After getting drugged at a horror convention's after-party, a group of friends awake to find themselves forced to play a live-action role-playing-game based on a famous horror movie and must utilize their knowledge to get away alive.
This turned out to be far better than it really should've been. Perhaps the film's greatest virtue amongst itself is the clever and highly original storyline present as the film does boast a pretty unique gimmick of trapping horror fans in a retelling of a classic horror film and forcing them to recreate the events of the film for their own amusement, and it does a fairly close job of recreating it throughout. The clothes, the setting, the general look and feel of the whole effort as well as the use of piping in the actual movie on a closed-circuit TV to rattle them even more makes for a rather unique and clever style here that really helps this one develop into more than just a loving homage and a chance to re-work some of the original bits and gags from the movie. This turns it into a rather fun and original way to do the homage in a different way and is certainly a very new concept that's employed here. That this allows the film to really up the gore and action content that was missing from the originally-aped film makes this even more fun with tons of splatter and gore that was missing from the original as well as bringing about some rather tense confrontations that arise here from the different encounters here. While the film does dip somewhat once we learn the truth about what's going on within as the twist about the intent behind the drugging does seem quite far-fetched there's still a couple fine chases in the later half to make for a rather fine mix of chills, blood-splatter and cheese. There's one rather glaring problem here, beyond the fact that this just seems like an excuse to remake the original for their own purpose, in that for such a landmark and legendary film they run through only one person has seen it among the group, which makes no sense at all and really stretches believability here with something that influential and massive. It would've been more fun had everyone been aware and fans so that they all have the ability to outwit the killers that way, yet here it's just the one and it really seems like a stretch. Otherwise, this one is a lot of fun.
Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.
