I was honored when asked to review this movie and I thank Mr. Dempster for finding me on Asylum Horror News on Facebook. Mr. Dempster asked if I could review and watch this movie now released to Amazon and I said I would. I hope that I can be helpful and giving him the review.
This movie was based on true events that happened in Ocala National Forest Park. This place is known for disappearances, murders, and many other unconscionable things that have occurred within its borders. The movie is not tied to any one event but a combination of all these occurrences. It is set-up as a slasher movie and has many expected things that happen in all slasher movies. It was entertaining but not to terrifying. I give props to all who take a gamble and create a movie because I do not have the balls to do so that is why I critique. In order to help those who do have the guts to progressively become better and hopefully more successful in there endeavors, with this in mind I also give props to this movie because it has inspired me to change my format of my reviews, so thank you.
The movie is about a group of friends who go hiking in Ocala for a new scenery. Unfortunately their is a crazed murderer out there who loves to torture and kill women and all who stand in his way. The friends run from the murderer and come across a summer rental house in which they break in so that they can defend themselves. Once they broke in it alerted a ranger who prior to this moment was checking on the grounds and he comes storming in after the individuals. The individuals explain the situation and as the ranger leaves he sees the slasher destroy his truck and confront them all.
Now for the first part of the review I will tell you the negatives of this movie and the second the positives in order to help strengthen the next movie you create. The issues I had with this movie are as followed:
1) The nudity of multiple females is sometimes away to help movies but in this movie it almost detracted from the story. Meaning though it was needed to see the torture and the major offenses the slasher was committing on the victims it did not need to be so prevalent, maybe the first girl nude, second girl not nude, and in a pattern as such. However, the nudity was somewhat a benefit for me in this movie, which I will explain later.
2)I understand budgets and time restraints are an issue but their was a violation of this in the movie. In the opening scene I thought the woman who got beat in the sleeping bag and then slammed on the tree was the same girl in the barn naked being cut up and having here genitalia mutilated. This was an issue because if you were slammed as hard as I felt she was slammed against the tree she would have been dead and if not and she was stuck brought to the barn she would have had more bodily damage on her than she did.
3) In the same opening scene the ranger is searching the campground and was told to check on a specific campsite which I could only assume was the girl in the sleeping bag or from the barn. When the ranger was searching it was daylight but when the bodies were dropped it was night so you lost the time frame of when this violence took place.
4) Later in the movie one of the girls were tied up in the barn with a bungee. This was not a good choice most people even of average commonsense would easily escape that restraint by simply pulling the bungee down and unhooking that, a rope would have been more efficient.
5) Acting was not the greatest at all times. Sometimes it was good. That is an easy fix with practice so I do not fault anyone for that but it is a concern.
6) The boy slasher screaming about his mothers murder sounded to unnatural for me. There would be more tears and if he was not tied up I feel he would have tried to fight his grandfather.
7) The atmosphere of terror was not there but it could be created easily with the setting the film was just so quick that I feel you could not create a dark atmosphere of hopelessness.
Though that sounded negative their were several things I did enjoy about the movie. They are as following:
1) Though the nudity was to prevalent thank you for showing natural average beauty as opposed to silicone princesses with no common sense. Meaning the girls within the movie made it more real because I highly doubt if I was hiking I would be covered in make up and natural beauty is always great. I wish more movies did it that way.
2) I like the basis of the movie. Their is a lot to do within that realm of reality. You could have a series of movies based on the events that occur it does not have to be one movie. So, it is an excellent starting point.
3) It was entertaining. When it comes to entertainment anything that I watch the whole thing through is a plus for me.
My job is not to deter the creative mind but help with improving it. I feel this movie has some improvement, which I hope in future movies that all of the cast and crew make will become excellent. The basics are there and with more time and possibly money you can create some great movies. I hope this does not make you feel bad but I think it can help. I did enjoy watching the movie but it needs a little more work and that is hard to do with time restraints. I thank you graciously for letting watch your film and I wish the best of luck to all of you with the future that you can easily create for yourselves.
scarefirsttalklater 