I hate to be too hard on what seems to be a low-budget production, but some of the greats were also low budget. Yet, many have managed to become something amazing despite so little so I have to speak frankly on what didn't work about this one:
1) The film didn't at all look like a representation of an event that took place in the early 1980s. The hook of this movie was basing it off of a real-life murder/kidnapping case of 1981. Unfortunately, neither the house nor the family conveyed a vibe of the 80s which put me off from it from the start.
2) The loud, over-dramatic music that told viewers when something major was being revealed or happening, as opposed to trusting your audience to know it for themselves. It got to the point where it became funny when this music played, which is a bit awkward of me to say about a movie with such grim subject matter but it almost seemed to border on parody at points. Ultimately, less is more and that's a weapon that low-budget productions need to utilize (and well) in order to succeed.
3) The look of the masked killers/intruders was not scary. I understand that ski masks and brown-sack bags with eye holes cut out have been done in other movies, but they at least look menacing as compared to these cheesy Halloween masks on display here.
4) I understand the concept of filler, but a movie as slim as this one shouldn't need it. Yet, there seems to be a lot of that going on here.
5) Finally, did we really need to hear "Night of the Living Dead" being played in the background on the TV? Did this really happen? Again, their hook was basing this on something that really happened, granted they did say that some things have been dramatized for effect at the start. Yet, it would have been nice for them to be a bit more choosy on WHAT they dramatized. Moments like this just remind you that you're watching a horror movie, not immersed in the terror along with the characters. Also, far too many self-aware horror-comedies play these classic horrors in their films (often as a loving wink by the creators to their favorites). So, it didn't do this one good to fall into that mix if it was trying to achieve something genuinely scary.
2 out of 10. I just could not get into this movie at all, though I will give it credit for having me look into the real-life case and learning about these poor people and what happened to them all those years ago. Movies like this remind us that the real horror resides not in the cinema but with us... in the real world.
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