This is another sick cheapie from J.R. Bookwalter's stable of enthusiast but untalented horror directors, better known as "Tempe Productions". Apart from his own outrageously gore debut film "The Dead Next Door", Bookwalter's production studio has unleashed nothing but embarrassingly bad splatter-stuff upon horror-loving audiences that have the most absurd and grotesque plots but also the most incompetent means to work with. "Skinned Alive" is entirely Jon Killough's pride and handles about a family of traveling weirdos that turn innocent people into fashionable clothing. After killing a guy near a retarded little Ohio town, their van breaks down and the family (weelchaired mother and her incestuous son and and daughter) has to stay at the garage owner's house, where they unconcernedly continue their killing spree. This movie somewhat feels like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" meets "Mother's Day" but it's neither scary nor very funny. I appreciate the goodwill of all cast-members (Scott Spiegel in particular seems to have a lot of fun) and some of the gore-effects are effectively nauseating. Killough's sense of humor is delightfully twisted and low-budget gore king J.R. Bookwalter makes a small appearance as the Jehovah's Witness (they make such easy preys). "Skinned Alive" is overall enjoyable in a brainless sort of way. Too bad about the terrible at times downright unendurable acting and the completely redundant divorce sub plot.
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Coventry2 January 2006
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movieman_kev29 March 2005A traveling family of sickos, an inept brother/ sister team and their wheelchair-bound mother, Crawldaddy (Mary Jackson of "The Waltons" fame), have their car brake down after they kill a guy. So they stay at the neighbors of an alcoholic ex-cop and continue nonchalantly killing people. Will the cop exorcise his demons long enough to put an end to Crawdady and families reign of terror? Due to the ultimately jaw-dropping awfulness, Will we even care? To be fair the first 10 minutes hold a little promise and the last 20 are OK by me. It's just the endless minutes of stupid slapstick 'comedy' in the middle where the movie becomes a chore to sit through. and what a painful chore it is. The film would have been a good short film. But as it is now, it's not even passable entertainment.
My Grade: D
DVD Extras: Commentary with JR. Bookwalter and David Lange; Isolated music score audio track; 35 minute Making-of; Behind the scenes; camera and wardrobe tests; About the Remastering; Artwork and Stills Galleries; an episode of 'Roomates"; Theatrical Trailer; and Trailers for "Ozone", "Eddie Presley", "Dead and Rotting", and "Hell Asylum" -
Flixer195729 October 2006A number of Grade-Z horror icons like J. R. Bookwalter and Dave DeCoteau were involved with this turkey. The leads are played by non-actors Mary Jackson, Scott Spiegel and Susan Rothacker. The result is exactly what I deserve for haunting a dying video store and buying its used tapes for five bucks a pop. A homicidal mother and her two grown childrenthe Crawdaddy Clan, no less--all look the same age as they travel around butchering and flaying convenient victims. Then their van breaks down and they're forced to stay with some equally weird country yokels. Mother Dear, a scraggly-haired, wheelchair-riding one-eyed wonder, is rude to her hosts and eats like a wild hog at the dinner table but the nerds let her stay anyway. The son and daughter are grubby, foul-mouthed, incestuous and so inept that most of their victims don't die the first time, so we get to see some of the same people hacked on more than once. The dopey hosts don't catch on to what their guests really are until just before they're murdered and hung up to dry. This is one of the most scatological horror films ever and there's not one likable, normal or even rational character in the whole picture. The acting is over-the-top, the writing and plot are negligible and most of the production values are rock-bottom but SKINNED ALIVE, if nothing else, lives up to its name. Except for one fake hatchet murder the numerous splatter effects are convincing and there actually is one live skinning with the killers playing with the peeled hide afterward. In the best scene a Jehovah's Witness walks up to Mrs. Crawdaddy and asks "Are you happy with your life?" She pulls a Colt .45 and blows him away. Maybe she isn't so bad after all.
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patrickk-130 August 2002The title in itself is genius: "Skinned Alive." When I picked this movie up at the video store it was collecting dust in the horror section. I looked on the back of the box and immediately knew that it was a no-budget movie, and most avid horror-viewers know exactly what comes with THAT territory: Bad acting, shotty camerawork, almost inaudible dialogue, annoying keyboard music, and no plot.
This particular movie possessed an exception to almost every expectation that I first had of it. "Skinned Alive" is a movie that should be viewed by any filmmaker, young or old, that is interested in making a horror movie on an extremely low budget, because it is a prime example of how amateur directors can make the best of what they have. It was funny, gory, suspenseful, somewhat provocative, and well-edited. While frequently I find myself fast-forwarding these types of movies so as not to bore myself silly, with "Skinned Alive" I always found myself in eager anticipation of what would happen next. Who would be the next person to get insulted, or kicked in the face? Would the hero end up getting his house back? Surprisingly, not many of the great horror directors have the type of sense that Jon Killough had in his directorial debut when it comes to plot structure. He sets up his characters extremely well.
In conclusion, I was far from disappointed after viewing this random horror rent. It's an entertaining and hilarious presentation that will leave you laughing out loud, and inspired to go out and make your own movie. -
I am a fan of horror films. I especially love bad horror films. The kind of bad horror films that you feel the need to defend when your mates ask 'what the hell?', or your girlfriend accuses you of being a weird sicko for liking 'this crap'.
Bad horror films are great.
Imagine asking some random 10 year old kid to write a script for a film, then just expand the A4 page of script to 4 A4 pages of script by adding expletives. Then, take another 10 year old kid, and give them a video camera, showing him the record button. Next, take 5 adults off the street, hand them the 4 page script, and bundle them into a room together. Give them 3 mins to learn their lines, then: Lights, Camera, Action.
Finally, record a kid playing (badly) on a toy synth, then overdub the film with this 'soundtrack' so you can't hear the audio properly. Do this experiment 100 times, each time with different people off the street. Pick the crappiest version of those 100, call it Skinned Alive, and send it off to the duplicators.
If anyone claims that this film has any redeeming features, it is just a trick to get some poor other fool to waste 90 mins of their life watching this tripe.
Please, head my advice, and avoid this flick. You have been warned. -
That this movie has any fans at all is a fact that amazes me. That this movie has an IMDb rating of above one amazes me even further. Some movies are so bad, they are actually good, you can laugh at them and be taken along for the ride whilst not taking them seriously at all. This movie is not one of them. I would rather stick pins in my eyes than be forced to watch this awful movie again. For the opening scene, the cheapness of this film smacks you in the face with awful camera work and even worse characters. They didn't make me laugh, they didn't scare me, i was just amazed that a film like this ever got accepted for distribution. I did manage to make it to the end, but it was truly the most painful experience ever. Please don't get sucked in, yes the cover makes it look a little intriguing, and yes some of the other IMDb users seem to like it, though I'm sure they are lying to make others suffer like the people who have already seen it have done. It is a terrible movie with no redeeming qualities AT ALL. The deaths, characters, camera work, script, etc are the most unbelievably bad ever witnessed. Do not waste the time.
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huggy_bear2 March 2003To try to pass this off as a horror movie is a joke. I rented this piece of sh*t on DVD, falling prey to the cover, expecting to settle down and watch a horror, but what I actually got was a dose of pure and absolute garbage. The acting was dreadful, the plot, well, on a budget of $10, what do you expect. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, horror film fanatic or not. Pass on this one.
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Smells_Like_Cheese10 January 2004Everyone is saying, "This was so funny!". What was funny? That it was stupid? It's a very low-budgetted film that I wouldn't recommend for fans.
******************SPOILER*******************
Now supposidly, the former cop in the film is trying to make up for shooting a pedestrian or something. So, what does he do? He massacres the killers? He does realize that he could go to jail for that? Gah!
2/10 -
Tender-Flesh15 November 2009This is about as low budget as you can get. But, at least the director had the foresight to make this a comedy. If it was played straight, it would have been totally abysmal. As it stands, the comedy isn't the sort to really make you laugh out loud, but it's somewhat amusing.
Expect no real acting in the movie and the dialogue is some of the worst ever. That being said, this is a film made by fans of real gore who have basically five dollars to make a movie. And they made that money stretch. Even though the gore is not very well made, it's plentiful. You get split-open heads, fully skinned bodies(both just a hanging skin and a bloody slab of muscles and veins), and a Jehovah's Witness! Who could ask for more? The "plot" involves the Crawldaddy family, Mama or rather Daddy Crawldaddy, a worn out wheelchair bound biker chick who has gender issues, and her adult daughter and son who lust after each other and would probably go all the way if the daughter's bra wasn't set up like a Burmese tiger trap. They make their way cross-country, finding hapless victims on the roadside and killing then skinning them. Presumably the skins are actually made into something, but there is no real evidence of that. Their van breaks down in a small town, they seek refuge at the home of the Miles'. While Tom Miles feeds them dinner and prepares to go back to his shop to work on their van, all sorts of schlock hijinks ensue. That darn Jehovah's Witness just won't die no matter how many times you stab, shoot, or skin him. Meanwhile, the neighbor, Paul, battles raging alcoholism due to his pending divorce from a skanky Debbie, I mean, Deborah Gibson clone who's shacked up with the divorce lawyer. The finale finds Paul and Tom trapped in Paul's house, while the Crawldaddy's lurk around every corner. And they are rather hard to kill, just like that old Bible-thumper. But, we get some of the best gore here. Paul whips it out....an M-16 with a double drum magazine and a bayonet. The ending is predictable and the 5 minutes of rolling credits is a gypp on run-time.
Unfortunately, Violet never gets completely bare for the camera, that would have earned another star for this steaming pile. She's like Courtney Love's stunt double, minus the heavy thigh bruising. While I can't really recommend this unless you are in need of some gore and you don't care how you get it(like watching a Gwar video), this is, I suppose, a way to kill a lonely Wednesday night if you have a full bottle of schnapps and a big bowl of beans. And make sure you're wearing your Boycott Jane Fonda t-shirt! -
CMRKeyboadist18 January 2006I ended up with this movie through one of those cheap Brentwood Video 4 pack releases. I had a really hard time sitting through this movie the first time around but the second time around was what made it all worth while. This is an early release from some of the guys that brought you Evil Dead and other titles in the eighties. Usually, these movies are pretty bad and this one is no exception but all these movies are a lot of fun, you just have to adapt to the poor taste of this kind of film-making.
A group of 3 people are on the road killing random hitchhikers to use their skin as leather. They end up in a little town where a huge bloodbath takes place.
That's it. That's the storyline. Nothing new here but this film is still a lot of fun even if it is a badly done film. The gore effects are hilarious, especially a scene where one of the killers gets blown away with an uzzi. Scott Spiegal is about the only actor in the movie who actually places his part halfway decently. The rest of the actors are just atrocious.
All in all, I enjoyed this movie and will probably watch it several more times before I get tired of it. 7/10 stars -
Angelfish_Solo23 February 2006I can't say too much as this is about the only film that I haven't seen through to the end out of choice. Dire is far too weak a word. If I said exactly what I thought of this film this comment would not be published. I though that Litch was the worst Horror film ever made.
How wrong I was.
Everything from the "Acting", "Directing", "Production" through to the aspect ratio for this film are wrong. It should never have been made and if I could give this piece of garbage a minus number I would. How this even got production money I will never know. The only think I can say good about this film is that................ Sorry I can think of nothing good to say about this film.
If you are looking for bizarre Horror try Goblet of Gore. At least there is humour in that. This isn't even funny in a bad painful way. It is just Painful.
Does for Horror what Hitler did for World Peace!!!!! -
cjhancocks12 December 2004I still can't tell whether this film is serious. It's called a horror on here but it must be a black comedy. It absolutely hilarious! The effects are awful and so is the acting and the story line but put together it all makes one funny film...if you don't have a good sense of humor then probably give it a miss but if you do and you like gory films this is fantastic! It's similar to the Evil Dead series if you like them. The murders are gory and bloody and very unrealistic and over the top with victims surviving through shootings and stabbings and wounds healing between shots and blood stained clothes suddenly becoming clean. I found this film hysterically tacky and awful.
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I didn't expect to like this funny and gory horror comedy as much as I did. It's certainly not for all tastes; even though it runs only about 80 minutes (including the long closing credits), the pace is extremely slow and nothing much really happens throughout. The gore effects are cheap but effective. The villains are a really twisted gang: the foul-mouthed, abusive, wheelchair-bound matriarch, the clumsy and slightly retarded son, the sadistic hottie daughter (no nudity from her, though the opportunity does come twice - what a shame!). The "hero" is an alcoholic ex-cop who has to put a stop to their activities implied by the title. All of the acting is amateurish, but at least the actors don't take themselves too seriously and seem to be in on the joke. This film will probably be appreciated only by those viewers interested in low-budget horror film-making. (**1/2)
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poolandrews30 May 2005Skinned Alive starts somewhere in Ohio with a hitchhiker (writer & director Jon Killough) trying to thumb a lift on a lonely deserted backwoods road. Eventually a van pulls up, the words 'CRAWLDADDY'S TRAVELING TANNERY' are written along the side. He opens the door but the driver, Violet (Susan Rothacker) kicks him in the face & then Violets Brother Phink (Scott Speigel) kills him. Togetehr with their wheelchair bound, eye-patch wearing Mother strangely named Crawldaddy (Mary Jackson) they drive off. Before long a fat guy named Willard (Mike Render) whose car has broken down ends up the same way. But their van is having problems starting so they take it to a garage where a mechanic named Tom Miles (Lester Clark) says he can fix it but it'll take a while & invites the family to stay at his house with him & his wife Whinnie (Barbara Katz-Norrod). While their there the family repay their host's good deed by killing a few more of the locals to pass the time including a Jehovah's witness (played by music composer & producer J.R. Bookwalter) & a delivery boy (Mike Shea) intending to skin them & make jackets & handbags out of it, however Tom's next door neighbour, an ex-cop named Paul Hickox (Floyd Ewing Jr.) discovers the families murderous ways & decides to put an end to it...
Edited, produced & directed by Jon Killough who also has a small role in it, I personally thought Skinned Alive was an absolutely awful horror film in every way imaginable. According to the IMDb Skinned Alive's budget was an estimated minuscule $18,500, well all I can say is where did the money go because it didn't end up on screen that's for sure. I'm trying to think of a single positive thing to say about Skinned Alive but I simply can't think of one. The script is a mess & has all the intelligence, subtly & entertainment value of being written by an illiterate five year old. It can't decide whether it's a straight horror or comedy, I'm sure there are certain scenes which are meant to be funny like when Violet strips for Phink & when she kicks her boots off they both hit his head complete with silly sound effects & a stupid expression on Phink's face, unfortunately these 'comedy' moments are about as funny as losing an arm or leg. There is no story to speak of or any developed characters. The dialogue between the family is very annoying & consists of nothing more than how many swear words they can fit into sentences insulting each other, I hated the lot of 'em by the time Skinned Alive finished. The acting is as terrible as you would expect, real amateur stuff & it wouldn't surprise me if the entire cast were friends & family of the director's except Scott Spiegel (hey Scott loose the ponytail mate...) who I was shocked to see in this piece of pond scum & whose credits include The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), Intruder (1989), Darkman (1990) & the two recent Spider-Man (2002 -2004) films among others. I'd have thought he could have pointed the whole production in the right direction but obviously he didn't, oh & he can't act either. Basically Skinned Alive has no meaningful story, characters or incidents & lacks any sort of atmosphere or tension. The poorly conceived & executed gore scenes have no build up or pay-off. There's a bit when someone has the skin on their chest sliced off, a split in half head, a sliced open stomach, some severed fingers & a couple of skinned corpses but it's all very fake looking & filmed in such a way it has zero impact. Technically Skinned Alive is real bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, the keyboard synthesiser music is basic, bland & doesn't complement the on screen action in the slightest, the acting as I've already said is rotten throughout, the photography is of home camcorder quality & it was obviously shot on very low grade film or video as it is extremely grainy & lacks any colour definition & as a result Skinned Alive just doesn't look like a film, the director uses the most basic & as few shots as possible to accomplish the scene with no close-ups or establishing shots of note, neither does the camera move that much & when it does it's pretty jerky, the thing appears to be shot in two different houses & that's it for locations, I could probably go on all day about how bad this piece of crap is but hopefully you get the idea. Overall I hated Skinned Alive, it's the kind of film that gives the horror genre a bad name & will put casual viewers off other much better examples. I really don't have a single good thing to say about this lousy zero budget amateurishly made mess of a horror film. Avoid at all costs, you have been warned. -
DarthPaul10191 March 2003As somebody who values and has a rather large collection of low-budget horror films, I can honestly say this is one of the most horrible movies I have ever seen! It's like a thirteen year old wrote the dialogue, and then set up the scenes to look "wicked awesome." Another thing is this movies has no actual concept of reality...I know it's a horror movie, and most stuff in horror movies isn't even slightly based on reality, but when you have people shooting and stabbing people in the middle of the day, in the front-yard nonetheless...well you can't help but feel that either you the viewer are being treated as an idiot, or the film makers themselves are idiots. Even if you were drawn to the movie for the gore, or the cover of the DVD which features a bikini girl with "Skinned Alive" carved in her stomach...JUST STAY AWAY! I have never seen gore so badly done in my life! There are scenes where the bodies being skinned are obviously made of clay! You can actually see the clay bunch up when a knife is plunged into it, and this is supposed to pass for human flesh? You would think that the director or editor would have seen how horrible some of the crap looked, and cut it out, but it's there in all it's 3rd grade glory. There is no redeeming quality to this movie at all. The acting is bad, and the special effects are the worst! Do not spend any money on this movie.
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Leofwine_draca13 April 2017SKINNED ALIVE is a very much a bargain basement film that has stylistic similarities to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in the story of a group of travelling weirdos who go around selecting victims and skinning them. The whole thing is so ridiculous that it plays out as a spoof of the horror genre, but it's never funny or horrifying, so it does feel like a pointless exercise.
The film has a concession to Z-grade movie fans in the casting of Scott Spiegel and J.R. Bookwalter, both B-movie directors (of INTRUDER and THE DEAD NEXT DOOR respectively). Most of it is an unfunny character comedy in the Troma style, with actors goofing off in supposedly funny scenes. It's quite horrible, and not in the right way. -
jon_northall10 November 2018I can't exactly be kind to this film, I watch a lot of horror and will try any film but the only saving grace is the soundtrack. The acting is awful, very cheesy and the one liners are terrible. The kill scenes are amateur in the worst degree watch it and you will see. Absolutely awful
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Total rubbish, insulting crap, rates ZERO. A major waste of time with people who must have been pulkled of the street to "axt" in this abysmal, amateurish effort. Thumbs down all round. Crap!
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paul_haakonsen17 November 2021I remember seeing the cover for the 1990 horror comedy "Skinned Alive" back in the 90s, but I never did got around to watching it. But that chance came to be now in 2021. And of course I opted to sit down and watch "Skinned Alive" as the movie always had eluded me.
And let me just say that I had definitely not been missing out on a single thing. Writers Jon Killough and Mike Shea just didn't manage to put together an entertaining or enjoyable movie. Nay, "Skinned Alive" fell very short of providing me with much of anything. In fact, I was so bored with the movie that I ended up turning it off well before the halfway marker.
The storyline told in "Skinned Alive" just felt like something written by teenagers. Things in the storyline were just so far out there and laughable that it wasn't even enjoyable or fun to watch. So, for me, there was nothing to enjoy in the storyline.
And then there was the acting. Oh boy. Talk about horrible acting performances where it seemed like one was trying to over-act the next one on the screen. It was just cringeworthy to witness.
"Skinned Alive" eluded me back in the 1990s, and I sort of wish it still had eluded me, because this movie was not worth the time, money or effort.
My rating of director Jon Killough's 1990s movie lands on a one out of ten stars. Sitting through this movie just makes you wish that you yourself was skinned alive. -
BandSAboutMovies23 April 2023Director, writer and editor Jon Killough made this cheap - and I mean that with kindness - film about a family led by Crawdaddy (Mary Jackson, yes, Evelyn from Terror House) that makes leather goods from the skins of the people they murder. Her kids, Violet (Susan Rothacker) and Phink (Scott Spiegel) are just as crazy as she is. And man, Spiegel is swinging for the upper decks with his scene chewing. But that and the goofy humor made this fun for me.
This was produced by J. R. Bookwalter, whose Tempe Video released many a small town film years ago. I've read so many reviews online that outright disliked this movie to the point I wondered if it did something to their mother. I mean, you've seen worse. But you have also seen better. -
HumanoidOfFlesh15 January 2012"Skinned Alive" is a low-budget "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" rip-off about cannibalistic family of Crawldaddy that hunts people,kills them and turns their skins into leather that they sell.When their van breaks down the mechanic invites the family to stay with him while their van is being fixed.Soon the bloodbath ensues and only local war veteran can stop trio of ruthless killers...Cheap and dumb copy of Tobe Hooper's seminal terror classic with plenty of cheesy gore and laughable acting.The plot twists are ridiculous and often irritating.If you are fan of Troma works this little slice of low-budget Ohio gore should be in your collection.6 leather coats out of 10.
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allencurl-130 April 2006In b-movie terms, this one is one of the best ones out there. I immediately was drawn to this movie when the front cover showed unnecessary nudity (a b-movie antic, I guess the producers decide that " let's just add a bunch of nudity to make up for the plot and acting's short-comings.") Anyway, upon looking at the back of the movie, I knew I had landed a great b-movie. The plot is so incredibly poor it makes me cringe, let me sum it up for you: A poor group of travelers go around killing people and using their skins to sell like authentic hides from cows or deer or something. The acting is so incredibly cheesy and the "Special effects" (blood, make-up and props) and terrible too. Now the reason I say this is a good b-movie is because it is so incredibly stupid that it is funny. I was laughing in hysterics upon the second time watching this movie. What you need to do, in watching this movie is watch it by yourself, (which you will more than likely find this movie stupid and repulsive) but then watch it again. You will get to pick up on the numerous plot-holes and parts of the movie that are just so cheesy you can do nothing but laugh. Don't be afraid to stop the movie, rewind it, and make fun of things in specifics also, like when the old man walks into his basement and finds a piece of skin lying on the floor (which is most obviously bologna) and other stuff like that. Have fun with it, it's worth it!
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SUTTER CANE28 December 1999A very tasteless zero-budget horror comedy, loaded with sick humor and repulsive gore. Sleeve notes on the box says it is "the most realistic crazy backwoods family since the Hills Have Eyes and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre", well don´t fall for that one. This movie can´t be compared to those movies at all. This is more of a comedy, than a horror movie. But it´s certainly not for all tastes. If you liked this movie you should see "The Dead Next Door". It´s directed by J.R. Bookwalter and stars the director of this movie, John Killough, among others. I give this movie 6 out of 10.
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armuss28 January 2003I can't believe that people actually like this film. I suppose i was lured in by the DVD cover thinking this could be an enjoyable gory-horror-comedy type of film. Boy, was I wrong. This movie was so horrible, I barely made it to the end. The acting was terrible and the gore was lame. The sound quality and dubbing was absurd. This is the kind of movie I watch every now and then and think... why the hell am I not making movies? I can't even recommend this for a good laugh. For something in the same genre, but actually good, try Dead-Alive or Bad Taste. Hell, I would even recommend an HG Lewis film over this.
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LukeNickels8830 April 2012This is a film about a family who travels the country killing people and they make leather out of their skin. After their vehicle stalls they have to stay in a small town until it gets repaired where they continue to kill.
Most of the reviews I have read for this particular film have been mostly negative but I can honestly say that I like this film, it has good special effects for a cheap straight to video horror film. It is pretty funny as well. The locations in this film are amazing.
Major problems with this movie is that the dubbing is off and the editing is pretty terrible. The two main actresses are annoying but Scott Spiegels character is my favorite, who almost has an incest scene with his sister which is weird. Plus the characters I wanted to die didn't :( It may have horrible things wrong with it, but it is the type of movie that I like although others will see a problem with that but who cares..am I right?