"1313: Night of the Widow" is indeed a horror movie. Well, correction, a horror of a movie. This was really painful to watch.
The story is about young millionaire who is dead who has summoned his six friends to his house for an unorthodox reading of his last living will. The will is executed by a mysterious stranger, and somewhere in the house is the departed's widow walking about, a woman that no one is familiar with. The six people are given the millionaire's entire fortune if they can find the key that is hidden somewhere in the house. But there is a secret to be unveiled.
The good things about "1313: Night of the Widow" is that it is shot in daylight, so everything is bright and clear, whereas many horror movies tend to be at night, and more than often shrouding everything is shadow so that not much can be seen. Thumbs up for a daylight horror movie. Plus the house itself was just fabulous, super big and the decorations inside was just marvelous. And there was a good enough production value to the movie, it was nicely filmed and the overall impression of the production worked well in favor of the movie.
Then the bad things. Well, lets start with the obvious, shall we? The story itself. Oh wow, how utterly boring and uninspiring could it get. There was no motivation or drive behind it, just a dull and mindless experience. And the killer being a woman walking around dressed in a black gown for a funeral with a hat and a widow's veil? Couldn't help but laugh at that, nothing scary about it at all. But the worst thing about the movie was perhaps the scenes where a young man was in the shower scrubbing his torso repeatedly and then we would alternately be shown scenes of the woman in black walking aimlessly around with a knife in her hand, then back to the shower scene, repeat and repeat and repeat. That was just a waste of film and time, not to mention a senseless scene in itself. And throughout the movie, when you see this woman in black, there is a really annoying thumping heart sound accompanying her scenes. It was alright for the first couple of seconds, but it quickly became a distraction and a nuisance. And the ending of the movie was rather predictable and laughable.
I personally didn't get the title of the movie "1313: Night of the Widow", as it all took place at day.
And what was up with director David DeCoteau's fetish for showing off the naked torso of guys so often in the movie?
As for the acting, well the people cast for the roles actually did good enough jobs, though it was nothing memorable. And they were weighed down by the incredibly stupid plot line.
"1313: Night of the Widow" is one of the most boring and uneventful horror movies that I have had to suffer through. And I used the word horror sarcastically here, because there was nothing scary or even remotely horror-like about it, aside from the storyline and thumping heart sounds.
