Grave Halloween (2013)

"An American college student studying in Japan risks her own life to save the spirit of her dead mother, who killed herself in the notorious Suicide Forest."

Have you heard of Aokigahara Forest before? No? Me neither. Apparently, it's the trendy place to go if you want to commit suicide in Japan, and there's a famous book about it from the 1960s called "Black Sea of Trees" by Seichō Matsumoto. It's also the setting for Steven R. Monroe's vengeful ghost movie "Grave Halloween".

Since Hallowe'en is a Western custom, if you're now wondering what Japanese ghosts have to do with it, remember that this is a "Syfy Original" movie. Even the most tenuous links will suffice when Syfy are putting titles together for their "31 Days of Halloween" month. The Japanese may not celebrate Hallowe'en as such (although many of them are aware of it), but this movie is primarily about a group of American and Canadian exchange students who decide to film their investigation of the haunted Aokigahara Forest on Hallowe'en anyway. Additionally, it was all shot in Vancouver.

Director Steven R. Monroe is, of course, famous (or infamous) for the "I Spit on Your Grave" remake, its sequel, and nearly a dozen more cheap and nasty Syfy Channel movies. Basically, he's a professional director for hire rather than an auteur, but he usually manages to slip a nice bit of gore into his movies as a kind of trademark. Thus, "Grave Halloween" may surprise a few people with the level of gore in a made-for-TV movie. There's a stick through the throat, an "Evil Dead"-style pulling of arms and legs off, and a fairly realistic broken leg among the effects. Obviously, there's no swearing or nudity this time because "Grave Halloween" is another hypocritical MA-14.

Canadian Kaitlyn Leeb and a taller American guy.

Fans of Asian horror will certainly find something to enjoy in this movie even if it's only to ogle half-Chinese Kaitlyn Leeb (the three-breasted woman from the "Total Recall" remake). Her character, Maiko, is the one responsible for everyone going to the forest due to her birth-mother's suicide there and having received a mysterious box of trinkets through the mail which she wants to use for a Sadake (or blessing/atonement) ritual. If you aren't down with the kids who all seem to be obsessed with Japan these days, or have never heard of "Sadake" before, simply replace the word with Sudoku because it's only a MacGuffin. The students never get to perform their ritual or play Sudoku because they're too busy getting killed by long-haired ghosts!

Ignoring the Japanese elements, "Grave Halloween" is essentially a backwoods slasher which homages "The Evil Dead" and "The Blair Witch Project". Unlike the latter, however, it's not a found footage movie, just one that's quickly filmed with slightly shaky handycams. It's bickering "teenagers" getting bumped off, one by one, by various ghosts (some of which look a lot like zombies) with all the usual clichés and tropes.

The main actors are a mix of bit part players from American and Canadian TV, but they do okay in their poorly differentiated and two-dimensional roles. It's not worth mentioning their names because nobody has ever heard of them. One of the more obnoxious Americans says, "That's super comforting!" at 42 minutes in, and if you already know my feelings about this bloody annoying valley girl intensifier, you'll probably be surprised that I didn't switch the movie off right there and then. But I made it to the end (with my teeth-clenched in fury) just so that I could pan it some more.

Apart from being predictable, the worst thing about "Grave Halloween" is that the backstory is more interesting than the mystery which unfolds or the creepiness of the setting. The details about Japan, its laws and customs, and how ignorant gaijin (foreigners) often behave like disrepectful assholes (and deserve to be cursed) are spot-on, but for all the positives, too much relies on xenophobia. Maybe that's a good thing, though, if it keeps people away from the real Suicide Forest.

Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge of Typhoid Mary (2013)

"Mary Malone (aka Typhoid Mary) was committed to a NY insane asylum to live in solitary after being blamed for spreading Typhoid Fever in the early 20th Century. After decades in isolation she died alone on North Brother Island. Now, nearly 100 years later, two best friends and aspiring filmmakers are setting out to find out what really happened. What starts as a simple investigation turns into a battle for survival, as they discover Mary may be dead, but she's certainly not gone."

If you've been wandering around Walmart recently, you've probably seen this DVD a few times and wondered if it's worth watching. That coverart looks spooky, doesn't it? I bet you think it'll be shit-yer-pants scary! But let's cut straight through the chase here, it's not!

"Paranormal Asylum" is also nothing to do with the "Paranormal Activity" movies or even The Asylum's "Paranormal Entity", but you have to give the filmmakers credit for deliberately creating a confusingly named product which someone is going to buy by accident eventually. The thing is, the plot is nothing like any of those movies unless being a clone of "Grave Encounters" or its sequel counts in any way. Unfortunately, I haven't watched more than 5 minutes of either (except on fast-forward), so I can't say for sure. The word on the street, however, is that "Paranormal Asylum" is an even lower-budget knock off of that already low-budget crap, and I have no reason to doubt it.

Judged on its own merits, "Paranormal Asylum" is absolutely bloody terrible. The story barely makes sense, and the camerawork is so godawful that it's tiresome to watch. It's as if whoever filmed it has no idea how cameras work, how to frame anything, or how to position themselves for the best view. Couple that with the editing which cuts too quickly between shots, and it often becomes nauseating to boot. While I can accept that some of the earlier footage is supposed to look amateur due to small cameras being set up everywhere, in scenes where it's not supposed to be obvious that anyone is holding a camera (and close-ups take over which swing back and forth or whirl around characters), it's actually worse!

Like most low-budget horror movies, the acting is okay in some places and non-existent in others. It's so varied this time though, it makes me wonder if there was ever a complete script involved or if scenes were made up as they went along. Apart from a load of exposition, the rest of the dialogue sounds like it belongs in the cut scenes of a computer game or some crappy Japanese cartoon. Maybe it's just because Nathan Spiteri (who plays Andy) has that kind of voice and delivery, but it's more likely to be because everything is so disjointed and hastily thrown together.

Tying up your possessed fiancée and confining her to bed always ends well.

A somewhat hilarious scene (which isn't meant to be) is when Michelle (Laura Gilreath) gets possessed by the spirit of Typhoid Mary and turns into a flickering escapee from one of those bad '80s computer game movies. Watching her teleport between steps all the way to her car amused me for all the wrong reasons, and I couldn't take anything seriously after that. It's a shame because Laura Gilreath is uber hot and tends to perk things up considerably otherwise. There's no nudity, but at least she strips down to her bra and knickers eventually.

The other main character, Mark (Aaron Mathias), who has the best (albeit far too brief) supernatural encounters, does slightly better overall, despite taking approximately 47 minutes to realise that he's been seeing ghosts! Aaron Mathias seems to be a likeable chap with the right kind of borderline leading man looks to stand out although he doesn't do anything very memorable here. I suppose he does "scared" well enough, but he's the only one who is likely to be affected by any of the jump scares.

Outside of the threesome, minor characters randomly come and go with no rhyme or reason behind their appearances other than how Andy sets up appointments with them for Mark. How Andy knows any of these people remains a mystery within another mystery, especially as the ability to tell a story is not this movie's strong point.

I'm not going to spoil the ending for you because it's as stupid as everything else. Although it ties this mess together in the best way it can, it's completely out of left field and really not worth suffering through the rest of the movie to get to.

The artwork is the best part!

In that case, I'd hate to see a paranormal film that gets it wrong!

And some movies are better off not being made.

Don't confuse it with this:

For the love of God, make this cloning stop!

It's just as bad though.

The Dirties (2013)

"Two best friends are filming a comedy about getting revenge on the bullies at their high school. One of them isn't joking."

If you're expecting "The Dirties" to be another "Rampage" (2009), think again. "The Dirties" is amateur handycam crap of the highest order with semi-decent acting wasted on an unoriginal plot which ultimately peters out and stops dead just as the excitement begins. It's all talk, very little action, and mostly unconvincing characters.

Apart from the location, "The Dirties" is far too similar to Samuel N. Benavides's "None Left Standing" (2005) for those of us who know our low-budget movies. Although "The Dirties" isn't a blatant rip-off and doesn't focus on a descent into madness as well, it's certainly in the same vein. Both are about a trio of students making a film with one of them being dangerously obsessive.

The difference, of course, is that "The Dirties" uses a no-budget student film within another no-budget student film as its novelty "meta" contrivance. The levels of metafiction reach their peak with Matthew Johnson not only acting as himself but also being the director and writer of this disappointing drivel. He doesn't do a bad job for a jack-of-all-trades (and master of none), but I would love to see Canadian filmmakers come up with something more original rather than lazily reworking American movie tropes to death.

Because of its borrowings, I'm not sure if "The Dirties" is supposed to be "found footage" of some kind or if it's meant to be a bizarrely filmed "fly on the wall" drama. Either way, it failed for me aesthetically and stylistically. The unseen cameraman (who I think is called "Ed" at one point) brings up too many questions about who is filming what and why, and it threw me out of the movie several times.

As far as stories about high schools and bullies go, "The Dirties" is full of the usual clichés; jocks versus nerds and all that bullshit which, as a Brit, I never encountered and can't identify with no matter how many times the same stereotypes are forced on me. There's nothing that any of the kids do in this movie that a good old-fashioned punch in the mouth wouldn't have solved if only the emasculated characters stood up for themselves. I know this is Canadian, but Americans and Brits are usually so mouthy about expressing everything that I can't even get my head around the internalisation which leads to isolation, self-destruction, or murder. In Canada, where the myth is that everybody is nicer and less selfish, the frustration caused by repression is maybe less puzzling.

Prior to watching "The Dirties", I came across an interesting documentary called "Bullied to Death: The Tragedy of Phoebe Prince" (2010) which covers the subject of American high school bullying and its psychological effects a lot better. But, as someone whose only experience of attempted bullying has been as a "victim" of the online geek-cliques of hypocrital prudes, their whiteknights, and "flaggots" who I laugh at for being so childish, I still don't quite understand how such things are allowed to escalate. Maybe kids need to find better ways to deal with their frustrations like going outside once in a while, helping someone less fortunate, or stroking a cat.

Teenagers are nasty buggers anyway, and every modern movie and documentary which shows the younger generation and their infantilised parents is an argument to bring back corporal (and capital) punishment. In my day, a few hard whacks with a cane would've sorted everything out. But enough of me on my soapbox. Suffice it to say that the predictably violent but very brief (and punch-pulling) ending of "The Dirties" is the culmination of what happens when you spare the rod and spoil the child.

"The Dirties" isn't a movie recreating Columbine or any of the other famous school shootings, nor is it meant to be, but what it's trying to say as a drama about teenage relationships, loneliness, and a kid who can't tell fiction from reality anymore doesn't work either. It's all too tame, and even an old British kids' TV show like "Grange Hill" dealt with the topics in a more controversial and satisfying way over 30 years ago.

If you're looking for something gritty, I recommend skipping this one.

Atrocious (2010)

"Two teenage siblings endure a terrifying experience while investigating a rural legend near their family's vacation home."

Thank God for "Bloody Disgusting Selects", not because the horror movies they've chosen are any good but because it's easy to write them off with a tirade of abuse.

"Atrocious" is yet another faux found footage movie in much the same vein as "The Blair Witch Project", and we all know how little I think of that piece of shit. Other than being Spanish, the only real difference is that the kids are younger, and that, in and of itself, is a big clue to the intended target audience.

After an exceedingly boring first-half with nothing but a dead dog to show for it, it all becomes a series of poorly filmed night vision scenes of lots of bushes and trees! Give or take some annoying screaming and shouting, it's just like watching a typical episode of "Ghost Hunters" which doesn't have any ghosts in it either.

With nauseating camerawork and no scares, "Atrocious" certainly lives up to its name and is going straight into the dungeon. I don't have time to watch any more shakycam crap like this, and I didn't have the patience to make it all the way through this one.

Supposedly, it has some kind of non-supernatural twist at the end.

Aptly named.

Devil's Pass (2013)

"Five young filmmakers retrace the steps of a doomed group of hikers in pursuit of an unsolvable mystery."

Also known as "The Dyatlov Pass Incident" (or "Devil's Ass" in my house), Renny Harlin's latest movie dredges up the faux found footage subgenre yet again and sucks almost as much as all of his other movies (apart from "Die Hard 2" and "Cliffhanger") combined.

Using a famous Russian mystery, "Devil's Pass" is just another "Blair Witch Project" clone which has been bookended with the "based on a true story" gimmick. The real story is far more interesting to read about than watching any part of this movie, and I say that as somebody who doesn't like to read anything if I can possibly help it. At least it gets a decent mention here, but don't expect any answers in this film or from anywhere else.

It's no secret that I hate "found footage" movies anyway so, of course, I'm biased. But even if "Devil's Pass" was universally acclaimed as "the best found footage movie ever made", I'd still be able to point out the errors of its ways. Basically, if a movie looks cheap, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, its characters are irritating, and it's boring to watch, what use is to to anybody? There's no entertainment value in something like this for me.

Fortunately, "Devil's Pass" hasn't been universally acclaimed as anything other than a load of sci-fi crap with lots of shakycams, loud, gung-ho Yanks getting their comeuppance in the Urals, and horrible CGI monsters at the end, so I can loathe it as much as I want. I even watched it twice just to hate it more!

Do not want!

Could characters be more stereotypically WASPish and alienating than the ones in "Devil's Pass"? Call me grumpy, but I think not. I've had it up to here (imagine me reaching above my head) with these overprivileged, studenty idiots in movies, and I really don't want to see any more of them. What part of "If you're a coddled American, please stay home because you'll cry like a baby and die horribly if you go abroad!", don't they ever understand?

The most interesting part for me was the mention of "The Philadelphia Experiment". I don't know what the true story is there (because I don't read), but I love that movie and the sequel. Once all the time-travel and "mutations from radiation" nonsense kicks off, it's time to call it a day with "Devil's Pass" though because you know no good can come of it. Let's face it, no scares or tension are possible with the ending of any found footage movie being a foregone conclusion, so what's to like?

"Devil's Pass" hasn't even been released theatrically in English speaking countries yet, but it's already been leaked to the internet by Russians, so make of that what you will. Personally, I think that they disliked the usual Hollywood Russophobia and the disrespectful way the movie dealt with one of their most financially lucrative mysteries.

My advice? Pass this one by.

Witchcraft 13: Blood of the Chosen (2008)

"Will Spanner, the reluctant heir to a dark legacy, is once again thrown into battle against the forces of evil when a series of gruesome murders begins to take place. The victims are all brutally murdered in a ritualistic fashion - the heart is missing from each of the corpses."

You may remember that I purchased this a month ago from my local pawn shop, but things move pretty slowly round here and it has taken me until now to watch it.

What makes my movie reviewing time frame even worse is that I interviewed one of the actresses from this, Zoe Hunter, way back in March 2006! In fairness, that was nearly two years before the DVD eventually came out and, in that time, I completely lost interest in the project.

If you are at all familiar with the "Witchcraft" series then you'll know that they aren't exactly outstanding. To be blunt, they are all a load of straight-to-video crap with some boobs in them occasionally. I don't think any of them rate higher than a two-point-something on the IMDb and, alas, "Witchcraft 13" doesn't even deserve half of that.

As soon as I saw the poor excuse for a menu that whomever made the DVD put on it, I felt any desire to watch the contents of the DVD slipping away rapidly. I'll give them that it was functional, but it looked as if it was done with a very early freeware Windows DVD authoring program. Have I really got disc number 94?

Once the film started, you'll find this difficult to believe, I know, but things got even worse! The quality wasn't even up to YouTube standard and the volume was so low that I had to crank it up to 200% to hear the horrendous dialogue normally. Suffice it to say that I wasn't very impressed with any of the production values. Also imagine, if you will, every expletive known to man that came out of my mouth as I tried to watch this piece of handycam shit.

The story itself was dull, the characters were nondescript, and the acting was virtually non-existent. I honestly believe that I have never encountered such an uncharismatic and uninteresting cast in a movie of any kind ever. I really hope that anyone involved in this was actually trying to act though and isn't in any way like any of the characters in real life.

As expected, there was some minor nudity but not, unfortunately, from Falin Proffitt who played Laura. She was by far the most attractive "actress" in this and it's a pity that, due to the awful quality of the DVD, the screencap above had to come from the official (and misspelled) trailer on YouTube.

My old MySpace friend Zoe Hunter kept her clothes on (which was a bit mean of her), another girl ate fire in her underwear (no, the fire was not in her underwear, that's just how the sentence turned out), and I hate to be so mean about it but the only girl who did get nude looked as if she was a pro (and not a professional actress either).

This was just porn video stuff but without any real porn or an entertaining story. Being the masochist I am, I stuck with it to see if at least the gore effects would be alright, but sadly, they were the no-budget kind as well.

"Witchcraft 13" absolutely reeked of the "Hey guys, I've got a camera, let's drink beer and make a movie!" mentality which reached its peak about 6 years ago. Fortunately, nearly all the wannabe directors, actors and actresses from that time have all got older (though maybe not wiser) and moved on to other things now so I rarely have to endure crap like this anymore. Even if they haven't given up, I hope that the former fanbase who once supported these idiots got sick of this rubbish and have moved on from it themselves. Movies like this gave (and still give) "independent horror" a very bad reputation.

Considering that I once saw this very DVD sitting on the shelves in my local Hollywood Video just waiting for some poor soul to waste a rental fee on it, it's no wonder that they went out of business and had to sell all their stock to the pawn shop. I have no sympathy for anyone who thinks that something like this counts as a real movie or who would try to pass it off as such.

I really can't think of anything good to say about "Witchcraft 13" except (as usual) that I'm glad it's over and I will never have to watch it again. This crap was absolutely disgusting on every level and a complete insult to the intelligence of its audience.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

"Three film students travel to Maryland to make a student film about a local urban legend... The Blair Witch. The three went into the woods on a two day hike to find the Blair Witch, and never came back. One year later, the students film and video was found in the woods. The footage was compiled and made into a movie."

I've put off reviewing "The Blair Witch Project" for quite some time now due to it being the epitome of everything which I've come to hate about the horror genre. I usually try to find something good in every film I watch whether it be an actor's performance or the story itself, but I honestly can't find anything of merit here.

Made for $35,000 by two young filmmakers from Florida, this was an ingenious creation which made effective use of its lack of budget and cast of unknowns but is even more famous for the internet marketing which drove people into movie theatres thinking that they were going to see real found footage from a true story.

I admit that I was fooled at the time. I looked up everything to do with the Blair Witch and swallowed it all hook, line and sinker. I wanted this story to be real and had no idea that it was all completely fake until I saw the film itself.

I didn't actually watch "The Blair Witch Project" when it was first released but a few months later in a "dollar cinema" in Boston just before Hallowe'en. I had a choice of that or "Inspector Gadget" which I had no interest in whatsoever. In case you are wondering, since I've only been living in America for just over three years, I came to America to visit Salem for their Hallowe'en festivities in 1999 and I've been backwards and forwards a lot before moving here. Back then it was quite a novelty to see films and TV series which took at least another six months to arrive in Britain but now there doesn't seem to be any delay at all.

Of course, you are probably wondering even more about why I hated "The Blair Witch Project" so much apart from the hype which caused me to waste my time and a dollar to see it. Basically, it was a badly made piece of handycam crap without any scares or even a decent ending.

The cinema verité style has been done to death now, of course, but, back in 1999, hardly anybody other than film students were using it. "The Blair Witch Project" reeked of experimental film school production values and really, although I've already admitted that this was an ingenious use of that style, it wasn't a good enough film to ever be shown in cinemas nor was it initially even intended to be.

I remember a lot of people complaining that watching "The Blair Witch Project" on the big screen gave them motion sickness but I was more aware of the huge backlash against being fooled into watching such absolute crap in the first place. If I had paid more than a dollar to see a bunch of non-actors running about in the woods, pretending to be scared of sticks tied together, in a film about a witch that didn't even have a witch in it, I would have asked for my money back.

Horror movies have, unfortunately, always been pretty low-budget and, whether you like it or not, they've nearly all been made by independent filmmakers. The key word here is "nearly" as all the big studios have made most of the horror movies that we all love today or, at the very least, invested in independent filmmakers to distribute their wares and get them seen. "The Blair Witch Project" was no different as Artisan acquired the film for just over $1,000,000 and then spend another $25,000,000 to market it. In spite of the initial production costs, does $26,000,000 seem like a low-budget to you?

Of course, this lucky break inspired a whole generation of talentless hacks and amateurs to try and repeat the formula with their own even lower-budget creations hoping that somebody would pick them up and do the same thing. What they didn't realise was that you can only ever get away with fooling the public like this once.

All the shakycam/handycam nasties possible then flooded the market on often self-distributed DVDs and it totally destroyed the credibility of the video rental outlets whose customers didn't want this rubbish. I remember making a podcast about five years ago where I suggested that Blockbuster and Hollywood Video should create a section specifically for movies of this kind and only charge 50¢ or less to rent them. In many cases these "independent horror movies" didn't look as if they were made for much more than that to begin with.

With hindsight, it's obvious that the competition from streaming media on the internet, pay-per-view cable services, and the economy in general, caused the video rental companies to invest in this cheap crap to try and make a bigger profit but, as we all know, people just stopped renting it completely. I'm hoping that Netflix are eventually going to learn a valuable lesson from the now bankrupt giants especially as they are perpetuating this slew of shit.

Yes, this is the main reason why I hate "The Blair Witch Project". It may have been the most financially successful independent horror film of all time but that doesn't make it the best. "The Blair Witch Project" was a major turning point in the history of horror movies which, as we can see from the lack of good horror movies being released today, may have ultimately been their demise.

Cloverfield (2008)

I absolutely hated it. It's just "The Blair Witch Project" but in New York with monsters.

Not only was it yet another kiddie-rated PG-13 unscary monster film, but it sucked on all levels. The acting was pure Hollywood drama school stuff where everyone pauses and tries to convey as much emotion as possible with eyes and teeth before delivering a line, the dialogue was poor and as unrealistic as could be, and the camerawork was so bad that I imagine a lot of people would throw up in the movie theatres or suffer some kind of epileptic seizure from all the whirling and spinning.

It was 18 minutes of wedding party, 30 minutes of "Oh my god... oh my god... oh my god... oh my god... boom... bang... shriek... boom... oh my god... oh my god", and then the rest was all "Run... oh my god... shriek... boom.... rarrrr... boom... boom... shriek... bang... run... run... oh my god... rarrrrr... oh my god... oh my god.... oh my god... boom..."

I give it 1 out of 10 for the ability to con so many people into watching it. It's just another crappy motion-sickness-inducing-shakycam film with about 5 seconds of CGI monster in it. It's more overhyped and poorly executed rubbish!

I can see it being used for the "Oh my god" drinking game in future though. Alcoholics will love it!


OMG! The Blasphemous Cloverfield Drinking Game

Here are the timings so you can print them out and keep track.

18.14 "Oh my God"
18.18
18.30
18.40
19.43
19.56
20.28
20.40 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
20.48
21.09
21.10
21.21
21.22
21.48
23.00
24.20
28.00
29.21
29.29
30.17 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
30.43
35.19
36.24 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
37.41
43.22
43.26
50.10
51.28
51.38
51.42
51.46
54.06 "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God" 4 in a row DOUBLE BONUS!!
55.40 "Jesus" (If he is your God - BONUS!)
56.23
56.53 "Jesus" (If he is your God - BONUS!)
56.54
56.55 "Oh my Gosh" PENALTY! Eat something!
57.28 "Jesus" (If he is your God - BONUS!)
59.13
59.25 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
60.35
61.17
61.39
62.00
62.01
62.13
62.22
62.37
62.42
63.59
64.02
64.40
65.14
65.21
65.30
65.39
66.00 "Oh God, Oh God, Please God, Forgive Me" BONUS!
68.13 MONSTER CLOSE UP BONUS! Say "Oh My God" for him!
69.59
70.00

Extra drinking BONUS for spotting the "Blair Witch Project" line at 70.32 - "I'm so scared, I'm so sorry!"

There are 66 OMGs in "Cloverfield" yet when the monster appears full frame no one says it. The audience.is encouraged to say it because the character with the camera keeps saying, "Oh... oh.... oh...."


I think the whole film is a work of the Devil to get everyone to worship the Beast! :)

Revelation 13:1 “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.”

Seriously, it has to be intentional! The devil is a master of chaos and confusion which is pretty much the subject and the style of the film too.

Just look at the timing for the "God forgive me!" line. 66 minutes in!!!

And clover? A four-leafed clover is a good luck charm, i.e. it's witchcraft. Anything "lucky" derives from the word "Lucifer" which is again equated with the Devil! We only see the monster's face at sunrise in the film. Lucifer is the "bearer of light". The monster is therefore the DEVIL!

We're all going to HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Great American Snuff Film (2003)

"Two psychos abduct a couple of girls so that they can create a 'snuff masterpiece'."

Supposedly this is based on true events and a real serial killer... but it's all a lie. Basically, this movie is trying to be the "Blair Witch Project" of serial killer films but it doesn't have even half the entertainment value.

The story, such as it is, is about a supposed serial killer, William Allen Grone. He's fake btw. Anyway, Grone and his friend Roy abduct a couple of girls (both of them quite skanky actually) so that they can create a "snuff masterpiece".

The quality of everything in this movie is below poor. The camerawork is all over the place, the acting is non-existent, and the gore is minimal (relying mostly on a few pints of fake blood and lots of screaming). You don't get to see anything! You don't get to hear much either as the sound is extremely bad too.

The tied-up girls did an ok job but I didn't care about either of them so all their scenes were pretty much a waste of time. Actually the whole thing was a waste of time. It wasn't scary, it wasn't all that horrific. It's so badly done that I am not sure that I should even count this as a movie at all.

The big selling point this had (back in 2003) was that, supposedly, the end is footage from a real snuff film. It isn't, of course, and is the poorest fake of a snuff film I have ever seen. I remember seeing better stuff on that infamous "Executions" video over 15 years ago and that was crap too.

Anyway, I'll give it 1 out of 10. It was a nice idea but it failed in its execution. (I don't believe I just wrote that!)