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rhunter377's rating
This movie is well written and builds to a ferocious climax. Everything about the movie enhances its central illusion: that we are looking at found footage that describes the turning of a vampire. I have never seen "found-footage" video used to better effect. The actors were unknown to me and thoroughly effective in their roles. The SFX are used with laudable economy, and the found-footage look only makes them more shocking. Be sure to watch all the way to the end.
First let me note that I've been a horror movie fan since age 5, and I've seen thousands of films in the genre. I would stack this one up against almost any I've seen, including such classics as "the Texas Chainsaw Massacre" by Toby Hooper and David Cronenberg's "Videodrome"; it's truly a unique, thoughtful, and disturbing film.
The film effortlessly weaves the ordinary horror of a stalker movie with the extraordinary horror of the supernatural. The director knows when to pile on the gore and when to hold discreetly back; the big fright scenes hit me with a physical impact that I haven't experienced in any film in a long time. The actors were completely unfamiliar to me--which made it easier to see and accept them as the characters, as opposed to their real selves, of course--and thoroughly convincing in their roles. Most horror movies rely on bad decisions by the characters--often inexplicably bad decisions--to drive the plot; not this one. The characters behave logically given their beliefs, and the plot is driven by their increasingly acute understanding of their situation, not by the kind of artificial idiocy that screenwriters turn to when they can't figure out a good reason why any sane person would open the door to the monster's lair.
Finally, the film is constructed so as to keep the audience guessing about what's real and what's not for almost its entire length. It's rare that a director can pull the audience's strings so effectively, over and over, without giving anything away. The logic of the film is satisfying, and it builds to a remarkably powerful conclusion that is both surprising and entirely earned.
I repeat that this overlooked movie is one of the best I've seen in the genre. If your taste in horror movies runs to none, or to the excuses for nonstop on screen dismemberment that many modern horror films embody, you may find it not to your liking. If you want a film that combines visceral horror with mystery and a highly original concept, this is for you.
The film effortlessly weaves the ordinary horror of a stalker movie with the extraordinary horror of the supernatural. The director knows when to pile on the gore and when to hold discreetly back; the big fright scenes hit me with a physical impact that I haven't experienced in any film in a long time. The actors were completely unfamiliar to me--which made it easier to see and accept them as the characters, as opposed to their real selves, of course--and thoroughly convincing in their roles. Most horror movies rely on bad decisions by the characters--often inexplicably bad decisions--to drive the plot; not this one. The characters behave logically given their beliefs, and the plot is driven by their increasingly acute understanding of their situation, not by the kind of artificial idiocy that screenwriters turn to when they can't figure out a good reason why any sane person would open the door to the monster's lair.
Finally, the film is constructed so as to keep the audience guessing about what's real and what's not for almost its entire length. It's rare that a director can pull the audience's strings so effectively, over and over, without giving anything away. The logic of the film is satisfying, and it builds to a remarkably powerful conclusion that is both surprising and entirely earned.
I repeat that this overlooked movie is one of the best I've seen in the genre. If your taste in horror movies runs to none, or to the excuses for nonstop on screen dismemberment that many modern horror films embody, you may find it not to your liking. If you want a film that combines visceral horror with mystery and a highly original concept, this is for you.
This horror movie, set among teenage boys and girls in a California town, is profoundly disturbing and effective. It offers a bleak picture of "normal" high school life, which it depicts as dominated by the sexual fantasies of teenage boys and by violence between socio-economic cliques. The film's violence is frequent and brutal, its sexuality (which is based in the idea of zombies as sex slaves) is graphic, repulsive, and omnipresent, and its characters are recognizably real and brilliantly acted.
The film begins with the discovery by two social outcast teenage boys of a naked girl who is chained to a table in the basement of an abandoned hospital for the mentally ill. The setting is grim, grimy, and sordid, perfect for a horror movie; we understand immediately that nothing good can happen in this place. One of the boys wants to release the girl; the other wants to take advantage of her captivity to satisfy his sexual fantasies. The latter--a budding sociopath named JT, played to frightening perfection by Noah Segan, who like the other actors was unknown to me before I saw this film--gets his way. Soon JT, in the process of beating the girl, discovers that she can't be killed--that she is in fact already dead, though somehow animated. He quickly recognizes the opportunities these circumstances offer for sexual exploitation, and the movie unfolds relentlessly from that point to its violent conclusion, whose logic is revealed in JT's comment that this is as good as he and his friends can ever hope for.
What makes the film memorable is not its violence, nor its sexuality, both of which are found aplenty in most modern horror movies. The film's impact results from its unblinking presentation of the everyday social and economic violence that is high school life in America. It's like S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" retold as a zombie movie.
Every performance in the movie is pitch-perfect, and the script and cinematography are on target from start to finish. Watch for the scene in which two middle class jock bullies encounter JT and his zombie sex slave in the abandoned hospital basement; they've beaten up plenty of people in their time, but both of them, even armed with a baseball bat, are scared to death of JT. And with reason.
In short, this movie is a genre masterpiece, and well worth seeing for anyone who thinks they've seen it all where zombie movies, let alone horror movies, are concerned.
The film begins with the discovery by two social outcast teenage boys of a naked girl who is chained to a table in the basement of an abandoned hospital for the mentally ill. The setting is grim, grimy, and sordid, perfect for a horror movie; we understand immediately that nothing good can happen in this place. One of the boys wants to release the girl; the other wants to take advantage of her captivity to satisfy his sexual fantasies. The latter--a budding sociopath named JT, played to frightening perfection by Noah Segan, who like the other actors was unknown to me before I saw this film--gets his way. Soon JT, in the process of beating the girl, discovers that she can't be killed--that she is in fact already dead, though somehow animated. He quickly recognizes the opportunities these circumstances offer for sexual exploitation, and the movie unfolds relentlessly from that point to its violent conclusion, whose logic is revealed in JT's comment that this is as good as he and his friends can ever hope for.
What makes the film memorable is not its violence, nor its sexuality, both of which are found aplenty in most modern horror movies. The film's impact results from its unblinking presentation of the everyday social and economic violence that is high school life in America. It's like S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" retold as a zombie movie.
Every performance in the movie is pitch-perfect, and the script and cinematography are on target from start to finish. Watch for the scene in which two middle class jock bullies encounter JT and his zombie sex slave in the abandoned hospital basement; they've beaten up plenty of people in their time, but both of them, even armed with a baseball bat, are scared to death of JT. And with reason.
In short, this movie is a genre masterpiece, and well worth seeing for anyone who thinks they've seen it all where zombie movies, let alone horror movies, are concerned.