maisiemullen

Craig Fairbass (rise of the foot soldier) always made for a good heavy in action movies and does a fine job as the lead in this bank robbery thriller.

Things get a bit complicated, plot wise and there is not much in the way of action but this makes for a fine crime thriller drama. All and all a great action film.

I am guessing there was a subpar live interactive haunted house event and the film makers decided to kill two birds with one stone and film a half ass movie during the event. The film takes us through a tour of the rooms and acts within each rooms, with a tour guide showing people prepare for the event. Then we watch the rooms play out as a reality tv star and her crew go through each room. Then during the second half of the film the story that is advertised starts, with the crew being forced to play a truth or dare type of game for their lives. The film then goes back and forth from the actual story-line to showing people being scared... somewhat, in the other rooms.

As far the event goes, nothing about it would be entertaining live. They have a Fight Club room where you watch lousy boxing, a room with mob bosses, another one with people blindfolded and being scared by a person in a clown costume, another with a bad werewolf costume person eating meat, and an escape room... with no clues presented on how to escape. They all are uncomfortably awkward with poor performances, poor production, and poorly conceived. Then we also get some montages of people with Halloween make up dancing in front of the camera between scene transitions. This is shamefully cheap and unprofessional film making.

I have been to terrible live shows before and this just brought me back to how uncomfortable a live interactive show can be.

One small detail that bothered me over and over was the room where they blindfold people and have the clown scare them. The guide keeps saying, "Let me tell you a ghost story. There's a ghost in the room and his name is Charlie." And that was it. That's not a story. That is an explanation of the current state of affairs. No wonder this film doesn't know how to stay on topic. They don't even know what a "story" is.

This is an unpleasant watch and not for any fun reasons.

I was excited to see a bunch of World Cup 2018 themed hooligan movies hitting the shelves but the more I watch, the more that excitement wanes. I love a good hooligan film and when you throw in some Ruskieploitation, there's scope for entertainment. And it's topical too. World Cup! Russian hooligans! C'mon! This should be easy. It should write itself. You don't need much.

However, at the very least, you'd expect some football, some hooligans, maybe some Russian hooligans... I dunno. I mean, the cover art suggests all manner of stuff that looks great but isn't here. What you do get is a bizarro home video - which surely can't have cost more than a grand or so to make? - with an incomprehensible plot, a snail's pace and a seemingly intentional desire to not please anyone.