Netflix, instant
Rating 1/5
Basic plot: A group of friends taking a trip get lost in the backwoods of Louisiana and are attacked by a part-man/part-alligator creature.
There isn't really all that much to comment on, so I'm going to get right to the recommendation. Pass. This movie is pretty horrible. And not in the "it's so bad it's good" sort of way. This is just bad in the "it's so bad it's bad" sort of way. It's not even bad in the "it was so bad that there is so much to talk about, as far as how bad it was." It's just a bland and boring kind of bad - so bland that even trying to go into detail about what makes it bad is boring and bland. Bad acting with bad accents. Bad sound mixing. Horrible stereotypes of "backwoods, ignorant, incestual, lunatic, religious folk." There are absolutely no scares or startling moments. There are several "twists," but they aren't surprising or shocking at all. They try to play on the "it's over...or is it???" but they overdo it (as in repeating it a few times in a row) and it just becomes annoying. The creature is lumbering apparently can only stand/look up if it is doing it very slowly - like the first time you see a monster in a movie, where it does the "slow reveal" to give the characters plenty of time to be horrified...but it does that every single time it stands up. Honestly, I'm not really sure who the target audience for this movie is. It's got too much gore and nudity (in the sense that it has any) to be family friendly, but it doesn't have enough to please those who are fans of that genre. The production quality is too good to fall into the campy, B-movie genre, but the acting (and basically everything else) is too bad to be considered a good movie.
The only person who I think did a good job in the movie is Sid Haig's character. But that might have been due mostly to the fact that he basically plays a cajun version of his character in House of 1000 Corpses, so the directing of him was probably something along the lines of "remember Captain Spaulding? Be him, but without the clown make-up." Pruitt Taylor Vince was also in this movie, and I'm normally a fan of his (for those of you unfamiliar with him, you might recognize him as Otis from The Walking Dead). But his character was not only pointless, it also wasn't done very well. This shows how important it is to have a good director at the helm. Without a good director, even an actor like Pruitt Taylor Vince can give a bad performance. A look at the director's (Fred Andrews) IMDB page gives some explanation as to why the production quality wasn't bad, but everything else fell short. For those of you who don't like clicking on links, it's because he's a production designer. Creature is the only thing he has to his credits as far as writing or directing. Maybe if he's able to get some more experience, then he'll be able to make a movie that is actually worth watching. But he's definitely not there yet.
Side note: Not that I really expect any of you to actually watch this movie, but in case you do, SPOILER ALERT: There's a reason that the poster has those four characters on it. The creature, obviously, is because that's what the movie is about. But as far as the three people, it's because they are the only three of the main characters that are introduced that actually survive (there is another character that "survives," but not in the same way she was at the beginning of the movie).
Be sure to check back tomorrow for the next review in Halloween movie month.
-GR
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