A gang of psychos break into a house one dark night. They find the mother, father and son...but fail to realize that the two girls in the family LoriBeth (a teenager) and her little sister heard them and are hiding. The gang begins to torture the family--the son is beaten up pretty brutally as are the mother and father. Can LoriBeth save her family?
This is a very unpleasant little film. It disturbed and horrified me but it IS a horror film so I guess it did its job. But the violence in the movie just goes overboard--there's rape, murders, torture...nothing much is shown but the sounds tell you everything. There's no reason given for them breaking into the house, but I guess that's the point. It's just showing how this could happen to anyone at anytime. But it starts to fall apart at the end. Up until the last 15 minutes or so it's logical. Then logic disappears (where did all the food from the refrigerator disappear to when T.J. threw it out?), people start doing REAL stupid things (LoriBeth goes up the chimney when she could have gone out the front door!) and it ends on a totally unrealistic note. Also the fate of two characters is left up in the air. Still 95% of the film works...and that's better than you can say for most horror films these days.
The acting is good--making it even harder to watch. Stephanie Jones is very good as LoriBeth and Muse Watson is downright terrifying as Daryl. It's also nice to see Michael McCleery as T.J.--I remember him from "Mother's Day" another very unpleasant 1980 horror movie.
So--unpleasant and far from perfect...but it DOES work for most of the way. I give it a 7.
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