Indie Horror Movies

Frozen Review

April 30, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2010

Director: Adam Green

Summary (from IMDb): Three skiers are stranded on a chairlift and forced to make life-or-death choices that prove more perilous than staying put and freezing to death

My Quick Review: I do not understand all the praises that came with Frozen, from director Adam Green (Hatchet, Spiral). Needless to say the pitch is quite exciting (3 people on a deserted mountain are stuck on a chairlift) but only for a short movie. I feel that this would have been so much more impactful inside an horror anthology.

There are some good scenes (basically each escape try) and the exposition/introduction of the movie is kept short but reaching the half part of frozen I was bored to death by really dull dialogue between 2 of the main protagonists. It’s supposed to make us connect to them but it just felt off to me and more like a way to make up some time to fill the required 90mn length.

To top it off, some decisions they make are quite stupid or should have needed more thoughts. I understand that, unless you have been in this type of situation, it’s always easy to feel smarter than the people having to make those choices but still…

So all in all I would have given probably a 6 or 7 to Frozen it it had been edited to fit in a 30mn short; but as a full length feature I can’t really recommend it.

My Rating: 5/10.

The Hamiltons Review

April 10, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2006

Director: The Butcher Brothers (I know…)

Synopsis (from IMDb): Four young adult siblings try to fend for themselves after the mysterious death of their parents. But they harbor some dark secrets….

My Short Review: I’ve got mixed feelings about the Hamiltons. On one hand I did enjoy the mood of the whole movie and the characters are definitively interesting. On the other hand it’s too predictable (you can see the end and the supposed twists coming a mile away), boring in parts (the movie is a bit more than 80mn long but feels like a 100mn movie) and quite pointless.. It’s weird but not weird enough, it’s bloody but not gory..

I think this is the perfect example of a full feature that should have been part of an anthology or made into a 30mn short movie for maximum impact. As it is, it lacks emotional and/or visual power.

Rating: 4.5/10

Wrong Turn 2 Review

April 9, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2007

Director: Joe Lynch

Synopsis (from IMDb): A group of reality show contestants find themselves fighting for their survival against a family of hideously deformed inbred cannibals who plan to ruthlessly butcher them all.

My Short Review: What a blast!! I was totally underwhelmed by Wrong Turn which I just watched again a few days ago. So I was obviously not looking very much forward watching the sequel, despite some positive reviews here and there.

Boy was I wrong! A few minutes into the movie, a girl gets cut in half (vertically), one of the coolest kill scene I’ve seen in a while. At that point (especially since the intro of Wrong Turn 2 is a direct copy of the one in Wrong Turn), I felt like the director wanted to tell the audience:”forget about the sellout that Wrong Turn was, THIS is how it should be done!!”

And yes the kills are gruesome and the fun keeps on coming throughout the whole movie with the introduction of interesting characters (especially Henry Rollins in the role of a retired marine turned Reality TV star presenter) and a much better insight into the Mutants family life(including a “Texas chainsaw”- like dinner scene). To top it off, it wasn’t easy to guess who would survive at the end.

So my advice would be to skip the first one and watch this one instead, especially if you’re into fun splatter.

Rating: 6.5/10

Vile Review

April 6, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2011

Director: Taylor Sheridan

Synopsis: A group of friends stop to pick up a hitchhiking woman only to end up getting drugged by her with a gas. They awaken in a locked house with another group of people and quickly find out that they are unlucky test subjects for an unknown group of experimental drugs dealers.

My Short Review: At first I did not think much about vile and the beginning was a big turnoff:

– Group of young people camping in the wild. Check

– Stop at a creepy gas station. Check

– Meet with a weird person and trust her. Check.

But sometimes its good not to know what you’re in for, and I had no idea what would happen later ( I did not even read the synopsis of Vile). I was expecting some kind of cabin in the woods movie and instead got a basic, but efficient Torture porn movie. The fact that the victims have to torture one another or themselves is actually a nice twist in a tired formula. There are plenty of good ideas, from the classic nail clipping to the more original ironing and, if not everything is shown on-screen, the sound effects take over to give us some good cringing scenes.

Unfortunately, the inconsistent acting (some actors are just plain bad) and one of the final twist (easy to see coming and badly implemented) bring my rating down.

But all in all, this is again the kind of film that gives you exactly what you were looking for, nothing more (could have done with a bit more gore and T&A), nothing less.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Excision Review

April 2, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2012

Director: Richard Bates Jr

Synopsis (from IMDb): A disturbed and delusional high school student with aspirations of a career in medicine goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother.

My Short Review: I had read good reviews about this one and I really DO like the main actress, Annalynne McCord, so I was really looking forward to watching this movie.

Unfortunately, 40 mns in, I could not make it through anymore.

Full disclosure: I was pretty beat when I started watching the movie, so it needed to be extra special to keep me awake and somehow I did not really get into the film so I decided to call it quit at midpoint.

For this reason I won’t be giving Excision a note, as I believe it would not be fair.

What I can say though is that I enjoyed the performances of AnnaLynne as a repressed unpopular girl and Traci Lords as her righteous mom. Not a big fan of Ariel Winter (from Modern Family) though.

Some of the Dream imagery is very well shot and a bit on a gory side. Everything else: the teenage angst, the smartass geeky girl, the jocks, stupid mean girls, a lot of clichés that just bored me and did not manage to keep me awake.

I’m welcoming comments from people who actually made it to the end and please try to make me wanna finish it one day.

My Rating: N/A (it would not be fair to give Excision a rating since I haven’t gotten to the end.