon for goodness sake even these days you can produce Stan Winston/Rob Bottin style gore effects cheaply - They did it magnificently in the hard to watch scenes in Bone Tomahawk - That is the basics of the modern horror expectations these days.

As the other reviewer pointed out it "just plods along", nothing new to see, not scary at all but unintentionally funny at points, some of the acting is pretty poor and the script is woeful - these are the things that should be sorted before you start filming!

I see a lot of reviews that are going hard for the acting, which is indeed bad here but for me the real problem were the characters. When you have people written as shallow as possible, it is quite clear that the movie is going to fail because you can't do anything with them, except killing them on screen.

The same happens with our killer, he comes off paper thin, one drive, one feature and that is all. The story itself makes little sense, is far fetched, badly executed and you get to see the absolute worst decisions taken throughout the movie. Just when you want to ask yourself 'Are these people for real' you realize that no, they are not, just a bunch of stereotypes thrown together.

Except for the surroundings there is nothing redeeming about Canyonlands. Just go and watch The Hills Have Eyes. This is sadly an example of how not to make a horror.

Cheers!

It's definitely not a masterpiece, but it's a solid 4/10. Acting wasn't as bad as reviewers are saying. The social media girl was a bit annoying I will admit. Enjoyed it until the ending and after that it went a bit downhill. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but if you're just looking for a popcorn movie and nothing else to watch I'd say go for it.