ORBzine - Slasher Flicks 2007 Movie Reviews
Black Christmas (1974)
A group of college girls (including
Margot Kidder
) spend Christmas in their sorority house.
Unfortunately, a serial killer is lurking in their attic.
Bob Clark , best known for starting the Porky's franchise, delivers a nail-bitingly suspenseful horror film. It is regarded as a classic, and supposedly inspired Halloween . However, it avoids the conventions that modern slasher films have developed. The killer does not have a mask, or a backstory.
Black Christmas (2006)
This is a remake of a little-known 1974 cult classic pre-
Halloween
slasher.
James Morgan
, best known for starting the
Final Destination
franchise, delivers another tongue-in-cheek horror film.
It is gruesome, about an eyeball-eating cannibal.
A spree-killer escapes from an Asylum, and returns home. The family home (and murder scene) is now a sorority house, where a group of college girls (including Michelle Trachtenberg, Lacey Chabert, Mary Elizabeth Winstead ) spend Christmas. Unfortunately, the serial killer is lurking in their attic.
There are several red herrings, but nothing really new (although it is slightly tongue in cheek). Kristen Cloke (the Director's wife) pops up, claiming to be the elder sister of one of the missing girls ... The girls will not leave their friends, which explains a suicidal action towards the end.
Black Christmas (2019)
This is a rush job, filmed on the cheap in New Zealand.
The result features some beautiful locations,
but everything else from the writing to the camerawork is poor -
especially compared to the two previous movies with this title.
It seems that a feminist agenda was cobbled together,
then given the title as a means of convenience.
The story is set on a US College campus where the token black chick is suing a creepy Professor (Cary Elwes - Princess Bride ). There is a Fraternity of date-raping jerks - well, frat-boys have been generic bullies since Revenge of the Nerds (1982). And the only bit that really matters for the Horror genre fans, there is a masked serial killer stalking women on the campus.
The result is a slow-moving mess. Instead of ramping up the tension, after the prologue we get almost nothing happening for the first half of the film. When there is a kill it is a poor copy of the classic scene from Exorcist 3: Legion .
Finally, the ending is all quite predictable. Nothing that belongs in a horror movie, or anything related to the Black Christmas franchise. It is actually nonsensical within the context of this film by itself.
Captivity (2007)
World-famous model
Elisha Cuthbert
is kidnapped, and wakes up in a dungeon.
She is tortured by a masked figure.
Then she discovers that she is not the dungeon's only inmate ...
This film in particular has come in for a lot of criticism. Instead of being over-empowered, as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer , the heroine is a generic damsel in distress. Worse, it is part of the torture-porn sub-genre.
The director ( ) is apparently an Academy Award winner. Unfortunately, this film is so bad that ... Let's just accept that the plot is so full of holes and the film is so deeply flawed that the unfortunate director must be well past his best.
Creep (2004)
Franke Portente
misses the last train home, and is trapped in a London Underground station.
Worse, the people she meets are murdered one by one.
Something horrible is stalking her!
This owes a lot to the 1970s film Death Line , about murderous inbred cannibals living in a disused Victorian tunnel. And when we finally see the killer ... There is a damn torture porn scene!
The title, along with the plot, appears stolen from a story in 2000AD. A bald ugly mutant murdered people in the Undercity, a maze of tunnels beneath Mega-City One (Home of Judge Dredd ). In truth, the movie seems a mix of both these sources - but it would be nice to see credit given where it is duely deserved!
Deathproof (2007)
This is the second half of the Grindhouse experience.
It is full of all the cheesy music and effects that we though were left in the 1970s.
Predictably for Tarantino, of course.
And his foot fetish is more obvious than ever!
A bunch of gorgeous young women got for a night out in Austin, Texas. At the bar they meet up with the likes of barman Quentin Tarantino and regular Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell - The Thing, Escape From New York ).
The story takes a turn for the worse. One or more characters ends up in the hospital featured in the other half of the Grindhouse double bill, Planet Terror .
Fourteen months later, in Tennessee:
Zoe Bell, Tracie Thoms, Marie Elizabeth Winstead, Rosario Dawson go for a drive along some quiet country roads ...
Disturbia
We go from Deathproof, which put a new spin on 1970s slasher films, to this -
a remake of Rear Window (1954).
Yes, the protagonist is a teenager and he uses 21st Century technology in his spying,
but it is more or less the same story.
Shia LeBoeuf ( Transformers ) punches his teacher, and the police put him under house arrest for the summer holidays. His mother ( Carrie Anne Moss ) cancels his X-Box subscription, so he has nothing to do but spy on his sexy new neighbour - Sarah Roemer .
Unforunately he begins to suspect that his other neighbour, David Morse ( Green Mile (1999) ), is a serial killer! This leads to all the predictable scenes, as the police do not believe him and he tries to get proof ...
The climax involves Shia being stalked by a thug in a boiler-suit. Yet another Jason Vorhees rip-off, one may suppose, but it works quite well. And while we see the killer's torture tools, this does not descend into torture porn. All in all, it is a well-paced suspense thriller for a younger audience.
Paradise Lost AKA Turistas (Go Home)
Melissa George
, Josh Duhammel (
Transformers
) and a couple of other English-speaking back-packers get lost in Brazil.
Some friendly locals offer to look after them ...
This is basically another example of the new trend in horror films - Torture Porn. Anyone who has seen Wolf Creek will not get any surprises. The only thing that really stands out about this film is the fact that making the inbred villagers Brazilian (instead of Scottish, Appalachian or whatever) makes it liable to accusations of racism!
Shrooms (2007)
A handful of young Americans arrive in Ireland
to go on a psychadelic experience with some Magic Mushrooms.
They spend the night camping in the grounds of a disused Borstal,
next to a forest inhabited by a couple of inbred yokels.
During the night, their local friend tells them a gruesome campfire tale about the Borstal's horrible past. And in the morning, the deranged killers from his story start to pick the kids off, one by one.
This was the great hope for the Northern Ireland film industry. Unfortunately, the characters are completely stereotypical and two-dimensional, the story is cliched and the ending is predictable. There is a lot of repetition - we get a long build-up of suspense, followed by a loud sound-effect to make the audience jump! All in all, a great disappointment!
Halloween Franchise
Halloween 5: Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
It is Halloween again, and Michael Myers stalks the streets of Haddonfield once more.
He bumps off the usual teenagers, but he is really after a couple of kids
- a boy named Billy, and his own niece (
Danielle Harris
).
The Sheriff (Beau Starr - Due South ) has his own SWAT team. Yes, he has been preparing for this night. But Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasance You Only Live Twice ) lets his obsession with Michael take over.
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Michael Myers is on the rampage again,
even though in this series he has endured total bodily destruction at least twice.
However, this movie stands far above the
Friday The 13th
series in terms of Direction and Scripting.
There is an actual sense of terror that far exceeds anything
the jokey Jason Voorhees flicks could create.
The film takes up a few years after the previous movie. Myers was abducted by the Cult of Thorn, a group of satanists who are responsible for his demonic possession by the murderous spirit of Samhain. Or whatever. They also abducted Jamie, who is now played by a different actress.
Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd - Ant-Man and Wasp (2018) ) is back, now a full-grown man. He makes a decent hero, in a franchise best known for female protagonists.
Myers' shrink, Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasance You Only Live Twice ) is still on his tail. This is the last film Pleasance made, and is dedicated to his memory. Unfortunately Pleasance died before the ending was re-shot, which means it is a bit jumbled at the end.
Halloween (2007)
It is thirty years since
Halloween
was originally made by
John Carpenter
, and ten years since
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
came out. Rob Zombie
, who leaves himself open to being called a hack,
attempts a remake of the 30-year-old masterpiece
. The result?
Well, there are more B-movie cameos than in a Tarantino film ...
The story starts with ten-year-old Michael Myers getting bullied by drunken step-dad Ronnie (William Forsythe - Virtuosity ) and schoolboy thug Darrell Sabara ( Spy Kids ). Myers also enjoys torturing small animals, so School Principal Richard Lynch ( Galactica 1980 ) calls in child psychologist Dr Loomis (Malcolm McDowell - Tank Girl ). Unfortunately, this just sets the little creep on a kill-crazy rampage!
Michael ends up in a mental institution staffed by nurse Sybil Danning , janitor Danny Trejo ( Spy Kids ) and security guard Leslie Easterbrook . Yes, that is right - Callaghan from Police Academy. Which should give you some idea of the quality of the security that is meant to keep Myers from getting loose. After almost two decades of incarceration, Myers has grown from a chubby boy with long girlie hair into a seven-foot-tall giant with superhuman strength and long, rock-star hair. Naturally, he massacres the entire staff and then goes home ...
Loomis and Sheriff Brad Dourif ( Alien: Resurrection ) must save the townsfolk from the kill-crazy maniac. The sex-crazed teenagers include a familiar face from the original series. The sheriff's daughter is Danielle Lloyd (who, despite being about thirty years old in reality, can pass for seventeen years old in this film).
The original film's Michael Myers was a genuinely creepy, terrifying character. Unfortunately as the series developed he became more like the lumbering thug he had inspired - Jason Voorhees. And now Michael has been reinvented as a slasher with too much backstory who kills without reason ... Michael Myers is the core of the film. And since the makers did not get Myers right, the film has no chance of working.
Halloween II (2009)
Halloween (2018)
It is forty years since
Halloween
was originally made by
John Carpenter
, twenty years since
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
came out, and ten years since
Rob Zombie
created his own version of the storyline.
Now we have a third storyline for the franchise.
This version takes up the story where the original left off, ignoring all subsequent films. Michael only has five victims at the start - his sister, the driver and the three teenagers. He is looked after by the protege of the now-dead Dr Loomis, although the new shrink is obsessive in his own way.
The exposition at the start is delivered by a couple of journalists. They are podcasters, a reference to online media that seems reminiscent of the Internet streaming concept that was central to Halloween: Resurrection (2002) . Many other bits are taken from the sequels. Unfortunately, the best improvement from the Rob Zombie version (the action-packed escape scene) is forgotten and we are left with the same off-screen anticlimax as in the original film.
In this timeline, Laurie Strode ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) did not become a school principal with a devoted son. Instead she became a reclusive survivalist with an estranged daughter ( Judy Greer ), who in turn became mother to a teenage girl ( Andi Matichak ). Yes, this movie has three generations of Final Girls.
This version of Michael Myers is not personally obsessed with Laurie as he was in H20. He goes on a kill-crazy rampage, like in the middle sections of the original series. It is Laurie that is hunting him. The local cop (Will Patton - Punisher (2005) ) also has a grudge against Michael.
The final act of the story takes place in Laurie's new home, a remote cabin in the woods that she has fortified. Unfortunately the security system has not bee updated since 1978 - the CCTV is monochrome and uses cathode-ray TV sets, while she relies on floodlighting instead of night-vision. Worst of all there is no central control for the system, so she has to manually secure every single internal door. This works wonderfully for a suspenseful stalk-and-slash sequence, but it strains the viewer's supension of disbelief.
Halloween Kills (2021)
The main part of the pre-credits sequence
is an extended flashback to 1978.
It offers a version of events different to those of
Halloween II
, but with a spectacular cameo by Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasance -
You Only Live Twice
).
The main story starts in 2018, directly after the events of Halloween (2018) . Did Michael Myers survive total bodily destruction? Well, he did in the first timeline.
Since it is the night of the anniversary of the original massacre, Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall - The Dead Zone ) holds court in the local bar as unofficial King of the Survivors. When he learns that Michael Myers is on the loose again, Tommy whips up a fury among the bar patrons. On the one hand, it is nice to see a diverse cross-section of people living in the suburbs of Haddonfield. Instead of all CIS-het caucasians, we see some black people and a charming gay couple. However, as Michael can take out a team of fire-fighters with no bother it turns out that the diverse civilians are just a more widely representative selection of victims.
Laurie Strode ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) spends most of the movie in hospital with the local cop (Will Patton - Punisher (2005) ). The teenage grandaughter ( Andi Matichak ) joins Tommy's lynch-mob. Meanwhile, Laurie's formerly estranged daughter ( Judy Greer ) is the genre-blind person who wants to leave it all to the cops. It falls to Laurie to remind her that the system has failed.
The film builds to a satisfactory climax. However, because this soft reboot series was intended as a trilogy there is enough story left over for Halloween Ends (2023) .
The production credits show a few familiar names. The son of Moustaffa Akkadd is a given, since the Akkadd family have been producers on this franchise since 1978. Likewise Jason Blum is expected, since he is the biggest horror-genre producer in the twenty-first century. The real surprise is Danny McBride ( Land of the Lost ) and his long-time collaborator, David Gordon Green . Yes, the comedy creators behind Your Highness are now responsible for a very impressive addition to a long-standing horror franchise. Who would have thought it possible?
Halloween Ends (2023)
This is the third movie in the
David Gordon Green
trilogy. Set a few years after the previous two films,
Michael Myers has disappeared but Haddonfield still feels his presence.
A new protagonist is introduced. Corey (Rohan Campbell - ) is a tweenager who gets hired to babysit an annoying kid at Halloween. Of course, it is the night associated by spree killers and practical jokes. Things take a turn for the worse, and someone is killed. Corey is unjustly blamed for what happened, and Haddonfield scapegoats him.
The town's other scapegoat is Laurie Strode ( Jamie Lee Curtis ). Everyone accuses her of provoking Michael Myers, and they hold her responsible for his murder sprees. Laurie's grandaughter ( Andi Matichak ) starts a relationship with Corey, since they have a lot in common. However, Corey's mental health is not in the best shape.
The Michael Myers mythology has been changed a few times, even within this trilogy. This movie embraces the idea of Michael being possessed by The Shape, a supernatural force of evil and chaos. However, it seems to be transmissible. Is Michael's motivation to spread his diseased spirit? Does he want an apprentice? Perhaps the closest thing to this movie is the Scream franchise, with its infinite number of copycats.
I Know What You Did Last Summer Franchise
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
A gang of middle-class teenagers (including
Jennifer Love Hewitt & Sarah Michelle Gellar
) are drunk-driving home from the High School Prom when they hid a pedestrian.
They cover up the crime, but a year later they end up getting picked off one by one.
Their stalker is a hook-wielding man in a weatherproof coat and hat - The Fisherman.
There are a couple of familiar faces among the innocent bystanders. Johnny Galecki ( Rings ) is a High School drop-out, while Brigitte Wilson-Sampras is the bitchy older sister of SMG's character.
This was adapted from a novel, but the screenplay was written by Kevin Williamson , known (among other things) for the Scream series. It includes a number of recognisable tropes. The cliched make-up of the group of teenage protagonists, to start with. The large, fast-walking killer keeps pace with smaller damsels in distress as they run away as fast as they can. Thus, chase scenes are dragged out for greater suspense.
I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)
A gang of teenagers play a stupid practical joke,
and someone ends up getting accidentally killed.
A year later, and as the anniversary draws closer the survivors are being stalked
by a man in waterproof clothes and a hook for a hand.
Then people start getting murdered ...
This is a standard stalk-and-slash, a cheap straight-to-DVD cash-in on the franchise, but it is not a bad effort. The cast of unknowns acquit themselves well, despite working with a script which has none of their characters linked to the original. The amazing Colorado scenery gets squeezed into as many camera-shots as possible. And while the Rocky Mountains location is over a thousand miles from the sea, it certainly makes this fisherman tale worth watching.
I've Been Waiting For You (1998)
This was adapted from a novel written by the writer of
I know What You Did Last Summer
. Teenager
Sarah Chalke
moves to a new town, where a witch was burned to death three hundred years previously.
Quickly after her arrival, descendants of the witch-burners are brutally murdered.
Summer of Fear (1978) AKA Stranger in Our House
This was directed by
Wes Craven
, and is based on a book written by
Lois Duncan
. Yes, a couple of familiar names
that would have made a better pairing a couple of decades later.
It stars 1970s scream queen
Linda Blair
, who spends a lot of time doing her then-favourite hobby of horse-riding.
Linda's cousin Julia ( Lee Purcell ) moves in with the family. Julia is a redneck, with magic from the Ozarks. Unfortunately power corrupts, and she uses her magicks for selfish and evil purposes.
Pact Franchise
The Pact
Agnes Bruckner
returns to her childhood home after the death of her mother.
But her presence seems to awaken some hostile entity ...
A few days later, her sister ( Caity Lotz ) arrives to look for her. Nobody bothers reporting her missing, because of her drug habit. This is perhaps the first major break in suspension of disbelief, but when things get worse she has to get help from Police detective Casper Van Dien ( Starship Troopers ). Of course, nobody believes her ...
This is a small independent film, written and directed by a relative unknown. The direction is decent and quite suspenseful, although the incidental music is a bit overwhelming. However, the story itself is cobbled together from lots of scenes in other films. The cop starts doing spirit photography, and the Last Girl happens to know a genuine psychic medium in town. The biggest debt this shows to anything is What Lies Beneath , because the film takes a complete change of direction in the final act.
Psycho Franchise
Psycho (1960)
Marion Crane (
Janet Leigh
) steals a large sum of cash from her employer
in the hope of running away with her boyfriend.
Before she can meet up with him,
she stops off for the night at the Bates Motel.
The owner-operator, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins -
The Black Hole (1979)
), seems nice enough. But his mother ...
A private investigator, Arbogast (Martin Balsam - ) goes looking for Marion. While it may seem to be a modern trope that the saviour figure dies, Arbogast is a sacrificial lamb just as much as Marion Crane herself. While she brings attractiveness, he brings toughness - qualities that make their inevitable deaths at the killer's hands to be particularly shocking.
Marion's sister Lila ( Vera Miles ) is also investigating the disappearances. She plays the equivalent of what might be called the Final Girl, although in this pre-feminist era she has a man to help her out.
Psycho 2 (1983)
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins -
The Black Hole
) is released from a mental institution after two decades.
His shrink (Robert Loggia -
) claims to have cured him.
He gets sent back to the motel, to take over from the interim manager (Denis Franz -
) who is not pleased to see him.
A young woman ( Meg Tilly ) befriends Norman and gets herself hired to help out at the motel. The role was originally intended for Jamie Lee Curtis , who turned it down because she had already done Halloween . Is she stalking him, or is he stalking her?
This is a worthy successor to the original. While this is a full-colour effort, in contrast to the black and white original, the film-makers did not try to capitalise on the new technology and try to out-gore the original. Instead they stuck to the original's Hitchcockian suspense. An innovative script ties up a few loose ends but leaves the story open for a continuation of the franchise.
Psycho III (1986)
This starts with an homage to another Hitchcock movie, Vertigo.
A trainee nun (
Diana Scarwid
) has a crisis of faith, and ends up suicidal in the bell-tower.
When she gets expelled from the nunnery
she has the misfortune of hitching a ride
with a sleazy musician named Duke (Jeff Fahey -
Lost
). They both end up at the Bates Motel,
but with very different roles in the story.
Finally we get to meet Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins - The Black Hole ). The initial shots of the motel include references to the events of the previous film, and we even get a flashback clip of that movie's epilogue. Norman's hobby is to poison the local bird life so they make new subjects for his taxidermy. Yes, as the flashback indicates that Norman is no longer just a passive accomplice in the crimes committed by his mother's personality.
The nun, whose initials are MC, has the same hairstyle as Marion Crane ( Janet Leigh ). Her mental issues compliment Norman's, although while she is given psychiatric treatment he is not. Yes, nobody bothered to replace the shrink from the previous film.
Duke gets hired as the temporary manager at the motel. Before long it is full of sexy topless young women who are excellent slasher fodder for Norman's mother. Duke himself is a thief who wants a promotion into blackmailer. Yes, the story has an actual up-front villain this time.
This was directed by Perkins himself, who does a good job if it. As an actor he can sleepwalk through the role he has played for two and a half decades. The real breakout star is Fahey, who unfortunately never really shined as much in any of his later roles.
Psycho IV (1990)
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins -
The Black Hole
) is on a radio chat-show.
He has flashbacks to when he was young, and looked like Henry Thomas (
E.T.
). Back then, the house actually looked ... Nice.
Unfortunately the bits in the Modern Age are poorly acted (except Norman) and written.
Psycho (1998)
Marion Crane (
Anne Heche
) steals a large sum of cash from her employer
in the hope of running away with her boyfriend.
Before she can meet up with him,
she stops off for the night at the Bates Motel.
The owner-operator, Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn -
), seems nice enough. But his mother ...
A private investigator, Arbogast (William H. Macy - ) goes looking for Marion. While it may seem to be a modern trope that the saviour figure dies, Arbogast is a sacrificial lamb just as much as Marion Crane herself. While she brings attractiveness, he brings toughness - qualities that make their inevitable deaths at the killer's hands to be particularly shocking.
Marion's sister Lila ( Julianne Moore ) is also investigating the disappearances. She plays the equivalent of what might be called the Final Girl, although since this was written in the pre-feminist era she has a man to help her out.
The director, Gus Van Sant , took this directly from the same shooting script that Hitchcock used on the original film thirty-eight years previously. The one thing that was updated was the amount of money which was stolen. Apart from that, the result is strikingly similar.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre Franchise
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
Jordana Brewster
and some other college kids get menaced in rural Texas.
Biker Lee Tergesen (
Weird Science
) is part of the problem, can he become part of the solution?
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
Thirteen years on from the events of the first film,
and the murderous chainsaw clan are still in business.
Texas Ranger Dennis Hopper (
Waterworld
), uncle of one of the original victims, obsessively hunts the killers.
A long-legged lady DJ helps lure them out ...
This has a bigger budget than the original, but is more tongue-in-cheek ... Leatherface gets a love interest!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3: Leatherface
The ep starts with a news announcement that the police convicted one man of the TCM killings.
They believed that Leatherface was one of his personalities.
The rest of the family were never caught ...
Our protagonists, brother and sister, drive along a remote country road. They pass a site where Texas Police are excavating a newly-discovered Body pit. Someone has murdered dozens of people. They run into friendly cowboy Tex (Viggo Mortensen - Lord of the Rings ), and take a shortcut along a road that is not even on the map.
Things liven up when they meet Survivalist Ken Foree (token black guy in Dawn of the Dead - the kind of role that these days would be played by Tony Todd or even Samuel L Jackson). There is also the Last Girl from a previous group of victims.
This might be the third (and least original so far) of the series, but it is still very watchable. It is just as suspenseful as the similarly-plotted Jeepers Creepers , but much less disappointing.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Return (1994)
AKA Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
AKA Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Renee Zellweger
and a couple of friends are on their way to the school prom when the car crashes.
They end up in a cabin with the psycho hillbilly family!
Leatherface is now a tame, harmless crossdresser, and there are only a couple of scenes with chainsaws. It is hardly a massacre! The brains and brawn of the family is Matthew McConaughey ( Reign of Fire ), who is a decent actor but due to the mediocre cinematography is less than threatening.
Despite the pair of big-name stars, this is a low-budget effort from BEFORE they were famous! It is very poorly made, and the stars have disowned it. No wonder that the series had to revert to a remake of the original! This is the weakest of the series that this reviewer has seen. The remakes did not come out quickly enough! A pity the treacherous Darla ( ) did not get more of a career afterwards.
Texas Chainsaw 3-D (2012)
This is a sequel to the original film, and ignores the other sequels and reboots.
It starts where the original left off,
as Leatherface's teenage victims are avenged by a lynch mob.
Apparently the only survivor is a baby girl ...
The main story starts twenty years later, when the 1970s original gives way to the 21st century era of video-streaming smart-phones. Alexandra Daddario and a couple of friends visit her family's property. Yes, she is the heir to the psycho hillbilly family!
The story evokes every cliche that Joss Whedon mocked in the previous year's amazing Cabin in the Woods . In comparison, the most original thing about this film is the casting of Tania Raymonde , who acquits herself very admirably in the cliched slut role, which is unlike anything she has played before.
The ending is particularly vile. The moral centre of the film has to decide - is a cannibalistic serial-killer worse than a sleazy redneck? Who is the REAL villain? And should any of us care?
Vacancy Franchise
Vacancy (2007)
Bickering married couple Luke Wilson (
Charlie's Angels
) and
Kate Beckinsale
get lost while driving in a remote part of the USA.
They stop at a local motel, run by rapidly-aging Frank Whalley (
Broken Arrow
). Then they discover that the videotapes left in their room are snuff movies -
and they are going to be the next victims!
The couple are menaced by a couple of men in masks and boiler-suits. Cut-price Jasons, really. It is all a bit lightweight, compared to other slasher films. It has its moments, but it is really not a very impressive film.
