Reviews

'Feral' is an excellent example of a low budget horror movie done wrong. We've recently had some low budget gems in the horror genre (for example 'Starry Eyes'), but it's movies like this that make the genre take a step back, especially considering this is another 'college kids go to a remote cabin in the woods and die' kind of horror movie, which should've died after 'The Cabin In The Woods' proved that these sorts of horror movies have overstayed their welcome in cinema.

This all brings me to the question: why was this movie made?

I still ask myself that now having watched it but this movie shouldn't have been made at all, especially considering it has basically been made already. The Australian horror film 'Primal' came out in 2009 and has an almost identical plot to this movie. This wouldn't be as big of an issue as it is if that movie wasn't so godawful, and unfortunately 'Feral' is even worse in its execution.

Firstly, despite the plot being unoriginal and generic, it still had the potential to provide for an entertaining movie, but this film is sleep-inducingly dull. This is mostly due to the movie's terrible pacing, with characters being killed off 10 minutes into the movie (bearing in mind that there's only 6 of the college kids to begin with), meaning that the remaining 80 minutes goes by incredibly slowly as we wait for the remaining college kids to die. This is made worse due to the boring characters presented to us, who have no development, no personality and apparently no intelligence as they constantly make the dumbest decisions that no real human would ever make unless they'd been lobotomised.

The quality of the acting doesn't make the film worthwhile either. I had some expectations for the performances considering that Olivia Luccardi was playing one of the main characters (having given a solid performance in 'It Follows'), but even she gives a bad performance in this movie. Scout Taylor-Compton easily gives the best performance but that's hardly saying much considering the performances from her costars. The worst performance in this movie easily goes to Lew Temple as the movie's antagonist, who sleepwalks through his role with the most monotone delivery of every single line that he speaks. It's clear that he only starred in this borefest for his paycheck.

Taking into account that this is a horror movie as well, I might as well talk about how scary the film is: it isn't. There's absolutely no tension because of how dull the movie is, and the creatures themselves look like poor imitations of the creatures from 'The Descent' (go and watch that instead), but it's not like that matters anyway because the lighting is so bad that you'll barely see the creatures at all.

This movie was doomed from the start. An overdone concept with weak actors and a terrible director could have never made for a good movie, let alone a low budget horror movie like this. Just watch something else, because this movie is a complete waste of time.

I am a huge fan of horror movies and i'm getting more and more into horror TV shows. I was really impressed with shows like Helix and The River, and having heard that Guillermo Del Toro was contributing to this I seriously amped for this. But unfortunately, I was disappointed.

The first episode starts out strongly and I was engaged the whole way through the quarantine sequence. But I felt that it lost momentum after that. It was still decent, but it could have been so much more. I was scared, but after watching quarantine shows like Helix I didn't think that this matched it. But the cast is good and do a decent job with their roles.

But what's bad about this show is that it doesn't have an identity. One minute it's a quarantine show, then some sort of demon gets involved, then there's some crime and to top it all off there are zombies. It doesn't know what it wants to be as a show. By the end of the first episode I was scratching my head because there was so much going on that I wasn't really sure what was happening. This kind of agitated me.

I'm still eager to watch the rest of the series to see what happens but I definitely would like the show to be one thing rather than throwing in all these different plot points.

Before viewing this movie, I was aware that it was a made for TV shark movie. I was aware of how bad it was going to be, and it reached my expectations.

So basically the movie is this: Lou Diamond Philips, Kristy Swanson, Coolio, a random shark in a river and criminal treasure hunters. That's it. There isn't any explanation of why there was a shark in a river (which is scientifically impossible), there wasn't anything. The acting could have been done better with chimps as the lead roles, the shark is just a big rubber nothing, and criminal treasure hunters? Really? That's just making the movie even more ridiculous than it already is. They add nothing extra to the nonsensical story, they're basically there to be shark bait.

To top off this mess of a movie, it's also predictable and horribly clichéd. If I'd known who the characters were before watching the movie then I could probably guess who dies and in what order. This is a movie that is trying to be Jaws but ends up being more like Tintoera.

To put it bluntly, don't watch this movie.

Why, Why, Why was this movie made? The answer simply is: Hollywood want to remake everything. But why do they have to make them sooo bad? That's a question that no one knows the answer to. This remake of the 1960 William Castle film was completely unnecessary and is a joke of a movie, and is as bad as other remakes like 'Prom Night' and 'The Fog'.

The plot: When their wealthy grandfather dies, the Kriticos family inherit his house. They are amazed by it, as it has transparent walls with cryptic writing on them. There are also 12 ghosts contained in the basement that are inadvertently unleashed and terrorise them and their nanny. The plot is… weird. It had some pretty confusing elements to it, like why a 13th ghost was needed in the first place, and I didn't really like the idea of only being able to see the ghosts through a pair of special glasses. But I can't really blame the screenwriters of this trash, as this did originally come from William Castle.

The acting/characters: This whole section is what made the movie excruciating to watch. The acting was completely bland, and it was all really hammy. There's also no character development whatsoever. But the worst thing about this movie is the casting. It has to be the worst casting in movie history. I mean, Matthew Lillard in a somewhat serious role? You have to be kidding me. Also, Rah Digga as the nanny comes off as someone from a Tyler Perry movie, making sassy comments and trying to generate humour, except it's not funny at all. On top of all that, the script sucked too.

The scares/special effects: This movie is not scary. It seems like the director thought it was more of a comedy, so it replaced what could've been scares with unfunny dialogue. I thought that some of the gore effects were OK, but the CGI looked cheap and unrealistic. The make up and pure concept for some of the ghosts was terrible. For example, one ghost wears some sort of metal helmet that's split open where the face is. It looked so much like fondant that I was laughing. One of the ghosts was also some sort of fat adult 'baby' which had me in hysterics. It looked hilarious! I wasn't surprised to see that the ghosts were done by the same people who did the make up for 'Ghosts Of Mars', as they looked pretty much the same. The set was the only redeemable thing in this movie. It was pretty much perfect and definitely gave the movie a more stylish feel.

Summary: The set was the only thing that impressed me in this movie. The casting and acting sucked, the special effects sucked and this movie in general sucked. Don't watch it!

"How bad can this movie be?" I said whilst scrolling through the TV channels. I'd heard awful reviews of this so I decided to see how bad it was for myself. I can honestly say that it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my whole life. And boy, do I know bad movies.

The plot: The quiet seaside town of Antonio bay is preparing to unveil the statue of the four people who founded the town. But things go horribly wrong when the ghosts of lepers murdered by the four men invade the town in a mysterious fog and begin killing everyone. I can't say much about the plot of this one as it IS a remake, but what I truly hated was that they ALTERED THE ENDING. I can't stress about how much I hate this after watching the remake of 'Planet of the apes', and the ending for this mess was rushed and nonsensical.

The acting/characters: I have never seen such poor acting in a movie before. The casting director should be fired. Or are the actors just struggling to put up with such a lousy script? It's hard to tell. I'm actually surprised at how the actors got any work after this. The two leads have no chemistry whatsoever and all of the actors are practically expressionless. Seriously, kids in kindergarten could do better than this. As for the characters, they were one-dimensional and underdeveloped.

The scares/special effects: There are no scares at all in this movie. It's all just soooo predictable! It's so obvious who's going to die from the characters stupid actions and the kills are unsatisfactory. The CGI is awful even for a Syfy movie, and that's saying something. Not to mention the ghosts themselves. Ugh! What made me so angry about the ghosts is that they were TRANSPARENT. I haven't seen transparent ghosts since 'Scooby Doo'! They made the movie even more unappealing and made it look cheaper furthermore.

In conclusion, this movie is a complete waste of time and I would not recommend this movie to ANYONE. I completely regret watching this movie, as well as acknowledge its existence.

'Cloverfield' has to be one of my favourite movies ever. It's scary, clever and ever so enjoyable. The plot follows a group of party goers that have to fight for survival when a giant alien monster attacks New York. Even though sometimes I think "haven't I heard this before?", I was seriously pleased with my movie find. Just to warn people, this is a found footage movie, meaning that it was taken entirely from a cameras point of view, but you don't feel sick watching it, unlike some other movies. The alien itself in the movie is incredibly animated and seriously provides a sense of terror and dread throughout the movie. The whole cast deliver extremely realistic performances and I' surprised that some of them hadn't had much work since this movie was released. The script is realistic, the special effects are great, the actors are completely and utterly convincing- what can I say? In my eyes, this movie is the next 'Godzilla'.

I'm a fan of alien invasion movies, so when this was released in theatres in the UK I was really excited. At the time, I was too young to watch it in theatres, so I had to wait two years for it to come on TV. I couldn't help but be disappointed. The first half of the movie was great. The CGI was impressive, convincing acting and I was on the edge of my seat. I got bored in the second half. The fun was ruined when the army came in to deal with things, and by the time they'd come, every interesting character was dead and it simply wasn't exciting enough for me. Plus, the directors had decided to not focus on the characters, which were the most interesting things in the movie. Don't get me started on the ending… long story short it was completely ludicrous. When it could have been a neat sci-fi ending, it turned into an ugly 'Transformers' hybrid with the aliens eating peoples brains! Seriously? It was like the writers had run out of ideas. I've watched this movie twice more since then and i've got the same reaction, which is probably a good thing. Even though this movie wasn't hugely satisfying, I'm still looking forward to the sequel.