This shocker of a horror is a fine example of today's horrors and how they are such a letdown compared to your horrors from the 20th century. I would seriously recommend that no one goes near this horror as it is complete trash as the ratings below will show:-
- IMDB - 4.7 (Very Generous)
- Rotten Tomatoes - 9%
- Metacritic - 25%
I am quite annoyed at this moment that I wasted two hours of my free time watching this junk. Not only is it bad through its ratings, but it is a film produced by the famous Wes Craven! I mean, come on, really Wes? The man himself created perhaps the most famous horror character of all time - Freddie Krueger - and produced the sublime nightmare on elm street franchise! A true legend that created an iconic horror character and franchise has returned with this pile of nonsense.
For those who are somehow interested in the plot of this film, I will let you in on it. This embarrassment of a film, created by Wes Craven, lasts roughly 107 minutes which is actually good for a modern horror. However, the advantage of the run time has no effect on the quality of the movie itself. In the sleepy town of Riverton, legend tells of a serial killer who swore he would return to murder the seven children born the night he died. Now, 16 years later, people are disappearing again. Has the psychopath been reincarnated as one of the seven teens, or did he survive the night he was left for dead? Only one of the kids knows the answer. Adam "Bug" Heller (Max Thieriot) was supposed to die on the last night the Riverton Ripper wrecked havoc on that terrifying night. Unaware of terrifying crimes being committed to the seven children, he has been plagued by nightmares of their murders while not aware if they hold true or if he is simply imagining the images that haunt him. But if Bug hopes to save his friends from the monster that's returned, he must face an evil that won't rest...until it finishes the job it began the day he was born.
So when I read the summary of the film I actually thought, well this sounds not bad... Well I was completely wrong. I seriously cannot think of any good features within the film apart from the long run time. To be 100% honest, there are a couple of jump scares hidden that are not expected at all that made me jump, but the rest were all predictable. To be generous, I would probably say the costume of the ripper was pretty cool and scary looking. This was another reason I watched it - the thumbnail of the film on Netflix was the face of the ripper, and so I thought it was quite eye-catching. Also, there was a decent twist in the end which really helped to raise the quality of the film by a fraction but overall it was still very disappointing especially for the work of Craven!
Oh great, now onto the weaknesses of the film. I could talk about them all day. First of all, the film is so clichéd and follows a very poor, formulaic plot to carry out two tasks - 1) Obtain a cast of seven teenagers 2) Kill all of them. This merely is the plot and follows the main procedure of any other old horror - a serial killer hunting down a trail of people to kill. There is also a scene in the film where Bug plants his cell phone in the girls' toilets to hear what the girl he has a crush on - Brittany (Paulina Olszynski) - to hear if she likes him too. I mean come on... what has this got to do with the plot? This scene frustrated me as it was fairly long and it had no relevance at all to the central plot of the film. The sad thing is, I was a lot more interested in discovering whether she liked him or not than the actual outcome of the film. Another disappointing feature was the acting. One scene in particular that I can remember was when Bug was beaten by his sister, his nose began to bleed. When he started to walk back to his room his guardian merely asked him if he was okay in a calm tone as if nothing had happened. I could criticise this film all day, but I'll end with talking about the jump scares. About 90% of the scares in this film are expected. No joke. It's so predictable due to the silence and angles the camera is from.
In conclusion, I would seriously recommend all horror fans to give this film a miss if you already haven't. It's a real shocker, containing a very poor clichéd plot, and has a weak structure. There are also moments that begin to steer off topic at several moments in the film which weakens it further. Seriously - after watching this film it is very difficult to be the creator of Freddie Krueger (Wes Craven) directed and wrote this!
No comments:
Post a Comment