Death on Demand

Three college-aged couples are promised $5000 if they spend the night in a supposedly haunted house, where years earlier, a renowned mountain climber murdered his entirely family on Thanksgiving Day before doing himself in. The catch--their entire night will be broadcast over the Internet via strategically placed webcams. The group's first decided upon task is to hold a seance, which results in the spirit of the deranged mountain killer materializing, and he is none to happy about the intruders in his home. Armed with his trusty mountain climbing hook, be begins stalking and slaughtering the teens one by one.

"Death on Demand" certainly wins no points for originality, as fans of the genre will immediately be reminded of "Halloween: Resurrection," as well as some obscure entries into the genre such as "Dead Dudes in the House," and the more recently DTV release "The Slaughter." Still, that is not this films worst problem, as many slasher films have clichéd plots that they are able to rise above. First, the acting is atrocious, and though there are a few attractive cast members, none of the can act to save their lives. There is one particular character-Brad-who is great to look at, particularly during his sex scene, but is one of the most annoying characters I have ever witnessed in a horror film and the actor portraying him is...well.....not very good. In fact, there isn't one likable character in the whole movie, so when they do begin to die, we could care less. The whole premise of the film is based on the fact that the events are being broadcast over the web, but when the killing starts, that whole plot element is forgotten. Nobody anywhere watching the webcast apparently views the teens being mercily butchered, but only minutes before could see the sex that seems to happen every five minutes in the film. Basically, clichés and plot abound the plot and not an original bone is to be found in this film, except perhaps the weapon of choice of the killer. Even the ending, which the writer probably thought was oh-so-clever, has been done before in many films (see the ones I mentioned above) and could be seen coming two miles away.

The film does look good, though. It doesn't have the cheap look that so many DTV's have and the lighting is actually adequate during the dark scenes. Also, the gore effects are pretty decent and there are some nasty kills that would have been much more effective had the character being murdered been likable. Once the seance is held, the pace of the film picks up. I wasn't bored, per se, and actually smiled a few times because, despite its countless flaws, the film does manage some flashes of good film-making that reminded me of the glory days of the 80' slasher flicks. Bottom line is I didn't hate this film. Sure, I cringed at the acting and dialogue a few times, but when it was over and done with, I wasn't angry or upset or felt that I wasted my time. I have come to not over-estimate expectations of a DTV slasher and this one had a certain charm, albeit its cheesiness, and I definitely don't count it among the worst I have seen recently.

My Grade: C-

Overall, not a bad movie for this type of bad movie, it is watchable, and laughably bad. Basically this is a rip-off of 'Halloween: Resurrection' But its pretty much as entertaining or better, with a lot less budget and worse acting (which makes it entertaining). This is a perfect example of an entertaingly bad movie.

Some of the acting was actually OK, but the two football players - "Biff" and "Brad" were awesomely horribly bad. Especially the erectile dysfuntion guy - I guess he was supposed to be closeted Gay or something but he was really, really, really horrible, easily in the top 10 worst actors I've seen. Could have used more nudity.

If you have to watch one horror movie with a ghost-killer donning a pair of mountain climbing boots with spikes and brandishing a pick-ax as a weapon this season, this will have to suffice for now. It's about a guy who, after being a successful mountain climber, came home and in a daze killed his wife and children, then hung himself. So, what better way to celebrate Halloween years later than to have a internet-camera view of every room during one night when a bunch of teens have sex in nearly every room for paying customers on0line to see (after, you know, conjuring the dead back to life in a wedgie-board set-up)? Then, of course, wackiness ensues! And by that I mean there's lots of grisly murders, and a lot of people doing stupid things and getting themselves killed.

Now, as far as direction goes, Adam Matalon isn't any genius but he's done a few scenes here that are somewhat horrific visually (even the opening scenes, tinted puke-green, have a good effect on the mood), and as he treads very familiar ground (from various haunted house movies to Halloween Resurrection just to name one obvious title) he makes things dumb, trashy, sleazy, and sometimes funny in the most garish ways imaginable. The cast, mostly first-timers and indie players like Broome, Ciccarelle, Christal, Falcone, Folan, Greer, do what little they can (which, actually, isn't very much with such paltry writing and invisible-paper-thin characters), and the filmmakers rely on lots of 'GOTCHA!' suspense and violence that goes to as far extremes as a direct-to-DVD can try to go.

Despite an ending that is (somewhat) promisingly bleak, and the so-real-it's-real turn by Krista Grotte as guest porn star Kristy Luv (who may be a real porn star, I'm not sure, definitely looks the part), it's all second-rate at best. While not really a Z-grade offering, and with a couple of moments of inspiration and cheap thrills and laughs, it's mostly lame and sour work.

I am second guessing myself over my "1" rating because I usually reserve 1 for extremely bad movies but I couldn't give this higher than a 1.5. The actors and actresses were all very unattractive which sucked because there was a lot of sexual situations. The actual acting was horrendous. You were always aware that it's just a movie. You never get lost into it like you do a great movie. The special FX were hit and miss but overall OK for a small budget picture. Not quite enough of it to earn the "strong violence/gore" moniker though. The ending was so predictable that it secured a "1" vote. Had the ending been good it would have gotten a "2". Another thing that bugged me was that the premise of the movie was this group of people stuck in a house (which may or may not be haunted) all the while being recorded and streamed on a website. The group had to solve certain clues so it was like a scavenger hunt. It made no sense because it was just a 2 story house. They acted like it was a huge compound. Another huge plot hole was the fact that every time some action happened it was never picked up on the web cam. If the whole premise of the project was to video these people, it seems like they would go to great lengths to ensure that there would be no "blind spots".

Hey don't take my word for it though. Pick up a copy and decide for yourself. Make sure to come back here and review it because it's pretty likely that as soon as I post this, we'll get a few positive ghost reviews by people that worked on it.

Sorry guys, I didn't mean to rag your movie but it wasn't any good.

This movie was terrible. Absolutely horrible. The acting was some of the worst I've ever seen and the movie seemed to simply revolve around sex. A few of the violent scenes were well done, but the actors were too horrible to pull them off. The outtakes were honestly the best thing on the DVD.

Not to mention the fact that I am a REAL climber and realized that he had some ice axes, some crampons, and a lot of TRAD CLIMBING gear that you would die trying to use in pure ice climbing. Mixed climbing, acceptable, but the movie called him an ice climber (which is also different from alpining, which is what hiking in the Himalayas would be).

/Gear rant. The movie itself sucked. Don't buy it, don't rent it, don't spend any money or time at all on it. Horrible♦