The Woman

Title: The Woman
Director: Lucky McKee
Released: 2011
Starring: Sean Bridgers, Pollyanna McIntosh, Angela Bettis, Zach Rand, Lauren Ashley Carter, Shyla Molhusen

Plot: Country lawyer and supposed family man Chris (Bridgers) capture a primal woman (McIntosh) he finds in the woods during a hunting expedition, whom he proceeds to chain in his cellar while making plans to “civilise” her, not realising the effect she will have on his family, who are already a fractured unit to say the least with his wife Belle (Bettis) suffering from his casual abuse, while he seems to be moulding a monster in his own image with his son Brian (Rand), meanwhile his eldest daughter Peggy (Carter) lives in constant fear of her father, with the only one untouched by Chris’s influence seemingly being his youngest daughter Darlin’(Molhusen), while this family clearly is a powder keg waiting to explode and the woman could be  the spark to do just that.

Review: There are times as a critic were you will encounter a film, which makes you stop and say “I really have no idea, how the hell I’m going to review this” and much as was the case with “Martyrs” arguably the closest film I could compare this to and once again I’m presented with exactly the same situation, so this is going to be real interesting to see how this works out….so here goes nothing.

Lucky Mckee one of the more fiercely independent horror directors currently working, having first burst onto the horror scene in 2002 with “May”, he has continued to maintain his indie roots while continually proving to be one of the few continually exciting horror directors currently working in the modern horror scene. A reputation which he further cements with this film, which could also be his most controversial to date as  he once again teams up with horror writer Jack Ketchum for his second adaptation of Ketchum’s work after previously directing “Red”. While “The Woman” might be the sequel to Ketchum’s “The Offspring”  it is not essential to have read that book or even seen the film version, to get into this film as it is still very much a standalone movie,

Since its premier at Sundance “The Woman”, were a man in the audience walked out complaining about the violence and misogyny featured (as shown in a much discussed YouTube clip), it has essentially has been a hot bed of controversy since then, with Director McKee crafting a potent mixture torture, nudity, rape and visceral gore, but surprisingly the most shocking thing on here is more the casual abuse which Chris is happy to hand out to his family, to maintain his position as the head of the household. When all these factors are combined this is far from an easy movie to watch, yet Mckee still manages to keep a vice like grip on your attention, slowly twisting the tension as he builds up to the inevitable meltdown.

The cast are all pretty much faultless with Mckee’s once again casting his long term partner in crime Angela Bettis once more having cast her in all his film since, playing the titular “May” in his debut feature she has proven more than capable of adapting herself to the various roles Mckee has written for her in the past and here she perfectly embodies the character of Belle, who has now been reduced to a timid shell of a person, to the point were she unquestionably follows her husbands plans to civilise the woman, without Chris bothering to properly explain his intentions, while being certainly even less willing to stop him tearing the family apart. Bridgers is equally fantastic as Chris, easily switching between his dominating side he reserves for his family and the southern gentleman face he projects to the public on his day to day life, while only truly revealing the true depth of his evil at the climax which like his third side comes seemingly out of nowhere. Still he is very much in the mind of the end justifying his means, as he regularly beats the woman when she disobeys his commands, while not even thinking twice to use a power hose to clean the dirt of her body.

With such controversial material on display, I found myself questioning how much the younger cast members were aware of the content of the film? Still both Carter and Rand handle their roles wells with Carter certainly being one to watch, with her portrayal of Peggy proving to be especially memorable, as she takes the audience with her on an emotional journey, as she struggles to handle the chaos around her, let alone the fact her parents are keeping a feral woman in the cellar. Yet at the same time you feel that she longs to feel the same acceptance that her father shows to her brother, frequently emasculating her appearance by cutting her hair short and wearing baggy clothes, seemingly to disguise her femininity ideas sadly not explored further, much like a last minute pregnancy accusation which comes out of nowhere, yet to which Mckee seems especially keen to nail down, even when the audience is doubting it’s plausibility, let alone that it is used as the breaking point for the family. Rand on the other hand is more of the curious teenager and monster in the making, as his father bullies him constantly to mold him in his image, while when left to his own devices even starts imitating his father’s actions with the woman, quickly changing from the naive teenager into something a lot more dark and sinister whenever he is near the woman.

McIntosh is truly believable as the titular woman, whose statuesque figure embodies this Amazonian like character, whose very nature is deeply rooted in our most primal instincts as she lives only to further her own survival, happily chewing off Chris’s probing finger without seemingly the slightest bit faze by the violence of her acts, while communicating only in the most basic of grunts and howls. Even though she seems to understand what is happening around her, the woman remains true to her primal instincts throughout, as especially shown during the bloody climax were she truly shows what she is capable of, as she sets about extracting her own brand of revenge on her captives.
Despite several moments of extreme gore, outside of Chris loosing a finger, Mckee has make the bold decision to keep the gore for his shocking finale were he delivers in spades and truly ensures that the film gets a bloody send off, while seemingly being more happy to torture the audiences psyche until then, through scenes of Chris’s torments let alone a rape sequence which is handled in a thankfully non gratuitous manor and serves solely as a representation of the decline in morals that the woman brings out in the men in the family, as Mckee once again demonstrates a keen intellect behind his desire to shock.

While it might be easy to get caught up in the sexual politics which Mckee continually plays around with throughout to varying degrees of success, it is essentially best to leave these points open to personal interpretation, while for myself I found it to be a film which worked best when looked on as a grim portrait of picket fence hell, while proving once more that hell truly hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Oldboy (2013)

Title: Oldboy

Director: Spike Lee
Released: 2013

Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Imperioli, Pom Klementieff, James Ransone, Max Casella, Linda Emond, Lance Reddick

Plot: Joe Doucett (Brolin) an advertising executive is kidnapped and imprisoned in an isolated hotel room. His only contact to the outside world being through the TV in his room, Joe soon discovers that he has been framed for the rape and murder of his wife, while his daughter is adopted. Now twenty years later Joe finds himself suddenly released and given 72 hours by a mysterious stranger (Copley) to discover why he imprisoned Joe.

Review: Unsurprisingly when the news was broke about an English language remake of the highly memorable yet alone much beloved Park Chan-wook original it was an announcement greeted with much distain by the fans of the original who rightfully saw it as yet another unneeded cash in. Still the studios rumbled on regardless as for awhile it looked like Steven Spielberg would team up with Will Smith for an adaptation of the original manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, only to step away from the project leaving it open for Spike Lee to take on the project. Certainly a fitting director choice, especially as it takes a certain kind of ego to think that you can better an undisputed classic like the original is rightfully seen as not only by foreign cinema fans, but by people who would normally not even consider watching a foreign film, much less an undubbed one.

So with this in mind I really entered into this film expecting the worse, even more so when I have never exactly been the biggest fan of Lee’s films, which for myself hit their high water mark with the Oscar snubbed “Malcom X” and have since then been pretty much hit and miss. At the same time his frequently opinionated attitude (especially when it comes to racial politics) often leaves little too warm to. So now having finally seen this film it is something of a surprise to report that honestly it’s not that bad. Okay first off it should be noted that this review is based were possibly purely on this film alone, without trying to draw comparisons to the original especially when the two are so incomparable especially when both directors approach the material with two different spins on things.

Interestingly then than rather than trying to adapt the original source Manga, Lee here chooses instead to adapt Chan-Wook’s original film. It has to be noted though that on the credits it is listed as “The Korean film” rather than name checking Chan-Wook. Lee also notably leaves off his usual trademark “A Spike Lee Joint” title which seemingly was Lee’s protest of choice for the studio hacking 35 minutes off his original 140 minute cut. Where these cuts were made I couldn’t say, especially as nothing seems to be noticeably missing

Noticeably more violent than the original, the hammer blows are frequently shown in graphic detail much like nearly all the violence which has none of the savage beauty which Chan-Wook brought not only to the original film but his vengeance trilogy on the whole. Here Joe is a blunt weapon of raw vengeance fuelled with a single minded determination to find out who imprisoned him. It is interesting though to see that Lee rather than simply recreate the memorable brawls of the original instead reworks them in his own vision, so that the Joe’s first chance to test out his fighting skills is not with a group of thugs but instead a bone breaking showdown with a group of lacrosse players. Now as for the memorable one shot corridor fight, here it becomes a multi-level fight as Joe works his way down a series of ramps battling thugs, which Lee ambitiously also shoots as single shot. A sequence which reportedly brought Brolin to tears, while also sequence which suffered under the cuts imposed by the studio, but honestly I couldn’t see where the cut had been made as it remains still a standout sequence if perhaps too clustered in places, as the ramps frequently give the thugs the opportunity to surround and pile in on Joe.

Unsurprisingly some of the more memorable scenes like the squid eating scene are noticeably absent, though the squid is teased as Joe goes on a marathon dumpling sampling session to try and find the restaurant which supplied the dumplings he has been forced to live off for the last 20 years. A reminder once again that there are still somethings you can’t do via the Hollywood studio system that you can do in the Asian film industry. Needless to say when the film does have a memorable moment, it is frequently do to it being a reworked scene from the original, as when attempts to emulate Chan-wooks stylish violence as seen during a particularly sadistic torture session carried out by Joe on Samuel L. Jackson’s hotel manager / jailer the result comes off largely flat and lacking any of the morbid beauty that Chan-wook’s films have frequently brought to such matters.

While the film might frequently fail to capture the spirit of original, it cannot really be blamed on the assembled cast who despite being given what is ultimately watered down material to work with, they still manage to provide some great performances with Brolin easily carrying the film with his testosterone driven antics while still having the acting chops to take us on a journey with the character of Joe, who starts of as an portly alcoholic arsehole, who through his forced captivity is forced to face up to his personal demons while preparing himself for his eventual revenge. True he might not play it with the same feral roughness (he does get a pet mouse though) that we get with the original, but he still perfectly sells the final twist, which sees Brolin pulling the character to the complete opposite end of the scale in reaction to the final twist. It is however one which here like so many aspects is reworked into what I guess Lee saw as being a more acceptable ending for Western audiences. One major and unquestionably shocking aspect of the original’s ending, which I won’t reveal for those of you who havn’t seen it (the fans will know already which one) is kept intact and nicely worked in just when you think that they wouldn’t include it.

As the villain of the piece Copley continues to prove himself as a human chameleon as he continues to never play the same kind of role twice. Here he plays a camper but none the less calculating villain who shares similar motive to Lee Woo-Jin in the original but here Copley is a lot more playfully tormenting of Joe and takes great delight in the trails Joe is forced to go through, were as Lee Woo-Jin played it cool throughout. While Copley is on great form here, he does lack the memorable presence even though he is frequently delightfully evil and comes with a devilish bodyguard (Haeng-Bok) who sadly gets a chance for a great showdown with Joe squandered.

A flawed yet strangely watchable remake and even despite entering the film with a low opinion it still turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable experience. True it might be a more edited version than Lee would have liked (if we are to believe his latest rants) and I would be interested to see what got cut and if it improved or detracted from the film (something which was certainly the case with the “Donnie Darko” director’s cut). Still as remakes go this is certainly one of the better ones out there, even if its unwanted status will mean that many will avoid it out of loyalty for their love of the original. This film however is worth a curious watch, only if to reinforce your love for the original the talent of Park Chan-wook all the more.

Big Bad Wolves

Title: Big Bad Wolves
Director: Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado
Released: 2013
Starring: Tzahi Grad, Rotem Keinan, Lior Ashkenzai, Dvir Benedek, Kais Nashif, Guy Adler, Doval'e Glickman, Nati Kluger, Menashe Noy, Gur Bentvitch

Plot: Following a series of violent murders of young girls, three men soon find their lives on a collision course with each other. Gidi (Grad) the father of the latest victim now fuelled with a lust for revenge, Miki (Ashkenzai) a rouge police detective and Dror (Keinan) a school teacher and main suspect, who despite being arrested once already by Gidi only to be released due to Miki and his teams’ vigilante actions. Now Dror finds himself captured again by Gidi and the now suspended Miki who are determined to get him to confess to the murders they believe he is responsible for.



Review: While Israeli cinema might not be over well renown outside of World Cinema fans, it certainly seems to be something which directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado are trying to change, as having launched their careers by making Israel’s first horror film with their debut “Rabies” they now follow it up by essentially giving the country its second with this film, which also comes with a glowing recommendation from Quentin Tarantino who proclaimed it as being the “Best Film of The Year”.

Opening to the slowed down footage of children playing hide and seek, while one of them is kidnapped, the film is attention grabbing from the start especially when combined with the sinister score provided by Frank llfman, who also provided the soundtrack for “Rabies” and whose score is equally memorable here aswell, as it perfectly sets the mood for the film throughout. From this memorable opening we first meet Miki and his team carrying out their own brand of outlaw justice as they attempt to interrogate Dror in an abandoned building and attempting to beat a confession out of him, only to have the plug pulled before they get the answers they want, while more grudgingly being forced to apologise and release Dror. It is a surprising scene to open with and one only made the more surreal by the rich vein of black humour which flows throughout this scene. This scene though is really a taste of what is to follow as the film balances out scenes of brutal torture with pitch black humour making it a kind of torture porn with jokes.

This of course is the most loosest of descriptions as this film is equally a taut thriller and one which grabs you from its opening moments right down to its final chilling twists. Needless to say it is also a film were its directors choose to play their cards close to their chest throughout giving out small and seemingly unimportant hints, only to pull them all together during the finale as they suddenly become a lot more important than first perceived. Equally the actual guilt of Dror is one left worryingly under a cloud of presumption bringing back memories of Donna Tartt’s second novel “The Little Friend” which told its own tale of revenge against a subject seemingly picked at random, though thankfully this film does finally reveal the answer regarding Dror’s guilt by the closing credit, but certainly not after making the audience question the actions of Gidi and Miki.

While the film works perfectly well with these three main characters, we also get the surprise appearance of Gidi’s father who arrives to drop off soup while staying to weld a blowtorch.  At this point Gidi has already had time to show his dark side as he sets out to seemingly cross off every grisly detail of the police report by re-inacting them on Dror. Gidi’s father however soon reveals his own darker side as he joins in, while also providing numerous darkly comedic moments, such as an impromptu argument with his wife over the phone about taking his medication and a sudden lust for Barbeque after showcasing an alternative use for the blowtorch.

Of course such asides could easily derail the film and its only a further credit to the directing duo that nothing is lost by the frequently random aside, such as a local wandering Arab, a drugged cake or the frequent comical moments such as Miki receiving a dressing down by his superior and their son. These like the frequently interrupting ringtones instead help to relieve some of the tension, especially as certain members of the group begin to doubt their actions, while equally stopping the film from getting too heavy or away from its dark comedy core.

Needless to say the torture is certainly a key element here and while it might not be as voyeuristic as that seen in Eli Roth’s “Hostel” trilogy. The film does however really come with quite a bite in some of these scenes, several of which left me squirming in my seat as I waited for a sudden cut away which never comes.  While these scenes certainly come with an unexpected brutal edge, there is constantly an undertone throughout the film questioning whether such actions are ever truly effective methods of interrogation? Needless to say it is a popular subject of debate as of late something which has been looked at in several films as of late such as “Zero Dark Thirty” and one continued here if abet more subtley and certainly without the preachy edge.

The real strength of this film through lies in the casting in particular the three central characters who for the most part are left to carry the film themselves.  A feat not especially easy to carry out and while none of the cast might not be known outside of their native Israel it only further works to the films advantage as it allows the audience to view these characters with no preconceptions. This especially works to the advantage of Grad who comes off when we first meet him as the kind of slow witted parental figure. Needless to say he perfectly sells Gidi’s turn to the dark side of vigilantism aswell as his single minded determination to get Dror to reveal the location of his murdered daughters head. What is more remarkable though is that no matter how brutal the acts he carries out there is still a part of you which sides with him, even as his actions become frequently more questionable. Ashkenzai meanwhile gets to play things largely for laughs as the rouge detective and helps to stop the mood from getting too dark, especially as he finds himself increasingly deeper than he no doubt would like, even more so when he finds himself becoming an unwilling observer when he also gets chained up in the basement by Gidi. Finally Keinan is through ally convincing as the accused Dror and really keeps you guessing as to if he is the killer or not.

A confident and stylish film, it clearly proves that their debut was no fluke while certainly making me curious to see were they go next, while making me curious to know what other cinematic treats Israel might be hiding. At the same time I wouldn’t exactly agree with Tarantino’s branding this the “Film of The Year” it is still a gripping thriller and unquestionably one of the better films, though for myself the heavier torture scenes really took away from my enjoyment of the film and rating it higher, but unquestionably this is brave and exciting film making at its best.

The Loved Ones

Title: The Loved Ones

Director: Sean Byrne

Released: 2009

Staring: Xavier Samuel, Robin McLeavy, Victoria Thaine, Jessica McNamee, Richard Wilson, John Brumpton

Plot: When Brent (Samuel) turns down Lola’s (McLeavy) invitation to the school prom, she concocts a plan for her own prom instead.

Review: Despite being released three years ago to zero fanfare, for one reason or another this film has suddenly become a hot topic in the horror blogging community, were in the space of the week I’ve seen posts from at least four different bloggers. Meanwhile it seems my finger had been far from the pulse (no doubt jammed somewhere else to paraphrase "Mallrats" Brodie) , having recorded this film ages ago yet only now finally getting around to watching it.

The feature debut of director Sean Byrne who is probably best known for his short films, a reputation which may soon be challenged by this film as it’s popularity continues to increase and with good reason as here he takes the usual torture movie conventions yet has somehow managed to produce a highly original film, which like it’s nastier predecessor “Wolf Creek” makes you wonder what it is about Australian film makers which allows them to still manage to make original films in what is fast becoming a genre almost as overworked as the Zombie genre, much less were they are drawing such vicious inspiration from?

The plot is simple enough with the shy and retiring Lola having eyes for the moody Brent and only wanting for him to take her to the prom, sadly to be shot down.  Possibly not the best decision Brent could have made seeing how Lola doesn’t exactly take rejection that well. Still Brent soon learns the cost of saying no to Lola, as she soon has him tied up in her house which she has converted into her own prom, with the help of her equally unhinged father (Brumpton) who is more than happy to ensure that his princess gets the prom she wants. Now while most directors would just see this as all the setup they need to get into unleashing their twisted ideas onto the screen, Byrne instead throws us something of a curve ball by breaking up the scenes of torture with what would at first seem to be random comedic asides as we follow Brent’s portly best friend Jamie (Wilson) as he manages to convince the hot Goth Mia to go with him to prom, only to soon find out that perhaps Lola isn’t the only unhinged girl at their school. Initially I was put off by the random cuts to Jamie’s prom night, but ultimately it is the right decision here as it adds a much needed relief to the essentially relentless scenes of torture and torment, which while it might remove some of the snarl from the film, certainly stopped it turning into another brutal assault like “Wolf Creek” which only helped me enjoy it more.

The real power in this film though comes from McLeavy’s performance which always stays on the right side of demented, without becoming comical especially as she frequently teeters close to the edge of farcical, while her out of tune . Still Lola is slightly more complex than your usual slasher, especially as she’s essentially bi-polar when it comes to her torture parties, switching on a moments notice from snarling confidence to crippling panic, especially when parts of her plan don’t work out how she originally planned them as especially seen during the scenes of her attempts at home lobotomy surgery something which only had me draw further comparisons between her and the equally obsessed Annie Wilkes from “Misery” with the shots of Lola and her power drill almost holding the same power as Annie and her sledgehammer. Were their obsessions differ though is in the fact that her obsession with Brent can be rooted to her serious daddy issues, which boil down to the fact that she wants to jump her dad’s bones. Still it is a fascinating relationship that she shares with Daddy (Brumpton) who seemingly is happy to do whatever it takes to keep his daughter happy, while also appearing to be responsible for some of the more disturbing elements of the film such as the lobotomised Bright eyes and no doubt the basement full of cannibals, while also hiding a nasty streak of his own which is slowly revelled as the layers of the bumbling bumpkin are peeled away to show his true colours. Such multi layered characterisation is a running theme throughout the film, with only a few characters such as Jamie actually being who they first appear with Brent being a mass of guilt and angst, as the result of his father’s death, something he deals with by self mutilation and generally keeping himself doped up, though no doubt his encounter with Lola has given him a whole new bunch of issues, especially when he finds himself tied up in her kitchen and rendered mute, thanks to her injecting his voice box with bleach, something which also adds another interesting layer to the film, as we are faced with watching a character who cannot speak or make any sound bar a raspy scream when subjected to the more extreme tortures that Lola and her father unleash on him over the course of the evening.

The gore which while frequently graphic which mutilation and impalement heavily featured, it is never at the same gratuitous levels as many of its contemporaries to which it is significantly lighter in tone as Bryne has crafted a film which very much plays by it’s own rules and is only all the stronger for it. Even more so after baring witness to the stream of clones which followed in the wake of the success of Eli Roth’s “Hostel” and while it still features the same kind of visceral seat-squirming visuals it still at the same times bothers to do more than just pile on the grime and gore, with Byrne seemingly fighting these conventions further by dressing Lola in bright pinks, while her mumbling rendition of “Am I Not Pretty Enough?” is nothing short of haunting and filled with the same loneliness which seemingly inhabits every aspect of Lola’s life, while only further ensuring that this is one prom your unlikely to forget anytime soon.

The Final

Title: The Final
Director: Joey Stewart
Released: 2010
Staring: Marc Donato, Jascha Washington, Whitney Hot, Julin, Lindsay Seidel, Laura Ashley Samuels, Justin S. Arnold, Travis Tedford, Eric Isenhower, Vincent Silochan, Farah White, Zacherias Judge.

Plot: After being a target of the popular kids for years, a group of misfits and outcasts band together to plot their revenge on their tormentors.




Review: High school is hell! This is the general opinion I had of school which I recall as a daily ritual of beatings and humiliation, before going to college and truly finding myself, while those who tormented soon struggled and dropped out as they failed cope with no longer being the big fish in the little pond, so guess karma has a way of working things out. Still perhaps it’s because my own school days were so similar to the bullied teens seen here in this film, that in many ways I can relate to their plight, after all who hasn’t thought about getting revenge on someone whose sole purpose in life seems to be about making yours as miserable as possible, while at the same time certainly making it ripe for a horror twist.

While there might have been films in the past which have looked at similar themes of revenge on the tormentor such as Larry Clark’s explicit “Bully” (2001) and the slightly lighter “Mean Creek” (2004), while “Elephant” (2003) and “Zero Day” (2003) attempted to attach the theme to recreating the events of the Columbine High School Massacre, still for horror films this as far as I’m aware is a first, seeing how previous films have always focused on the individual pushed too far rather than a group and it’s this slight twist which certainly makes it more interesting, while also making it awhole lot more plausible, especially when their tormentors easily reach into double figures and to have one person extracting revenge against them all would no doubt have not been able to maintain the same level of focus that this film does on ensure that the so called victims know exactly why they are there.

The group are the usual collection of misfits and outcasts, all bullied and tormented for similar reasons, while the majority of them also have equally disturbing family lives with Ravi’s (Silochan) family barely communicating with each other, while Dane’s (Donato) parents are shown to be constantly fighting, as home provides little in the way of shelter for these teens who are all brought together under the leadership of ringleader Dane, who identifies their similarities to each other and entices them in with his plans for revenge. It’s strange though that once the revenge begins that he takes a backseat to the torture games instead preferring to torment the tormentors with extensive monologues and leaving the rest of the group to carry out the grunt work, ironically only getting his hands dirty when it comes to keeping the rest of the group in line with his plans.

Having lured thier tormentors to a mock costume party we see the group at the start of the party in their innocent looking costumes, which soon change to much more twisted ones once they get their tormentors were they want them, having drugged them all with a spiked punch, as if the second costumes are supposed to represent the darker alter ego’s of the group at the same time with their first costumes representing their usual faces of false innocence they present on a daily basis. The second costumes are also clearly designed to reference other horror films with Emily’s (Seidel) costume in particular basically being a copy of the one seen in “Audition” (2000), a reference only made all the more clearer once she starts her own brand of acupuncture on one of the male jocks.

While the film quickly descends into becpming yet another torture flick, director Stewart atleast bothers to stop the scenes from becoming the usual mix of gratuitous violence and prolonged torment, keeping the focus purely on revenge via Dane’s taunts as he addresses their captives and by also keeping the revenge aspect until the second half of the film, using the first half wisely to make the bullies as evil and vicious as he can. Still the revenge aspect atleast bothers to be slightly more creative than the host of Hostel clones we have seen in the last couple of years, as acidic skin cream and a cattle gun all come into play, with Jack (Isenhower) and Emily dishing out the majority of the revenge, with a focus on disfiguring and maiming their tormentors, before unceromonsley dumping them in the back room and moving onto the next victim, which was kind of a change from the usual torture to death, much like the fact that the group are more than willing to let their captive to walk out, knowing all to well that they will not only have to negotiate a maze of bear traps, but also the homicidal mute triplets who happily hunt down for sport those who want to take their chances in the woods. Still the worst torture of the whole film has to be when Jake starts playing the banjo, which irritatingly soundtracks the majority of scenes in a clear reference to Deliverance with the redneck vibe only added to by Jack’s Scarecrow costume. Now this is not to say that he is not talented, as he clearly know how to play the instrument, it’s just that it’s not exactly the most ideal instrument for building tension in a scene and in fact the majority of times it was used only took away from the film, much like the inclusion of the war veteran neighbour, whose inclusion could have easily been emitted.

While Stewart throws up a couple of twists throughout the film, such as the neutral friend Kurtis (Washington) who is seem befriending both groups, even sticking up for his bullied friends when he finds out how they have treated Bradley and it was his character which proved the most surprising twist, especially when the group soon begin to fall apart over what judgment he will face, with Dane soon being blinded by his hate while the others members of the group soon begin to suspect that he has lost focus from their original intentions as only highlighted by the ending which in many ways was almost predictable, seeing how the film has worked itself into a corner by this point and almost feel like Stewart is afraid to have the film without the group facing any form of punishment for their actions and even more so that he would be seen portraying the groups actions as an acceptable way for equally bullied viewers to deal with their own issues, though the setup is so clearly fantastical it would be doubtful that anyone could see it as a how to guide to dealing with bullies.

Originally released as part of the “After Dark Horrorfest” which has showcased equally noteworthy films such as “The Hamiltons” (2006) and “Frontier(s)” (2007) and this film is equally noteworthy as it is flawed, but for trying to do something different with an overly stale sub genre of horror, it’s worth giving a look even if the groups actions are ultimately questionable.