Reviewed by Sam Unsted
Stars Tobin Bell, Leah Rachel, Erin Lokitz, Germaine de Leon,
Terence Jay, Steve Sandvoss, Lindsey Scott | Written by Art Monteraselli
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 94 minutes | Directed by Robert Kurtzman
The main attraction of this film, going on the press and cover of the DVD, is Tobin Bell — the dude who plays Jigsaw in the Saw franchise. That’s what you’d be going into this film expecting, the dude from Saw chewing scenery. Oh, and it’s written by the co-writer of the most recent Rambo. However, having seen this piece, I would put forward that the true main attraction of this film is that the disc it has been put on will easily fit in a bin, or a smelter, or back into its box when it’s returned, disappointedly, to the shop it has been purchased from.
The film follows a group of entirely charmless, horribly acted youngsters as they set off to a house, in the middle of nowhere, that’s supposedly haunted, blah blah blah. Why they go to the house at all is pretty tenuous — seemingly the lead actress is hazing two pledges to her sorority and the best way to do this is to take a trip to an old, spooky house and make them do stupid things — let alone what actually happens when they get there. Basically the house is haunted by some old woman with blood on her face and then we find it’s got some sort of supernatural element (in the most excruciating scene of exposition since The Da Vinci Code), and people are dying and ... yeah.
Who cares? That’s the question you’d have to ask yourself while watching this film. Even if you came to watch this film for the requisite quota of gore and sex — which you’d be entitled to as this is part of the Dimension Extreme series — you barely even get that. Director Kurtzman is a very good make-up and special effects guy who worked on the Evil Deads and some other excellent horror films. But that’s all he manages. For those coming in expecting Hostel-like brutality, it’s just not even delivering on that front. The blood that splatters is completely ineffectual because Kurtzman is more interested in how the special effect is done rather that actually making it gruesome or visceral. And the sex scene, which has no relevance or requirement in the story at all, would surely be surplus to even the horniest teenager's needs. The acting is awful, semi-barring Bell who at least seems to realise what a pile of crap this is, and the characters so unlikeable that, with them in ever scene, you’ll just end up angry someone took the type to create them. This is a boring, pointless, production-line horror and I condemn it roundly for sheer, inscrutable laziness.
EXTRAS None (thankfully).