nekojiru67

Some friends celebrating the 21st birthday of one of their members decide to spend a winter weekend in the country, relaxing in a large modern home in the woods. Before they even arrive they begin to feel they're being followed.

The story is told solely from the point of view of found footage, apparently anonymously delivered to the FBI.

I found the acting to be quite good - at no point did I not believe these were some kids out on a weekend trip.... except for the unnatural way the one kid CONSTANTLY filmed everything. Guess I can look the other way since without him we'd miss much of the movie.

On the whole, not enough happens and the ending is confusing and I'm left wondering what happened.

The filmmakers completely and utterly ruined their film by adding a soundtrack to the latter fourth of the film. It adds nothing, breaks any "this is real found footage" spell successfully cast up to that point, and WORST OF ALL covered up certain sounds like the phone ringing and some of the kids' panicked conversation. What a bummer.

I can't recommend this movie. Even if there was a more natural version lacking a silly soundtrack, not enough happens at the end to justify the time it takes to watch the movie.

After a lengthy and confusing opening with some scientists being menaced by strange sounds in the woods, we're introduced to our main characters. Friends, they've been hired to protect a second pair of scientists returning to the woods to search for the missing first group. The group discover that something in a cave in the woods doesn't want them to leave and is erasing their memories.

Stragglers is an indie, shot-on-video horror film. Production values are low, acting is amateurish (though rarely cringe-inducing) and there are the usual problems with sound: voices being too low to hear, or so loud they overwhelm the mics.

This movie was VERY PAINFUL to watch (literally headache inducing!), because the director/editor chose to insert loud shots of static and television snow every few seconds throughout all flashback scenes. And well over half the film is told in flashback. Imagine watching a movie where every few seconds you lose the picture and a loud burst of static comes from the speakers. Because that's exactly what watching Stragglers is like. Ugh.

I sat through it because I'm an idiot. Don't make the same mistake. Even without the constant static, the movie is mostly storyless and boring. I was hoping for some sort of payoff or worthwhile explanation for what was happening, but the one given is lame and completely unworthy of your time.

In this low budget horror buddy comedy, two friends get jobs with Zom-B-Gone, a pest removal service that deals with the undead and the supernatural. (Mainly vampires, zombies, and werewolves.) At the same time, a master vampire has moved into Necroville... can Jack and Alex deal with this new threat at a time when Jack's relationship with his deadbeat girlfriend demands more and more of his attention?

I enjoyed this film much more than I thought I would. It was obviously shot on video with a shoestring budget and few experienced actors, however the main characters were engaging and the story (especially the world the film imagines) fairly interesting. And I laughed more than once.

Makeup effects weren't too bad, but it would have been nice if more of the movie had taken place at night instead of in broad daylight. Perhaps the lighting budget made more night scenes impossible. I wasn't a fan of the cgi effects, but thankfully they were used rather sparingly except for one scene.

I've seen a lot of low-budget, shot-on-video movies and this is the first such film in a long while that has stuck with me after viewing, let alone that I made it to the end of.

And there should be a law against fat goth chicks being in these types of movies. And yes, I know it's rare to find any other kind these days...

Two cars full of twenty-something friends head out for an excursion into the desert, passing many abandoned cars along the way. Little do they know their own cars are about to be abandoned as well...

Feeding Grounds is ultimately a frustrating film. As viewers we don't get a single glimpse of the creature(s) who have entrapped the characters. (Unless you count one clawed hand.) It seems the characters are drugged and confused by their attackers, for they continually turn off of the highway onto the same dusty road, and some seem to hallucinate. But your guess is as good as mine, if you dare to watch this film.

The acting is, for the most part, well above average for a low-budget film. Special effects are sorely lacking, except for a few bits of gore. Only the occasionally artistic camera shot kept me from falling asleep.

If you like watching college kids bicker, and hate the sight of monsters, this is the movie for you.

A girl and her ex-con boyfriend are convinced to join a group of thieves planning to break into a sealed Depression-era crypt and loot the bodies of their jewelry. However the crypt just might be haunted...

There's nothing spectacular about this low-budget horror film, but it somehow ends up being a lot more entertaining than it has any right to be. The plot is incredibly light for its hour and twenty minute running time, so there are an excessive amount of "girls crawling through crypt corridor" scenes. The director doesn't skip ahead, even when the thieves are backtracking through areas we've already seen, and those sequences can get dull. (Short on plot though it is, I did notice at least one plot hole.) If you like cleavage, however, plenty is on display. A bit more cleavage than gore, perhaps unfortunately.

The acting isn't as bad as a previous comment would have you believe. Sarah Oh (PJ) and Abra May (Gina) are the standouts and luckily it's them who get the most screen time. Once the girls get into the crypt and start looking scared, there are no line deliveries bad enough to make you roll your eyes.

The sets are pretty incredible, if obviously too new to be built during the Great Depression, and unlike most low budget films they are actually lit very well. In fact sometimes the crypt corridors are a bit too bright - I think a little bit of darkness might have made for a scarier mood.

You've seen the flickering ghosts here in a billion other movies, so don't expect to have any nightmares after watching The Crypt, unless perhaps you're claustrophobic.

And yes, there is a brief topless shot of the beautiful Sarah Oh, which for some might make this rental worth catching all by itself.

Two naive struggling Los Angeles actors spend a day looking for jobs after their landlord threatens eviction if their rent isn't payed by evening.

This "comedy" isn't just unfunny, it's boring. The two leads bumble through a succession of awkwardly-edited scenes, some of which the director continues to cut back to even after the main characters have left. What plot that does exist is just a framework upon which to hang more scenes of the two leads bantering back and forth.

The acting isn't too bad, with decent enough performances by Godfrey, James Leary, director Dale Stelly, and Mercedes Scelba-Shorte. But this movie goes nowhere slowly and you will regret renting it. Avoid... unless you're a family member of someone involved with this turkey.

(I did laugh one time - and only one time - at one of Dex's lines in the unemployment office.)

A documentary filmmaker inherits an old masonic lodge from his grandfather, along with a mysterious key. He decides to film a documentary on the building with some friends.

This Kansas indie horror film was made for $2000, and none of that money was spent on hiring anyone who knows anything at all about sound recording. At times you can't hear what the characters are saying. Mix that with confused scene blocking and what appears to be the wrong lens for the camera (resulting in a bright image center and dark fuzzy outline on the screen edges) and you've got an exercise in frustration.

The building, which is supposedly haunted and a focus of the film, is never given any screen time. Plus it doesn't look that old or scary. The film has about as much spooky atmosphere as a bowl of Rice Crispies. And about the same amount of plot.

The actors aren't quite as bad as the rest of the production, but there are some cringe-inducing displays. The youngest actress, Tabitha Lester, is actually the best. Marcus Miller also performs at a higher level than one would expect.

Truthfully, there is only one reason to watch this film, and that is the incredible amount of cleavage on display by Tabitha Lester and Courtney Cook.... if you're into that sort of thing. It's almost as if they were having a contest to see who could display the most.

During holiday break, girls in an empty dorm building hold a seance to contact the ghost of a little girl that haunts their room. Unfortunately, they also bring back a murderer who lived in the building, too.

For the most part you can forget any comments about this movie being creepy. (Reviews from someone involved in the production?)

It has a few lackluster moments, and it tries, but ultimately fails. Mostly because scenes that are supposed to be set in the dark seem to have as much ambient light as your average daytime soap opera. And the slow fade effects of the ghosts are more cheesy than spooky.

The actors playing the students all are very good, with A. J. Lamas a notable standout. Kandis Erickson is also a more than capable lead. Bridget Shergalis is a good silent ghost. Unfortunately the ghostly whistling maintenance man killer is about as scary as a carton of oatmeal. (i.e. not at all scary. Maybe partly due to the overstrong lighting and sometimes laughable fade effects.)

This film could have been so much more if only better choices had been made in respect to lighting and special effects.

A chance meeting with one of her brother's former schoolmates causes a terminally ill young woman to begin digging into her family's tragic past.

This isn't quite the feelgood movie of 2007, but some pretty strong performances from Bingbing Fan and Anthony Wong make this intimate mystery worth catching. I was somewhat unsatisfied by the ending, and the mystery is clunky in places, but the tone and vibrancy of the film cannot be denied.

Watch it with someone you care about... as long as they don't mind a little bit of blood.

A country mausoleum janitor tries to help a group of stranded people survive the night in the apparently haunted mausoleum, but one by one they start disappearing.

What can I say about this disappointing film? Annoying editing and fade effects. An ending twist (roll eyes) so obvious and overworn that you've already probably guessed it. Awkward pacing. Characters behaving EXTREMELY unnaturally. I mean so unnaturally that you'll find it hard to suspend disbelief. And the filmmakers never give us a good idea where the characters are in the structure. Sometimes they walk through long corridors to get to a location, and then other times it appears to be next door.

There are no real scares, not even startling moments because the hoodie-wearing killer just kind of appears in scene. All kills except two are offscreen.

And the ending drags on and on.

This could have been so much more - even with the lame twist it could have been a better movie. With some better editing (or maybe this was all the editor had to work with?) and with more natural character actions this could have been worth a rental.

Werewolf: The Devil's Hound is a very low budget, wacky, shot on video comedy/horror (three parts comedy, one part horror) film about a man and his family/coworkers dealing with the result of him being bitten by an escaped werewolf. It never takes itself too seriously and provides a lot of entertainment despite regularly trying too hard to be funny.

Kevin works for his father's pyrotechnic/special effects company. A crate containing a female werewolf is accidentally delivered to their shop, and soon people are being torn to bits right and left, and Kevin is bitten as the shewolf tries to make him her mate. The only problem is that he's already married.

The camera is always moving and generally the movie never gets dull, though its low budget is readily apparent, especially when it comes to the werewolf effects. The acting is a mixed bag. No one is horrible, but no one is great either, with the possible exception of the actor who plays Kevin's father.

6 stars purely for the entertainment value. When Werewolf: The Devil's Hound is funny, it's really funny. There are a few laugh out loud moments. When it's trying too hard to be wacky, it's just embarrassing. If you're looking for cool werewolf special effects or transformations, or even just cool-looking werewolves in general, this isn't the movie for you.

From the opening shot of the meteor falling towards Earth, you know you're in for something special.

This is an ultra-low budget shot on video movie about a group of teens stranded on a lighthouse island with some monsters. The story is unremarkable and nothing you haven't seen a thousand times before. The acting isn't great but isn't completely horrible, however the special effects - of which there are a good deal - are laughable at best. In fact, if you can read this sentence, chances are better than 50% that you could do a more credible job creating the video explosion and compositing effects in this movie than the filmmakers.

The movie's saving grace - if you're in the mood for a grade Z turkey of a film - is that there's always something happening and it never gets boring. And if you like making fun of bad movies with your friends, you might just find this worth a dollar rental.

And I must say I appreciated the opening joke, "that is the dumbest name for an island I've ever heard." Probably the best moment in the movie.

This is a low-budget, shot on video film about a group of teens who are sent into an abandoned, cursed meat-packing plant to take an inventory of its contents. The teens reawaken an Aztec-demon-possessed butcher who killed his coworkers 40 years ago (oops!) and are possessed and murdered one by one.

The good: nice location, reasonably well-lit, though more variation in the large empty rooms would have added to the film. For the most part the actors (especially the main teen in charge of the inventory) do a good job.

The bad: hammy butcher villain isn't scary, Aztec curse "rules" never really explained, little plot problems (characters screaming at one end of a basement aren't heard by other characters a few hallways/rooms away?), awkwardly handled nudity.

You've got a ghost/demon that only appears to people who are just about to be killed, yet the film never really does anything special with that. The characters always wait/watch him close in on them and kill them, instead of, say, telling their friends where he's at in the room so they can help fight him off. Some scenes of the butcher menacing a teen (especially the final showdown) are ANNOYINGLY edited with lots of cuts. Eventually the scenes become boring.

After watching the movie I was left with the feeling that it could have been so much more.

This is a very low budget, shot on video supernatural "mystery" about a man who returns to his hometown to solve the mystery of his twin's disappearance when he was a child. He teams up with a local girl interested in the small town's history (of unsolved child murders), and together they begin poking their noses into things the town (well, the sheriff) wants forgotten.

The only other reviewer recommended Deadwood Park to "serious fans of intelligent scary movies." He or she must be on crack. Or more likely associated with the production. Whichever the case, you tricked me into watching your movie, so congratulations.

The good: excellent locations, nice use of lanterns to light scenes, decent b/w WWII reenactments, interesting left turn ending that I actually enjoyed.

The bad: I can live with wooden acting (of which there is a good amount) but what kills this movie completely is the dog-slow coma-inducing ZZZZZZ pacing. Shots go on too long, and when the movie should be jumping ahead to the next scene, we get a billion cutaways to scenery. Mix this pace with the out-of-place flashbacks and it's snooze city. Plot hole: in the end of the movie the main character acts on information that we as viewers learned through a flashback but he has no way of knowing himself.

Calling this movie a mystery, as some have done, is a bit misleading. Until the answer to who (or what) killed the kids is revealed, there is no way for us as viewers to have figured it out.

It's obvious that the director has seen a few horror films. (Evil dead, The Changeling, etc.) I liked the last 15 minutes of the film, but this is not a good movie and you will regret renting it unless you were involved in its creation. I even doubt its value as a "so bad it's good" rental because until the end it's just dull.

Oh, and if you're looking for "intelligent horror" that's actually scary, check out the Korean film, A Tale of Two Sisters. Now that's a movie.