areadingwoman

Simply terrible. NO other way to describe it. I tend to enjoy B horror movies so I had higher expectations of this movie while knowing what to expect from a low-budget film. This movie was simply awful. All of the actors suffered from varying degrees of amnesia when it came to knowing how to actually act. Despite every character being a part of a couple, when their girlfriend/boyfriends would disappear (as inevitably happens in a horror flick), no one seemed to care. At all. Which was difficult to get past. The "haunting" was never really explained or, honestly, developed. The sound was so poorly done that with my TV at full sound it was still hard to hear. And the plot? Well, instead of genuine scares and plot development, we see a variety of sex, drinking, and gratuitous twerking in the first half of the film when things are fine (at least it saves us from dialogue, but it's still not entertaining). in the second half, when things aren't so great, we see a variety of people working out. Seriously, these people are so fit that they somehow work out the morning after heavy drinking and whenever they get stressed. So basically, you get to watch a sizable chunk of a "horror" flick but it's really more like watching a film on exercise voyeurism.

So let me start off by saying that this was a decent film in the end. But it DOES take until the end to vindicate the dull hour that precedes it. Fortunately, I don't feel the need to watch what I consider dull or predictable parts of films. I figure that's the joy of watching at home instead of the theater. So you have to know that this is a predictable movie in terms of relationships. It's evident early on that there's unrequited love going on and that is a big part of the film. Since this is the single most obvious part of the plot and for some reason takes up almost half the film, feel free to skip it all once you recognize the relationship. You'll see it within the first 5 minutes. After that is a lot of nothing mixed in with scares intermittently as is expected in a horror film. It's not too gory and there are some decent creepy moments throughout. Why the high rating, you may ask. It's all in the ending! This is one of those rare movies where I didn't see the end coming and that made all the fast forwarding worth it.

Also, other reviewers said the movie was dark. I will say that I did not have that trouble with watching it on Netflix. Platform differences maybe?

So the first things you have to know about this movie are as follows: 1. It was supposed to have a sequel, but financial backing couldn't be drummed up, so it ends without an ending and will never be finished. See here for details as of 2013: http://goo.gl/Ba1gWH 2. It has all the trite expectations of a teen slasher flick with only one redeeming quality.

Now I am a horror and slasher fan, so I don't generally mind these things. But this one was over the top. Listed in no particular order of irritating:

*While trying to hide from a killer and be quiet, all the teens can do is scream at the top of their lungs.

* While running for help, teens run into an abandoned places where there is obviously going to be no help.

*Cops consistently "break up" even though there's no way any cop in their right mind would do such a thing.

*Somehow a very large city has only 2 cops who both work the night shift, and no one ever calls for backup!

*Cops clearly have no idea how to actually handle a gun as one of them could have shot his own head off several times and neither was holding it in a manner that would have involved any aim throughout the WHOLE movie. Even X Files got this right back in the 90s.

So what't the good part, the story development is well done and atmospheric. We flip back and forth from the teens (whom we obviously know are in danger) to the cops who bit by bit give the story of the killer. It was atmospheric as well and lacked the overdone movie style of giving the whole story of the killer near the beginning so that all viewers have to wait for is the inevitable deaths of most of the cast. This slow development, rather like a breadcrumb trail, allows the viewer to become involved in the story so that the irritating qualities of the teens can almost be passed over.