Preservation

If you decide to see "Preservation", there is a strong likelihood that you'll find the plot familiar. That's because it dates all the way back to 1924, with Richard Connell's story "The Most Dangerous Game". A few years later, the story would be brought to the big screen in the classic story by the same name, starring Joel McCrea and Leslie Banks. Since then, the story has been re-written time and time again--appearing in television shows (such as "Get Smart", believe it or not) and various movies. So, you cannot exactly give this film many points when it comes to originality.

Like the old story, someone likes hunting. But instead of animals, their quarry is people. The only huge difference here is that you really don't know who the killer or killers are until the end of the film--whereas in the original story is was some twisted Russian aristocrat. Otherwise, the three victims spend more than half the film on the run--trying to avoid being someone's trophy. There really isn't a whole lot more to the story than this.

On the plus side, the film is very tense. Some of the acting is pretty good and despite a small budget, the movie looks good. I also liked the identity of the hunters--this was an interesting twist. On the negative, the film isn't exactly fun to watch. After all, folks are getting butchered and there isn't a whole lot of subtlety about it. I also was irked by a cliché that I often see in films---someone disables their attacker and instead of finishing off the killer, they almost immediately turn their back on them so that they can be murdered. I don't know about you, but if someone is trying to kill me, I don't beat them up and then turn my back unless I am 110% sure that they are truly dead. Overall, I don't consider it a bad nor a good film but there isn't enough about it that would have me recommend you go see it. If you hate violent films, there's also another reason to avoid this one.

I saw promise in this film. In the future, I'd like to see these actors and filmmakers do a more challenging project--something with more originality and which allow them to expand on their skills.

OK, teens as killers who communicate with one another only via text and violence. I can dig that. (One reviewer complains about how the heavy handed "messaging" of having them text when they're sitting right next to each other, but I've seen that happen, so I think that's a fair comment on our techno-generation.) But the character development of the three main protagonists is incredibly weak and the first two kills are ridiculous as protagonists, including a combat-hardened veteran who manages to best an armed and towered sniper with a stick lashed to his hand, decide to turn their backs on their antagonists without verifying that they are actually incapacitated or weaponless. WTF! Also, once we see the size of the teens in question (one of them a wheezing asthmatic), the idea that they could go mano a mano in physical combat as they do with two big strapping grown men (did I mention that one of them is a combat veteran?) is also absurd. If you're gonna make your killers beanpole teens, you'd better give them better strategies for killing grown men who see them coming than hand to hand combat and playing possum, if you want to keep any credibility as a thriller. Too bad, because the movie does have some good scenes--the lead killer almost drowning one of the other killers to make him not run home to mom, his face vibrating with sadistic delight behind his skull face mask, is effectively chilling. A little more thought given to the script and the choreography of the kills could have improved this flick a lot.

RELEASED IN 2014 and written & directed by Christopher Denham, "Preservation" chronicles events in the forests north of Los Angeles when two brothers & one of their wives embark on a camping trip in a closed preservation. Horror ensues when they are literally marked by some creepy pranksters... or is the culprit one of them? Pablo Schreiber & Aaron Staton play the brothers while Wrenn Schmidt plays the wife.

This is a competently made slasher-in-the-woods flick with a fairly engaging story, convincing actors, nice locations, a professional score and all-around effective filmmaking. It doesn't hurt that Wrenn is easy on the eyes. There are predictable aspects, like the red herring in the latter first act, not to mention obvious elements borrowed from similar films, like "Deliverance," "Eden Lake," "Rambo 2," "I Spit on Your Grave" and even "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2." Yet these things don't really harm the movie because they're pretty much par for the course in low-budget independent horror like this.

Unfortunately, the film is ruined by constant "Yeah, right" moments, like a character turning his/her back on a wounded adversary, which I counted happening four times (!); and what occurred at the campsite is absurd. Another example is the way people constantly do noisy things in the quiet of the woods without the other person(s) hearing, like climbing on top of a porta potty. Why Sure!

The director is clearly a professional-class filmmaker, but he needs to learn to work out implausible kinks in his screenplays, which just cause any viewer over 12-13 to roll-their-eyes. Maybe he should hire a writer, at least for fine-tuning scripts. It's a matter of using more imagination. The reason "Deliverance" (1972) is still talked about today is precisely because everything in it was BELIEVABLE. Nevertheless, there's a lot of good in "Preservation" and I encourage fans of the horror-in-the-woods genre to check it out.

THE FILM RUNS 1 hours & 27 minutes and was shot in Santa Clarita & Los Angeles, California.

GRADE: C/C- (4.5/10)

Mike Neary (Aaron Staton) and Sean Neary (Pablo Schreiber) are brothers excited to go on a hunting trip. Mike's wife Wit Neary (Wrenn Schmidt) is less excited. Mike and Wit are having marital problems. Sean is suffering from wartime PTSD. While camping overnight in the woods, their gear gets stolen including their guns and someone marked an X on all their foreheads.

I like the X idea. Mike has an idea about Sean, no matter how outlandish. The movie could have gone down that path. Instead, it goes down the less inventive path. I don't really care about the perps. Two characters make the same mistake. They don't finish the job which is a horror trope. This starts with some interesting ideas and then the movie becomes not so interesting.

Really I would rate this movie at about a 5.5 or 6 but I felt compelled to level out the strangely low ratings for this flick.

This is a solid movie. Good acting, well paced, artfully shot. Was it all that original? No, not really. It deserves to be compared to films like "Eden Lake" and "The King of the Mountain" as the plot is startlingly similar. Sure, both of those are far better - more disturbing (to say the least) and ahead of their time in terms of plot - but I also can't complain about a single thing in this movie.

So if you expect to be blown out of the water, this isn't your jam. If you require horror to be gory or over the top, look elsewhere. But if you're avoiding a research paper (or three) and need a good horror movie to break up the dreck which so often populates this wonderful genre of ours then this isn't time wasted.