Captivity

Elisha Cuthburt is a supermodel who is drugged at a bar and wakes up to find she is being held captive in a sealed room. Her captor begins to torture her in both mind games and pain to make her submit. She soon realizes that someone else is being held captive in an adjoining room and the two of them try to escape. Everything however is not how it seems.

This movie may have been doomed from the start. There were extra gore scenes added before it was released in the U.S. The problem is that these scenes really look like they were thrown in and it ruins the movie. The acting is fair but not good. Even Elisha, who I normally like, is not her best. There are also several really stupid things like why Elisha’s character would make love to someone when she knows her captor is watching. Honestly overall this movie seems poorly written and badly put together.

Rating 4 out of 10

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.

Hatchet

A couple of friends vacationing in New Orleans during Mardi gras decide to take a haunted swamp tour. The tour boat sinks and they have to face their fears of a local legend about Victor Crowley who was a deformed child accidentally killed by his father. Unfortunately for them their fears are not unfounded and they soon have to run for their lives from a brutal killer.

I was pretty skeptical of this movie, from the movie posters. They claim an original American horror movie and usually when companies put such boasts on a movie poster it is designed to trick people into seeing a piece of crap. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I was happy to see some familiar faces in the cast and I thought for the most part the acting was very good. I especially liked Robert Englund in his cameo. The gore was pretty awesome and was very well done. They used some very funny shots of the clichéd blood splattering on bushes and trees. This film did a very nice job of having some comedic parts in ti without taking away from what they were trying to accomplish. The ending is one of the best I have ever seen in a slasher.

My rating 8 out of 10

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.

Penny Dreadful

One of the 8 films to die for, or the After dark horrorfest, Penny Dreadful is about a girl named Penny who is haunted by a crash when she was little. She witnessed both her parents die. She sets out on a journey with her psychiatrist who is trying to help her overcome her fear of cars. Along the way they end up picking up a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker is a madman. You know the rest. A cliché for sure but then again almost everything is these days. The film differs from most hitchhiker movies in that Penny is trapped in the car for most of the movie, giving it a panic room feel.

For starters I would say I like my psycho hitchhikers to be much less psycho looking. I mean you watch this and say ”well look at the guy what did you freaking expect?”. This, like most movies of this type relied on terror for its scares. Your basic stalking idea. It does have a few good moments like that and does make some good use of the claustrophobic terror while she is trapped in the car. Unfortunately these few good moments are not enough to pull this movie through. The movie is in the end just boring. Some movies make good use of the choppy, altered static editing but this isn’t one of them. And to be honest it is becoming overused nowadays. I also really hated the idiotic goofy guy that tried to help her. If you are going to make a terrifying movie, then don’t make it funny. I don’t mind comedy in my horror but not just a small bit in a movie that is taking itself seriously. The ending was pretty lame and has been done several times before by much better filmmakers. I will say though that I did really like the opening credit sequence and found it fairly unique.

Overall 4.5

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.