Bastard

...that does not work even for a second. The last 20 minutes are the best, if you can say so, but the first hour is unbearably boring. Terrible cast and direction. Avoid a waste of time!

A creepy cover. One of the best concepts for any low-budget film seen recently in my "low-budget film quest for curiosity sake". An appreciation for the film's genre. Reasons enough to check this out and had real potential to be somewhat of a guilty pleasure.

The good news is that the concept for this is nowhere near as wasted as those for other films seen recently, having seen my fair share of frustrating wastes of good potential with failed execution. Compared to other recent viewings for low-budget films, this is oddly enough, despite the lacklustre rating, one of the better and more watchable ones. Not a great, or even good, film by any stretch. Not a terrible one either, it left me frustrated at how it didn't do enough with what potential it showed but at least it didn't leave me angry.

It starts off well, with a startling, effectively creepy opening that is one of the film's most inventive scenes. There is effort at making some of the characters interesting, parts are creepy and suspenseful in the first part and there are a few brutally inventive kills.

My intelligence at least wasn't insulted anywhere near as much as other recent film viewings, it didn't get excessively stupid and the location was an atmospheric one.

Sadly not matched in the less than slick way it was shot and edited. It is unfortunate that the promising start and what made it so isn't maintained in the rest of the film. The further the film got, the suspense dissipated and the sillier, duller and more predictable it became. Too many of the kills are too ordinary, no matter the over-the-top gratuitous in quality and excessive in quantity gore and violence was.

Things did start to become confusing in the latter stages and not all the characters worked, with not enough done to make one care for them. The male serial killer was interesting, however the female one did irritate and the cop was basically pointless melodrama. There is nothing natural about the dialogue or interactions, insipid stuff awkwardly delivered. The acting is at best lacklustre, while the killer is far too obvious and the ending is so incoherent and what the heck that it brings the film down significantly.

Overall, started off well but goes downhill too early and never recovers. 4/10 Bethany Cox

2015 was not the best year for horror films. Hollywood gave us so much crap, and they added to the brain numbing with remakes, sequels, prequels and family friendly trash. Leave it to After Dark and the small little films that always seem to come out of left field and deliver something that gets us excited and talking. Bastard is a film that will win over most horror fans almost instantly. Rebekah Kennedy gives us the May for the 2015 age. She really showcases some serious talent. This film is bloody, fun and unpredictable. Films are meant to be fun and manipulate fear in you, this film is something really special that works on every level. This is what horror has been needing for so long. What a great film. Seek it out and enjoy it.

Gave this film a chance and was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. With a budget of $87,000 it was a lot better than many films with 100 times that budget. When you consider the amount of money some Hollywood films cost I bet the makers of Bastard must feel pretty proud of themselves. IMDb hasn't listed how much return was made on the expenditure but I hope they made a profit. I wont go into the details for fear of spoiling it for anybody reading this save to say there are plot twists and jumpy scares but also with an intelligence in the story. So give it a chance as I did. If you don't like it then at least its only 80 minutes long and if you do like it then good :-)

This movie IS what you want out of a horror film. Personally, I love discovering films that could one day be a horror cult classic. This is one of them!

There's twists, scares, gore, sex, comedy and a little bit of irony all rolled into one. As someone who has seen more than my fair of BAD horror movies, I can definitely tell you this is NOT one of them. I walked away very satisfied and would even sit through it again with friends. That's the kind of feeling you should want walk away from a movie with.

The acting is good, really good. The direction was on point. The death scenes were quick, but in a TCM kind of quick that made them seem a little more realistic. The characters also aren't all one dimensional teens that you root for to get killed off.

I just say, give the film a chance. It's not a masterpiece, but it isn't meant to be. It's meant to be fun (think Sleepaway Camp, kind of fun) and if your idea of fun is watching a good horror that can poke fun at itself with you, then you have found your afternoon flick!