Staunton Hill

What a blatant act of misinformation to leave out that its "Cameron Romero's" movie. Honestly I don't care for his fathers movie either so its just a hopeless way of selling a movie anyway. But i hate when they sell movies on such points... most of the time you know they are bad. And "Staunton Hill is a bad movie too. The plot is a regurgitation of the never ending "Backwoods horror" theme with and inbred family, cannibalism and torture. You get your car full of kids in the woods, a fat dumb slayer... everything was there a million times before. The acting is often very bad. When the black guy watches his girlfriend being dismembered I was laughing.

What is done pretty well in the movie are the gore effects but I have rarely seen a movie where these felt as displaced as in "Staunton Hill". The movie is incredibly boring for most of the time. The male characters get killed in a most uninspired and uninteresting fashion while suddenly female characters get a boost in their on screen time when they squeeze in a 10 minute dismemberment scene which shows every detail. What the hell were they thinking... its all a cash off. Put a misleading name in front of the title, include some gratuitous violence and then just end the movie when you don't know where to go with it.

Ignore!

With "Staunton Hill" being a horror/thriller, and with my long-running love for the horror genre, then of course I took the chance to watch "Staunton Hill" when I got the chance. I didn't know anything about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it, but still decided to give it a go.

I managed to make it through a staggering 49 minutes of prolonged suffering as I watched "Staunton Hill". Then I just simply gave up out of sheer and profound boredom. Very little happened through the 49 minutes that I managed to endure, it was quite boring and uneventful.

There was some good enough scenes at the farmstead with some bloody and gore-filled visuals. But that hardly managed to lift up the less than mediocre overall result that the movie turned out to be.

The characters in the movie were not particularly interesting, and they were actually generic, one-dimensional and lacking personality and layers. As such, it felt like watching cardboard cut-outs of the characters waltz around on the screen.

I can in all honesty say that I have no intention of returning to "Staunton Hill" to see if the movie picks up or not. Because from what I saw from the 49 minutes deterred me permanently. If you enjoy horror movies, then there are far, far better choices readily available in the horror genre.

After breaking down on a less-traveled road, a group of young adults camp out at a farm in the late 1960s. But the property owners are a sinister lot, and their mentally challenged son has no qualms about doing some despicable things to them in exchange for some money.

This is my first encounter with director Cameron Romero, son of the legendary George Romero. I can't say it was the most impressive way he could have been introduced to me. While it had some decent moments, and what could have been an interesting subplot, the film came off as confusing, slow at times, and somewhat derivative.

I have seen the plot about a gas station attendant who leads a group to a dangerous house more than few times. I'm sad I had to see it again. There was some sort of story about skin grafting that went over my head... maybe because I found it hard to pay attention, or maybe because it fit in very loosely with the story. And the lack of nudity, while not a deal breaker in itself, condemned this "unrated" film to be not just boring but unredeemable for salacious horror fans.

Perhaps the biggest mystery is the film's time setting. If I had not read the box, I wouldn't have made the connection that this film was in the 1960s. Modern clothes were evident, and despite the family watching riot footage, it could have been an old program. Why the year matters to the story is beyond me. Sure, it eliminates the problem of ubiquitous cell phones... but what else? The film's one quote on the box has George Romero saying this is "as scary as it gets". If the only person you can get to endorse your film is your father, you may not be ready for the big leagues yet.

I guess that George Romero's son has seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and all of the cliché movies that followed them. The story, while understandable, is not well defined. It had a very slow beginning and then the meat of the story was vague. Some of the effects were good, the acting was good, but no matter how good you are, if your story is not solid, it all falls apart. The story is about some young people hitching a ride. They make friend with a guy that has stopped at a gas station to add water to his truck. He offers them a ride and of course the truck breaks down. They go to the nearest house they can find, but no one answers the door. Since it is starting to rain, they all decide to stay the night in the barn. When they wake up the next morning, the meet the family that owns the farm. Buddy is the simple minded adult male, then we have his mom, then we have her mom. They family is very welcoming and serves them breakfast. After breakfast they try to find a mode of transportation. Then the weak story starts.

Staunton Hill follows a group of young friends hitchhiking their way to a rally in D.C., but when their paths cross with an all too eager to help stranger, their lives take a horrible turn. Their journey to the home of the Stauntons, a crazed redneck family who's involved in a very grisly, and blood soaked trade.

The storyline itself is your basic cookie cutter Texas Chainsaw Massacre type deal. You have it all from the racist gas station owner, the mysterious stranger who just wants to lend a helping hand, the abandoned farmhouse, and your over the top religious crazed hillbillies, one of which who happens to be retarded to some degree. The film takes a very long time to get anywhere. The buildup seems like it will go on forever, which caused me to lose interest quite a few times along the way. The directors attempts to show you bonds and relationships between the main characters falls short, and most of the time seemed like needless filler, only there to extend the films length.

Now the movie's only high point its beautiful special effects make up. The gore in this film is amazing, and stays true to the old school latex and buckets of blood formula that I will always love. That's right ladies and gentlemen, no CGI gore to be found in this flick, just good old get your hands dirty make up.

But in the end, the gore isn't enough to save this movie. I have to say, going in, I had high hopes for this flick, as a very big fan of George's I was hoping to see his son breathe new life into the namesake. Let's hope his next film is better than this ultimately weak attempt at a movie that's been way over done since the success of rob zombie's House of 1000 corpses.

2/5 - Ritualistic The Liberal Dead http://liberaldead.blogspot.com