A movie that starts out with 80's
nostalgia with a feel of Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982). Got tricked
into watching this movie because it's rating on IMDB was 7.8/10. It
has since fallen down to 4.3 which is about where it should be. With
forgettable cliche characters and spec plot, the opening and middle acts
drag. The ninety seven minute run time could easily be trimmed down
to an hour. Which is short for a feature film but would pump up the
IMDB rating (gotta pump up those numbers rookie) plus make it more
watchable.
The story borrows heavily from '80s
horror, kid dies at camp with a deranged counselor (Friday the 13th), on
cursed ground and evil spirits using technology (Poltergeist 1982)
everyone who has sex gets it first and people camping and fighting
for survival (every teen horror movie made ever). Nothing wrong with
paying homage to awesome cult favs (Tarantino has made a career doing
this). But add something to the story, make it worth watching. If
you're just ripping off other movies you should have plenty of time to
beef up the dialog and characters (or at least steal more from other
movies).
There are so many movies being made
now, films need to find a way to stand out. There was another bad
horror movie (I don't remember the name) released last year which had
that had the exact same opening and middle acts with the same cookie
cut out characters (But had better deaths), group of friends gather in
a cabin, people start dying. I've seen the same movie hundreds of
times!
The market is saturated with movies,
the effect of the digital age where anyone with a cell phone can make
a movie. If you're going to make a movie be interesting. Another movie
that just came out was 'The Banana Splits Movie' (2019). Which had
the hook of using an iconic 60's children's tv show. Unfortunately, no
one remembers, defeating the purpose of getting the rights of 'The
Banana Splits Adventure Hour' (1968-1970). But oh man watching the
intro and credits on YouTube brought back memories I didn't know I
had. Super cool they got the rights to this Hanna Barbara series and
Krofft puppets, too bad the movie was lame.
The final act pulled this movie out of
the dump bin. Nicely wrapping up what little story there was and
making sense out of some really lame deaths. The whole movie made
good use/mocking of modern technology. To bad the director, Greg
Emetaz, didn't make better use of Kelley Gates (played Mia) or Adam
Santos-Coy (Trask). Particularly Kelley it would have been fun to see
her bridezilla and crash diet more during the movie. Easily could have
filled twenty entertaining minutes with Kelley being bat guano crazy!
