Bad Reputation

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I really wanted to be in California this weekend to meet the director and cast and see this on the big screen. But, I have to be satisfied with my video autographed by the director Jim Hemphill in his first effort at a horror film.

The story was basic high school revenge after a rape by Aaron (Jared Anderson) after he drugs Michelle (Angelique Hennessy). She gets blamed and duct taped to a tree by Debbie (Dakota Ferreiro and her friend, while Wendy (Danielle Noble) just watches. The whole school is ragging her the next day as a slut, and the school counselor (T.W. Porrill) is more interested in getting in her pants than helping her.

Well, that takes care of all the great people who also autographed my copy of this movie.

Revenge is sweet, as she systematically does them one by one. I won't tell you whether or not she gets away. You'll have to watch it yourself for that.

What I will say is that the acting was good for a Grade B film, the dialog was superb and the direction was great. What impressed me the most was the quality of the tape. The lighting and sour were superb, and that is rare in this type of movie.

My only complaint: It is really a PG, not an R rated horror. They missed the boat there.

No pun or rep intended - not sure if that makes sense. And I am not only talking about my sentence there ... but also about the movie. Well I reckon the movie might make a bit more sense ... actually it is not tough to follow, rather the opposite, using tropes and cliches you are very likely to be familiar with.

Question is how cringe you think this is or rather if it is any good at all. The main character seems too gullible to be true - but we do know that people like that exist in real life. We also know that sexual assault is not uncommon either. Unfortunately - movies like this one may be able to highlight things like that. On the other hand you could also accuse it of exploiting that and making an entertaining (?) movie out of that ... well quality wise this is not worse than other efforts of the same kind ... you either love it or hate it ... and I would hope you understand I mean the revenge part of it and not the first despicable act ... no pun intended.

"Bad Repuation" is an over-ambitious but interesting hybrid of no-budget horror and after-school special. Most reviews cry "Carrie!", but I thought this was unique and provocative in its own right. Its main problem is the kill sequences. They're neat ideas, but everything is off-camera, likely due to budget constraints. The acting is decent and the dialogue bounces between witty and eyeroll-worthy. Overall, not a bad movie, and it gets kudos for not going the glossy teen-girl-bent-on-revenge horror route (I'm lookin' at you, "Tamara") and instead exploring sex double-standards and how truly horrible teenagers can be to each other.

Another movie to be avoided. Probably shot on DV, the sound and picture is pretty low quality, along with the unrealistic dialogue, the horrible "effects", plus the amateurish directing, acting and cinematography.

Maybe they were going for some kind of "realism", but it just doesn't work. The script is tedious and boring, the scenes go on forever, the editing (and everything else really) is just so predictable that you'll end up getting thoroughly annoyed and wanting to turn it off. I know I did.

I'm sure they had great fun making this movie, but it's just not worth anyone's time actually watching it. It's not kitch, it's not camp - and if you want to see a good movie about revenge, check out "May" instead.

Horrible movie, just plain AWFUL. This movie sucks almost worse than Titanic. Almost. Not only is the acting bad, but you quickly grow to hate the actors as well, all of them. The cinematography is also absurdly bad. The worst of all is probably the sound. Obviously the idiots that made this crap have idea what in the sam hill they're doing. The movie sounds awful! Every single person that appears in this film is obviously an idiot in real life too. If you were to find the stupidest people you could find, then hit them in the head with a hammer 20 times, then you would get close to how stupid the people are in this movie. This movie sucked a lot in many ways. Really, really, really bad and awful.