(2004) ***¼Julian and Marylin, a young couple who are up to their necks in debt team up with Marylin's brother Max and his buddy Kurt to rob a bank. The robbery turns into a shoot out and they go on the run. Julian, Marylin and Max are in one car, Kurt in another.
When Kurts car blows a tire he car-jacks a mini-van and it’s occupants who were parked at a gas station. The woman, Samatha and her daughter are forced to drive him out to the abandoned house where he is to meet up with the rest of his crew.
Once they arrive Kurt ties up the hostages, soon after the daughter gets loose and escapes. She runs off into another abandoned facility and hides. Kurt is not far behind but after entering the facility he soon makes a gruesome discovery.
This place is occupied by a notorious serial killer who has been preying on the community for decades. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang arrives at the house to find Kurt missing and a mysterious woman tied up. All too soon they find themselves running from someone far more deadly than the cops.
I liked this story a lot. The swing from botched robbery to bloody-thirsty serial killer rampage is just terrific. I wished there had been more characters in the film, the limited amount of people means limited amounts of murder. Does that sound a little sadistic of me? Well hey, call it my hardcore horror lovin’ background but when you toss in a serial killer, I wanna see some killin’ dammit!
The killer’s lair is creepy and full of dirty bloody nasty things, just the way we always imagined it to be. The kid is decidedly not annoying which is always a plus. Nothing ruins a film for me more than a fruit-snack-commercial-type bad acting, look at me aren’t I just so damn cute, perfect hair-dooed, jibber-jabbering, snot nosed, I’m so much smarter than adults are kid thrown in for good measure. The kid in this movie is just a kid, not super intelligent or that “faking that I’m scared now” bad acting type.
The killer wears a sack over his head, which immediately reminded me of the sack head boy in “The Orphanage”. I think as far as scary masks are concerned, the sack is always a solid choice. It’s just so blatantly neutral and expressionless. Anyway, it was all good, but I’m sad to say that I just wasn’t wowed by the ending. Don't ya just hate that?
2 comments:
Cool! I like plot switcharoos like that, especially when the original plotline involves hostages. Hostage dramas make me tense. A round of Hunter vs. Hunted is much more fun.
As for the appeal of the sack, Jason's sack-wearing antics in pre-hockey-mask F13 Part Two have generated a lot of discussion amongst JPX, JSP and myself.
"Nothing ruins a film for me more than a fruit-snack-commercial-type bad acting, look at me aren’t I just so damn cute, perfect hair-dooed, jibber-jabbering, snot nosed, I’m so much smarter than adults are kid thrown in for good measure."
I couldn't have said it better.
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