Hoochie Haboochie!!
This baby is something else.
Ok, so when the movie starts and the first things you notice are Brett Kelly Entertainment, Directed By Brett Kelly and Starring Brett Kelly, well you know you're probably in for a shit fest. Either this Brett Kelly fella is the worlds most multi talented, unknown film maker or he's a a dude with a love of slasher movies, A shiny new camera and overinflated sense of his abilities and talents. Listen, bless this dude for doing what he wants to do in life, but son of a bitch does he need to get a 9 to 5 job and leave the movie making to others.
I'm gonna give major spoilers, in fact I'll probably dissect every plot point in this review. You've been warned.
The first thing we notice is that it's not high end equipment being used in this film as from the very first shot it's clear that it's maybe one step above a home movie. But that can be overcome with solid story and acting. Unfortunately the story and the acting are inferior to the camera and camera work, which is saying something.
2 Campers are in the woods for the cold open, they get killed natch, not a horrid opening scene and we have yet to see the monster.
Now the real meat and potatoes of our story begins as we're introduced to one of the 4 male leads who really can't act, and whats written for him to say is not much better. He's going on a getaway survival weekend with his friends because one of them just found out his wife was cheating on him so this will be a good way to get him out of the city and maybe brighten his spirits.
Ok, the first thing that struck me in this scene was the brilliant writing "mmmm, whats that great smell? Eggs?" Apparently the man has never smelled eggs before and is infatuated with them. He and his girlfriend have a little row over him going away for the weekend but she finally relents and allows him to go. The acting and writing I can already tell will be pretty damn bad, and thank god most of the movie was filmed outdoors because Mr. Kelly loves to shoot close and from about the waist, making every fucking shot look awful and tight. Interiors are not his bag.
Now we get A LOOOOOOONNNNG opening credit sequence whose main point I can only imagine is to get all his friends names on screen for an extended period of time. It's interspersed with stock footage of mountains and shots the tip of a boat going down the river. As I will find out more than a few times in this film, this dude is either in love with extended shots of nothing happening or he had a ton of time to fill. Probably a little of both.
So 4 dudes are out in the middle of nowhere when we cut away to a photographer being chased by the beast. Apparently their is a legend about the beast and this photographer payed a dude to take him out here so he could get a snap shot. Besides the bad acting in this scene, we're given our first real look at the shoddy writing in the film as 1 minute the photog is trying to get away, the next minute he's trying to convince the guide to take him back. Later we see that the photog ran right up to the beast, stood in front of him, and started snapping pictures, and was then shocked that he was being attacked.
The guide is clearly not an actor, and I say that in the nicest way possible but god damn is he horrible. Luckily he's not on the screen for long.
On to this killer beast. Ok, the budget for this movie had to be about $500. The Beast looks like a giant Muppet, way overdone with unnecessary features that make how awful the suit is stand out. He's about 10 feet tall, has giant horns, giant mastodon teeth, and is clearly made of fabric, like really clearly. It looks like someone stitched a bunch of suede jackets together and glued dog hair on it.
Anyhoo, back to the main story. Luckily for the guys there are 4 girls also out in this remote area. They took a car and just hiked here. They have no equipment or supplies so one would wonder why exactly the fellas had to boat all the way down the river. Also the photog and his guide were near by so obviously this place aint all that remote.
The lead luckily brought a big bag of dope with him but upon discovering he had forgotten to bring rolling papers, he just tosses the bag away. Just so much silly shit in this film.
I think the word is called blocking? The way you frame your shot? Well this film excels at doing that awfully. For instance, numerous times people will wander off for about 5 seconds and end up being 200 yards away. People are constantly wandering off for no reason other than it's their time to get eaten by the beast. The framing of even regular shots is pretty horrid as well as as I said earlier, the director loves closeups at an upward angle, why? I don't know, but it's irritating as fuck.
There's an absurd subplot as 1 of the girls is a feminist and is aghast at men telling her what to do once the beast starts attacking. She's more upset with men telling her what to do than she is that a giant beast creature is killing them off. The guy who's wife cheated on him is of course mad at all womankind and slowly goes crazy after getting bitten by the beast. I think they were trying to add some sort of zombie element here but it's all so fuckin jumbled.
One by one they get clipped off when alone, despite as I said, none of them ever walking too far or too long. They walk or run the entire fucking movie and always seem to be right where they started. Despite having 4 hot chicks in the movie there isn't much sexuality and zero nudity. The effects are non existent as all the kills are quick cuts of a giant Muppet "eating" people. The gore is laughable as every kill involves someone spitting up blood, shaking and having their intestines hang out. Intestines by the way which also look like they were made out of fabric and probably reused for every kill scene. There's even a great moment where the creature is apparently supposed to be in the trees and one of the dudes yells "He's hopping from tree to tree!!" Followed by a shot of trees, nothing in them, just trees. No budget.
So 8 people are whittled down to 4, they of course split up and travel in different directions and again despite having been going in different directions for a good period of time, when confronted by the beast it takes them only a few seconds to run back to each other.
The end comes when there are only 2 women left, lesbians of course, and they are face to face with the beast. One of them has an axe, and this is great, throws it at the beasts head "killing him". I put that in quotes because yes, even though the beast is dead, they apparently didn't wanna ruin the suit so instead of the axe actually going into it's head it sort of just lands on it's head and is clearly being held up at the bottom so it rests there. Fucking awesome.
I've got to also talk about the 4 male leads. They MUST be Bret Kellys friends. I can't fathom these are actual actors. Bad actors trying to do dialog that's supposed to be funny but isn't is like, one of the greatest things ever. Add in the horrid cutting and bad directing and it just looks like 4 people doing awful monologues to a wall.
Some of you remember me talking about a friend who part of a film that was essentially a dude with a nice camera his parents paid for trying to do a zombie movie. It looked exactly like what it was, a badly shot film with bad actors, a bunch of his friends and a bunch of stuffed filmed in the woods because that was the only place they could shoot for free. This movie reminded me of that, except this was worse, and I never imagined I'd see a worse movie than that one.
To summarize. It's a horribly written. Horridly acted. Atrociously directed. Patently unfrightening film with laughable gore and zero budget. If you were to take 100 groups of 10 people, put them in the woods and tell them to make a horror movie, I'd bet about 90 of them could come up with better films than this. Bless Brett Kellys heart but he has no idea how to work a camera, edit a movie, write a movie or do anything involved with making a movie. Maybe he can cater, I dunno.
The 15 stars are for the unintended comedic value of the film. If you love watching sad, bad film making for the comedy of it all then this film is for you. Everyone else should stay away from this film school project masquerading as a legitimate film.
No comments:
Post a Comment