As other reviewers have already pointed out, this is a low budget movie - the listed budget is $100,000 I've seen movies with a tenth of that budget and similar production value. With the grainy digital video, bad or non-existent lighting, bad acting, muddled sound, and cheap-looking FX in the first twenty minutes I figured I was in for yet another microbudget waste of time.
Then, an amazing thing happens, and the movie suddenly finds its stride about 1/2 way through. Right as I was getting ready to write this one off, the focus shifts from the melodramatic coeds (there's one giggle-inducing scene where the main girl shows her ex boyfriend the shirt of his that she's kept - LAME!) to the lonely ones - a group of creatures that live in the forest. The flat film-making suddenly steps up as the victims start getting picked off and from here on out there's actually some good camera-work throughout the rest of the movie. Even the performances and FX pick up, and as someone who has seen a lot of shot-on-video productions, I can safely say that the second half of the film carries it above most of its peers.
I won't ruin anything for the viewer, but there is a very well-built story here that is worth checking out. What I thought was a boring and drawn-out setup (honestly, it could have been trimmed down here and there) actually ties in to the film's payoff and unlike some other movies I've seen, the movie's loose ends are actually tied up very well in the finale. There are some twists I didn't see coming, and some of the characters' actions surprised me as well.
Unfortunately, the very good story is hampered by the low budget pitfalls described earlier. Also, one of fights between a lonely one and victim plays out like a lame backyard wrestling production, and some of the kills should have been more graphic. The main thing is that the monsters in the film aren't much more than people in fake blood and rubber teeth. I know that the movie was concentrating more on the creatures' personality and stuff (a novel concept for today's horror movies), but this would have been a better movie if the makeup effects had lived up to the descriptions we get of the monsters during the setups.
I wish the filmmakers would have tried to get a bigger budget before filming this because the potential is there for a really good movie, but it seems like they bit off more than they could chew with this one. Still, the story alone is worth the price of a rental so long as the viewer can get past the production value. One of the websites said this movie hits more often than it misses, and I agree there.
