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(More customer reviews)This at its core a supernatural slasher film. Like all slasher films it is required to have a masked killer who uses a specialised cutting implement to dispatch teens in a particular setting. Like most supernatural films it comes with specific rules and otherworldly occurances and lapses in logic to circumvent said killer. The film works in both its horror subgenres.
Now at first glance the basic premise of the film sounds like Bava's gore/monster classic DEMONS. Sure, that's partially true. It's about a group of people going to see a midnight horror film in an old theater, and then having the horrifying images on the screen come to life and effect the audience in gruesome ways. But that's where the similarities end and the innovation begins. While I love DEMONS, I have to admit beyond the monster effects, soundtrack, cinematography and basic premise, the film brings nothing new to the table that Romero hadn't already in his zombie films. The satire about how movie violence effects its audience is there, but Bava was more interested in the grue, so it gets buried. This film leaves out the satire completely but builds a serious thriller out of it.
First let me praise God, Buddha, Allah, and Jesus that I have seen a slasher film with characters that are likeable and fleshed out--for the most part. There not as in-depth as Hamlet but for this genre they seem real enough. All the characters you're supposed to like, you do. Hell, one character, the Biker, starts off as a loathesome character and then turned out to be my favorite character. The best part about this film is that it works at getting you to like the people involved, but doesn't let that influence who lives and who dies. There are some casualties in this film that will really make you wish they weren't. I was very happy to actually watch a horror film not wishing for the characters' death, but rather rooting for them to escape. Sometimes I was disappointed and sometimes I wasn't....just watch it for yourself if you want to catch my drift.
Now the movie is very violent and even has some intense gross out death scenes in it. How it lays out each murder is rather clever. Every time the horror film on the screen switches to the notorious Killer POV, made notorious by all 80's slasher films, the characters are clued into the fact that they may have to start running for their lives. On the commentary track included on the dvd the director notes how each murder represented a different film style of killing people on screen. The first are off-screen with only the aftermath shown. As the bodycount rises so does the gore level. We even get a torture-porn(on my quest to reclaiming that term still)sequence at the end that involves some toes and a lot of unpleasantness. This is a fun concept for horror movie nerds and finatics.
The ending even goes somewhere you weren't expecting. I won't ruin it, but it's fun and creepy and slips all the way into supernatural fantasy. The film runs short, just about 80 minutes. It's the perfect length for this type of film, a fluff terror piece with an original twist on an old concept. I usually yearn for more when these things run short, but this one got it all right in less than 90 minutes: likeable characters, creative kills, an original idea for a new cineamtic maniac, and surprises and twists.
I really liked this film. It's very under the radar so you might pass it by. I only heard about it because it was elected dvd of the month in Fangoria a couple of months ago. Check it out...NOW.
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