That's a Wrap

As a fan of all of Marcel Walz' films to date, and a massive fan of Italian "Giallo" film in particular, I was anxiously looking forward to his newest film, "That's a Wrap", and it definitely did not disappoint! Full of sly in-jokes to the Hollywood behind the scenes process, subtle jabs at current culture, and of course a loving homage to Giallo and Dario Argento films in particular, this film is a real treat! Featuring the always fabulous Sarah French, along with a number of modern indie-horror folks and 90's late-nite stars and even a Tom Savini cameo, along with some clever kills and a cool killer-design, this movie should not be Missed!

Oh my. Where to begin.

Acting. Anyone - and i mean any and every single one - credited in this movie should be shunned by cinema in general. There is not even a single good actor or actress - or an acting moment.

Dialogue. Randomly pick words from a dictionary. Do not even put them in order. They will sound better.

Plot. Cliche after cliche after cliche

Twists. The director obviously believes there is one at the end. But you already guess the ending by minute 7.

No pun intended - there are quite a few people that you may be able to recognize in the movie. Some only in it for a few seconds. There is also a Psycho homage and I'm quite sure a lot more, if I cared enough to pay attention - same goes for you of course.

That said, the movie is not making any secret what it is about. This is a slasher, the director does not care about your feelings or if you want quality - well you got the wrong movie, if that is the case. This is delightful when taken for the low budget slasher fest that it is ... that said: you really have to dig it and you really have to suspend your disbelief. It doesn't even matter what the reveal is ... I already forgot. But the blood fest is ... immense! Which also means you can't be easily offended ... but that's a given with Walz movies I reckon ...

Seems to be a lot of overly positive reviews for this movie early on, i'm guessing it's probably by the cast and crew trying to pad the ratings here. I get what the Director was going for with the lighting, but when every single scene is lit with the same colors, it starts to lose it's effectiveness very quickly. There were a couple decent kills, and there is no shortage of nudity. Those two things alone will more than satisfy a section of the horror fan community, but those looking for a coherent story...need to look elsewhere.

That brings me to the acting. Not terrible, but no real standouts here, maybe Sarah French. Sarah has been at this a long time and seems to be stuck in a rut of ultra low budget movies, that's not necessarily a bad thing...just expected her to break through to more mainstream movies by now.

Overall this is passable for a background movie while you clean the kitchen maybe.

Oh yeah, that open was about 7 or 8 mins too long.

This production right here looks a little cheap to be honest, thus I do not believe it had much of a budget. Considering the kill shots, it definitely tried to rely more on creativity, but sadly they went with the shaky camera.

Now it does look like That's a Wrap decided to make fun of the slasher genre, forgetting that Scream made an entire franchise that is still going strong even today, with this exact theme. So if you don't have the budget, if you are not coming off as original, why choose this path?

Anyway, Scream was fun, complex and unpredictable. This one has close to no plot, you can describe it in one sentence, but that would mean spoiling it.

Anyway it's just about a killer with a mask, killing people, while sometimes remembering that it wants to spoof the genre.

All in all, bad dialogue, bad characters, weak acting, no development of whatsover, just scene after scene with a new weak kill.

I won't recommend it sadly, it fails as a horror comedy or plain slasher.

Cheers!