KNIGHT OF THE DEAD (2013)

Get it? Like Night of the Living Dead? You know, that $50-budget film from the '60s that filmmakers have been ripping off ever since? I guess it doesn't matter. Gimmicky title or not, any horror fan worth their weight in cinematic excrement knows any movie about the walking dead who infect via bite/scratching and can only go down for good with a shot to the head has been directly inspired by that hemp-smoking Pennsylvania native in the safari vest. 

It is the mid 1300s and the Black Plague is ravaging the land. Nearly 1/3rd of the world's population is in the process of dropping dead (thanks a lot, rats!), but that is not stopping one ragtag group of crusaders from escorting the Holy Grail (?) to a place unknown, but in actuality perhaps to hide it from that blonde Nazi who talks in her sleep from The Last Crusade. Along the way they encounter blood-spattered mindless humanoids who saunter toward them with nothing in their eyes, but their eyes on the men's delicious epidermis. Finding themselves surrounded at every side by a growing army of the zombie persuasion, the knights prepare to battle, and get gooey guts all over pretty much everything.

Perhaps inspired by the popularity of HBO's "Game of Thrones," a show that combines traditional fantasy/King Arthur-esque storytelling with mature themes, icky monsters, and all kinds of violence (though doesn't share nearly its budget of one episode), Knight of the Dead, if nothing else, at least takes itself seriously. Thematically similar to Christopher Smith's The Black Death (starring that headless "Game of Thrones" guy), the tone is bleak, the men seem haunted, the film stock is bleached, and things seem hopeless. (It IS the plague we're talking about here.) That's pretty much where the similarities end, as The Black Death was a great film made by a great filmmaker. While Knight of the Dead isn't terrible, there's nothing about it that injects the viewer with any sense of intrigue.

I have seen a lot of fellow reviewers tear down this film and I guess, while I can see why, I don't feel as obligated to do so myself. In the pantheon of zombie films, it's certainly not at the very bottom, but it is most certainly down there somewhere. I say without hesitation it's superior to the majority of the Resident Evil sequels and any remake of Romero's Night sans the Savini version. (And it's definitely better than the other Black Plague horror travesty Season of the Witch, but that's not really saying all that much, is it?)

Knight of the Dead tries to offer something new – zombies eating dudes during the Dark Ages – but the stark landscapes and the condemnations of witchcraft and the wailing, moaning soundtrack makes this all feel so damn familiar that the fact there are zombies included now doesn't really raise the stakes at all. This new trend of take-new-setting/add-zombies/shake-well sometimes results in some truly great films (see Exit Humanity), but sometimes it results in something like Knight of the Dead. What CGI that's utilized ranges from spotty to "Jesus, that's bad," but in a film where knights do back-flips and it's apparently possible to split zombies perfectly in half from head to hips, it's the most minor of qualms. Though inoffensive, competently assembled, and including zombies being eviscerated by battle axes, there's nothing particularly memorable about it.

Also, despite that cover, there is not ONE scene featuring a knight in a suit of armor battling an army of ghouls. I mean, come on...that scene writes itself.

Come the next day, when you're rinsing out your coffee mug in the break-room sink and someone asks if you saw any good movies recently, not only are you not going to name-drop Knight of the Dead, you're likely to have forgotten you even watched it.

REVIEW: THE DEAD AND THE DAMNED 2

You know what we need more of? Zombie movies. 

Just kidding!

But people keep making them. Thanks a lot, "The Walking Dead."

The zombie sub-genre is hard to get right. That show I just mentioned (perhaps you've heard of it?) is currently getting it wrong, as is...well, mostly everything else that contains the Z word. It's been a while since one came out that was even worth valid analysis. But that doesn't keep filmmakers from trying to make them.

The Dead and the Damned 2 (I have not seen the first one, though I sincerely doubt that matters) weaves together a cast of different characters coming together in the wake of a zombpocalypse. One of them is a former military soldier on a mission to lay his family to rest; another is a deaf girl being victimized  by decidedly non-zombie threats (read: redneck penis); then you meet an old man named Wilson living in a train car; and then we've got the immortal Richard Tyson as a fatigued police sheriff - so fatigued, in fact, that he's barely awake for any of his scenes. Naturally, all these characters come together and begin to rely on each other to survive the zombie-infested landscape their world has become. (Well, maybe not Richard Tyson, who shot one scene and fucked off from the rest of the film.) Along the way, some of these characters will be eaten like today's fricassee, and the ones that survive we'll soon "care about."

The Dead and the Damned 2 is not a good film, but that doesn't at all mean you shouldn't watch it. Entertaining for all the wrong reasons, it was a film made when a bunch of people were probably at the diner when one of them asked, "What do you wanna do now?" and someone answered, "We could make a zombie movie?"

And then The Dead and the Damned 2 happened. And we're all the better for it. It's sort of like the Forrest Gump of zombie films. It means well, and because it does, you give it a pass, but you just know there's not all that much going on upstairs.

(Zombie.)

The Dead and the Damned 2 is charming in its execution, although it's not trying to be. It's one of those accidental glorious train-wrecks that has to be seen to be believed. With a score clearly aping bits of the one John Murphy created for 28 Days Later, the "putting the family to rest" concept from the excellent Exit Humanity, and seemingly the amusing over-sized zombie head design from Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, The Dead and the Damned 2 is a combination of everything zombie-related that came before it, only getting everything wrong to such a degree that it validates its own existence because of the sheer ridiculousness it creates. There's even a scene in a shopping mall, because, why not?

Sledgehammers slammed into pudding-filled rubber skulls and charmingly stupid zombie designs await you, as does the most non-confrontational attempted rape scene ever committed to digital, dialogue so awkward and unnatural that it sounds like it had been run through an online auto-translator, and even a scene where our deaf girl strips down for bed and the camera pans down ever so slightly after its operator realized not all of her bare boobs were in frame. There, now they are.

The Dead and the Damned 2 is an excellent time waster. Don't expect good and you'll have a good time.

And that's all I have to say...about that.

REVIEW: A HAUNTING AT PRESTON CASTLE

Every horror aficionado has his or her weakness - something that will make them ignore all the signs of something deplorably bad and force them to throw caution to the wind. Some folks are into zombie films, some vampire ones. For me, it's the paranormal. Don't ask me why, because I couldn't tell you. That bug has been there for quite a while, but it seems to have intensified over the years, quite possibly because of the really satisfying output of fantastic fright films: The Innkeepers, The Pact, Lake Mungo, and pretty much anything James Wan has ever done not involving Jigsaw or race cars.

There is always an ongoing quest to discover that next great film that will get under the skin and cause a nice rash of chills. I always like to believe that just because a film doesn't have a huge budget or an intense marketing campaign that it's not capable of providing as spooky a time as those other films made by notable genre filmmakers.

Having watched A Haunting at Preston Castle, I can only say...that quest will have to continue. As generic a concept as one can get, a group of spunky teens break into the allegedly haunted Preston Castle with a video camera to chart the legendary abandoned building, and who knows, maybe even capture proof of the paranormal. Bad acting, immature directing, and one hollow script later, you end up with something that makes you wonder when people are going to stop trying the same old things over and over before they realize it's already been done by someone with far more talent, money, resources, and yeah, passion.

A Haunting at Preston Castle is nothing more than a collection of irritating performances, a formulaic concept, and unintentionally hilarious ghosts. The only saving grace (though it doesn't save anything) is the legitimately impressive and creepy Preston Castle, a real place in California that used to be a reform school until it closed its doors in 2010. Since then, it's sat abandoned, falling victim to the elements.

When a building getting old and crappy without any effort from anyone or anything is better than the script a filmmaker sat down to write, or the performances one hopes the actors were trying to nail, well...that's embarrassing.

Do you like young attractive casts? Point of view camera work? Friends jumping out from dark corners to scare each other? How about a lot of giggling? Teen girls saying the words "fuck" and "fucking"? Or them smacking gum as they point the camera right at their faces? Intensely, absurdly, unbelievably unlikable lead heroines?

If so, A Haunting at Preston Castle is for you.

If you're fourteen or under, bring your hiding blanket!

For everyone else, just stream Grave Encounters again.

REVIEW: THE FORBIDDEN GIRL

I was just saying to my mother the other day, "You know what I could go for? One of those sexy, witchy, witch-sex movies."

Then I came home, looked in my mailbox, and grinned. Inception Media had heard my utterances on the late-summer wind and sent me a copy of The Forbidden Girl to review.

My pants were never the same.

A late-night rendezvous between Toby, the son of an apparent religious fanatic, and his girlfriend, Katie, goes pretty sour after she shows him the locket that she's wearing around her neck, which attracts some kind of black-smoke demon that comes and takes her away. See, it was really important to Toby's priest pops that Toby remain all chaste and stuff, so obviously sneaking off to see Katie, Kewpie-doll-voice seductress that she is, was a horrendous idea. With Toby's father newly headless and Katie kidnapped, poor Toby goes rather mad from this and spends the next six years in a mental institution while simultaneously and miraculously not aging whatsoever. After fibbing his way through a gab session with his doctor, Toby is released to salvage the rest of his young life. He begins a tutoring job for a very eccentric couple who live in an isolated old mansion, throughout which Toby seems to sense Katie attempting to communicate with him. When Toby meets his student, Laura, who to him appears to be his missing beloved Katie, well, things get real awkward real fast.

The Forbidden Girl is a beautifully photographed film with better-than-average special effects that unfortunately still ends up being kind of a mess. Creepy visuals and impressive set designs promise a story engaging and unique that, though it tries, never manages to be more than almost perfunctory. Tonally, the film is similar to William Malone's Parasomnia, though it shares that film's woes as well - essentially, both are impressively realized dreamscape films that exist solely to show off the interesting and disturbing visuals on display. There's no doubt about it that Till Hastreiter knows how to direct, present a beautiful image, and work within his budget (though the day-for-night shooting needs a little work). For once the acting in a low budget horror film isn't entirely deplorable. Our lead (Peter Gadiot) is earnest and likable, and his strange new employer is suitably a big creep. But again, both seem committed to a story that never quite established what it wants to be. Horror? Whimsical fantasy? Teen love? (Gross.)

Never would I accuse The Forbidden Girl of being artistically hollow, as there is a genuine attempt to present a story as engaging as the visuals are compelling, but the script never manages to be more than this thing that ultimately ends up getting in the way of the next creepy or stunning set-piece.

It hits video tomorrow.

REVIEW: PIGGY

 

The rather cornball cover art chosen for the video release of Piggy is, while cosmetically correct, tonally misleading. It’s easy to look at that picture of a man holding not just one but TWO knives and wearing a pig mask and thinking, “Oh boy, here we go.” What Piggy actually is, however, is not some random, generic, slice-and-dice. Technically it’s not even a horror film. (But that doesn’t mean it’s not horrific.)

Joe (Martin Compston, The Disappearance of Alice Creed) is a shy Londonite longing for human interaction much like all of us do. His only real friend appears to be his brother, Jamie (Ed Skrein, “Game of Thrones” [Daario Naharis: the season three version]), who may or may not be romantically involved with Claire (Louise Dylan), whom Joe may or may not be crushing on. One night at a local pub, Joe quite accidentally sets off a chain of events with a local gang that leads to some tossed threats, some minor fisticuffs action, and eventually the stabbing murder of Jamie. Joe naturally blames himself for having caused the conflict to escalate out of control and he disappears inside himself, confining himself to his apartment. That is until Piggy (Paul Anderson, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) knocks on his door, explaining that he was mates with his brother and will be around should Joe need anything. That “need” turns out to be vigilante revenge, unleashed upon each member of the gang responsible for Jamie’s death, except for that of the gang leader, who ends up in prison on an unrelated drug charge. Joe rides his fury at the loss of his brother and enjoys a front-seat view of Piggy’s fury against the gang members, but soon Joe starts to feel the opposite, becoming disturbed by Piggy’s unhinged and incredibly violent attacks on their prey. Soon Joe wants nothing more to do with Piggy…who doesn’t like suddenly not being needed anymore.

While watching Piggy, I couldn’t help but keep Fight Club in the back of my mind. Though tonally, one film has nothing in common with the other, I was struck by one particular dynamic the two films do share: that of one strange mysterious character quite randomly showing up in the life of another and providing some measure of strength and/or awakening that our “narrator” was missing. Post-viewing, and after having done some research, I found I was not alone in thinking like this. So it was when the film was leading up to its inevitable payoff that I (wrongly) assumed I knew the twist to be coming.

Luckily, the film was smarter than I was.

The power of Piggy comes from its feeling much more violent then it actually is. And don’t get me wrong, it is violent, but for every one brutal throat slash or head-stomp, we get several more left to our imagination. Piggy is out to make you unsettled and disturbed, sure, but it wants to earn that reaction from you. It also wants to make you question what exactly constitutes strength in a person. Is it taking revenge through force? Or is it confronting your own fears and taking responsibilities for your own actions?

The acting ensemble delivers on every level, perhaps top honors going to Anderson as the titular character. Everyone shares excellent chemistry, though they all look appropriately glum beneath writer/director Kieron Hawkes’ muted palette.The film is well-written, somberly shot, and beautifully scored. I'll be, it's actually a film.

Vigilantism is never largely discussed as a sub-genre of filmmaking, though it remains ever popular, recently attracting an eclectic collection of names like The Rock, Jodie Foster, Kevin Bacon, and Rainn Wilson. There is something dangerously appealing of seeing someone out for revenge and willing to go to great lengths to achieve it. The rational side of us know such actions are better left to the judicial system, but the emotional side of us live vicariously through our chosen vigilante as he/she exacts the kind of justice their targets have coming.

Piggy ends on an extremely dour note, but one that will have you smiling anyway.

It hits video May 13.

REVIEW: THE UNBROKEN

"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

If a character in your ghost film says that within the first five minutes, yooooou might've made a clichéd ghost film. You might argue that, by now, everything has been done - especially in the ghost sub-genre - so it becomes hard to avoid one cliché after another. Fortunately, there are some films out there, like Ti West's The Innkeepers or Scott Derrickson's Sinister, that can overcome those obstacles and present something familiar yet fresh at the same time.

But then you've got films like The Unbroken that play out as if its filmmakers were told one single ghost story in their youth and then thought, "We should make that into a movie or something. No one's done that before, right?"

And the requisite beats are all here: the recently displaced character with a new home after an unfortunate event, the creepy totem of the deceased (in this case, a laughing clown doll), and a roster of shady characters whom you'll think are the killers responsible for the death of the person now haunting said character. Oh, and twist ending the end.

Add Warwick Davis and you've got The Unbroken, which we've seen a hundred times already. The script contains groundbreaking new character tropes like Bitter Old Woman, Horny Young Adult Jokester, and, of course, Creepy Kid Ghost. 

Sarah Campbell (Aurelia Rose) is the recently displaced (and divorced) main character finding herself in a new environment that happens to be douched with ghost. At first she accuses one of her neighbors of all the ghostly goings-on...that is until the ghost boy appears directly in front of her, wearing a ghost red turtleneck and overalls. This sends her into the comforting presence of Tommy (Patrick Flanagan), the previously mentioned character who tries with every line of dialogue to provide comic relief, but instead becomes nails on a chalk board. "Most ghost movies suck, except...Ghostbusters," he even has the audacity to say. 

Further, Tommy tells Sarah what usually happens in ghost movies after someone sees a ghost: go to a psychic. So, Sarah does just that. Warwick Davis, the last person you would expect to play a psychic, psychics the hell out of his part, saying things like "sage" and "negative energy." Just like REAL movie psychics!

The Unbroken is supposed to be ironic, but it comes across as lazy. It's also supposed to be scary, but instead induces eye rolls and chuckles. The script can be aggravating at times, to the point where you fight the urge to shout at the characters on screen. For instance: the manager of the complex where Sarah is staying tells her she will send up her nephew to help Sarah move her stuff in. Not minutes later, a teen boy shows up and says, "My aunt told me to help you move in," to which Sarah responds: "Who is your aunt??"

Seriously? Do you not remember the conversation from 37 seconds ago?

There's also no respect for either physical or psychological continuity. In one scene, for instance, the glass shower door shatters and sends broken shards ripping across Sarah's flesh, leaving nasty cuts across her arm and back. Later that night at an art opening, Sarah's sleeveless dress reveals her soft, tanned, and untainted flesh. And it's at this art gallery where her ex is (nearly?) killed and she barely reacts, looking more embarrassed than alarmed. It's noticeable, distracting, and rather bush league.

"Sorry, Warwick - we've already cast the boy ghost."

Aurelia Rose as our protag does a serviceable job, and she's awful purty, but the film surrounding her is dull and uninspired. The remaining cast looks exhausted, especially Daniel Baldwin, who visualizes in his mind finally paying off the rest of his new van by having agreed to appear in this; his complete disinterest in the material comes across in nearly every word of his performance.

I honestly don't know to whom I would recommend The Unbroken. Have you never seen a ghost film, ever? Do you not know anything at all about ghosts you couldn't have learned from Casper? Is someone jumping out of a closet and shouting boo enough to send you into a frenzy of fear? Then hey, check out The Unbroken, if only to work your way up to something more deserving.

I, for one, did learn something from having watched, and it's something I can reiterate here:

Most ghost movies suck.

A HAUNTING AT SILVER FALLS (2013)

Jordan (Alix Elizabeth Gitter) is going through a rather bad patch. After the untimely death of her father, she finds herself living across the country with her older sister/new guardian Anne (Tara Westwood) and her sister's boyfriend, Kevin (Steve Bacic). Originally from Los Angeles, and now living in Silver Falls (exact location unknown), Jordan forces herself to move on and attempt to be a simple teenager, meaning she's off to parties filled with beer, pills, and fiery mannequins. While living in Silver Falls, she manages to attract the attention of two boys: Larry (James Calvo), a very hipstery non-cool kid who isn't cool because he wears your grandmother's glasses, and Robbie, (Tadgh Kelly), your resident cool kid who is cool because he has cool hair.

Jordan has also attracted the ghost of a young girl that seems to be haunting Silver Falls, thanks to a ring she found in the woods while evading the party-busting police. This ghost likes to scream at her using Halloween party store sound effects while wearing a heavy sheen of goo across her face. It even tries to drown her in the bathtub. 

Inspired by true events!

Day by day, Jordan begins to delve into the mystery behind this haunting figure, who won't stop following her and giving her the creepy creeps, determined to put the girl's tortured spirit to rest. 

Pretty unorthodox, if I must say!

A Haunting at Silver Falls is okay. The acting is sound, bolstered by the appearance of the always fun Erick Avari (The Mummy, Flight of the Living Dead) as Jordan's unlikable shrink, Dr. Parish. The events of the film, particularly the haunting of Jordan by "The Doll Twins," are approached in a somber and serious way, which is refreshing. The ghost themselves aren't always handled in the best way - budget constraints and an underwhelming make-up design can sometimes stunt the potential for genuine scares, but there are some nice "gotcha" moments scattered throughout. The ghost twins we repeatedly see don't look like ghosts so much as things supposed to look like ghosts, if that makes any sense. They're not entirely a success, but still occasionally creepy during specific scenes.

Oh...but that ending. God damn it. 

Endings can be described as unpredictable for two reasons: either because the filmmakers leading the charge have skillfully laid down the clues for you to pick up and foretell the twist to come, or because it's so completely out of left field that you don't feel stupid for not having seen it coming. An ending is everything, and a bad one can be detrimental...unless your movie was good enough from the start to trump said ending. I tend to use Haute Tension as the prime example in that regard - an absolute cheat of an ending, but not enough to ruin the ridiculous and over the top manner of the first two acts. (Don't read too much into the comparison - one's ending is not indicative of the other's.)

And that's the problem here. A Haunting at Silver Falls is okay, but not okay enough to overcome its silly and unnecessarily bleak ending.

Writer/director Brett Donowho shows skill behind the camera. He frames his shots and uses darkness like a person putting actual thought into his film. No shaking camera, no bogus and frantic editing. The story is old fashioned in its design - dead girls, a lost ring, a town secret. It's not the most original story you're apt to see in this genre, but it's still pure, and that's what matters. There's even an effort to develop nearly all the characters that appear on screen, including the character of Kevin, who in any other film would be a completely underutilized and superfluous trope - a walking meat suit that's eventually ghosted to death.

I like small town horror stories because these environments more effortlessly feel like home than any other setting. Cities are glamorous and all, and ripe for large scale destruction, but small towns are supposed to be comforting and wholesome. They'e not supposed to be the scene of vicious crimes and dark histories. But when they are, there's something disturbing about it all.

I could easily see other reviewers giving A Haunting at Silver Falls a tough time, calling it unoriginal and mundane. But when I watch films like this, and I can see an honest attempt to craft something beyond blood, guts, and fancy editing, I'm inclined to only show encouragement.

Weak ending aside, I still recommend A Haunting at Silver Falls. It's one of the better under-the-radar ghost flicks to come out in quite some time.

It hits video May 28th. Pre-order it.

REVIEW: BATTLE EARTH

Once upon a time, in February of 1942, aliens came and hovered over Los Angeles. They hung around a bit, didn't too much, and then left. Or so UFO conspiracy theorists like to claim. I can't say for sure what happened because I wasn't there. But this incident, much like the alleged crash landing of another UFO in Roswell, New Mexico, has kept the idea of aliens and alien visitation alive for decades.

In 2005, it inspired a pretty okay movie called Battle: Los Angeles, starring Aaron Eckhart and directed by Jonathan Liebsman. 

Battle Earth writer/director Aaron Kurmey kinda hopes you don't remember that, or else his film about the US (er, sorry, Canadian) military fighting off a ground invasion by alien forces might seem more than a little familiar, as will its news footage declaring "EARTH UNDER ATTACK!!" and the streaming bright-white meteors hurtling toward our planet. Even the handheld "right up in there" way of filming the action is ever in place. But as I've often said, while concepts can become exhausted, a filmmaker with a bit of know-how can overcome this over-saturation so long as they offer something new and/or intelligent. (I also don't blame the filmmakers for the title, as research indicates the film was originally called The Medic.)

It is six months into the initial invasion. The Canadian military is actively trying to quell and neutralize the attack with the use of helicopter and ground troops. Among one of these troops is Greg Baker (Kevin Johnson), who enlists in the fight after seeing the invasion unfold on his television. After their helicopter is shot down, Baker and his platoon find themselves in enemy territory and in possession of a mysterious package covered in bio-hazard symbols. As time goes on, it becomes more and more evident there's something pretty important inside that package...and it's going to change Baker's entire perception of who is the real enemy.

Battle Earth, and movies like it, are perfectly destined for Red Box or digital download. It is a satisfying way to spend 90 minutes without ever feeling like your time has ultimately been wasted. But you'll never feel compelled to watch it ever again. The acting is just fine, though it varies in quality; luckily our lead is more than competent. Johnson isn't your typical generic and handsome lead; he's just an everyman who saw the carnage on his television and did the right thing in volunteering for the fight. He's got some domestic baggage weighing him down, and it causes him to have nightmares in which he stumbles across his wife/girlfriend, Tracy, fucking some random dude in the middle of the same wilderness where the soldiers are engaging the enemy.

Speaking of the enemy...oh boy, these aliens. They don't look great. And I suppose that's why the filmmakers don't really go out of their way to show them off. If you've seen the great District 9, picture if you can those aliens having been dudes in costumes as opposed to CGI. (I'll certainly give them points for trying it old school, however; I'll take crummy costumes over crummy CGI any day of the week.) That's the enemy we're dealing with in Battle Earth...and they also wear clothes. Except for E.T., that might just be a first in this subgenre. Also a first: Canadians saying things like "fuck" and "sucking dicks." I had no idea Canadians cursed! It's weird!

Refreshingly, the visual effects present here are pretty competent and effective, and Kurmey's skill behind the camera works well in tandem alongside them - one notable sequence has a still night invaded by flashing lights across the far mountainous horizon, and the glare of this light show reflects across the soldiers' awed faces. Small moments like this - and the very unusual opening utilizing a recreated relaxation tape meshed with a soldier dispatching enemy combatants - help elevate Battle Earth above the usual direct to video level.

Unfortunately, the film falls victim in the same way other films containing groups of soldiers: characterization falls by the wayside, and instead the men are given differing personalities (the funny guy! the somber guy! the foreigner!) to help the audience discern who is who. Not helping is the single location in which the film takes place, which after a while makes the film a little stagnate. Odd, seeing as how the majority of this film has soldiers shooting assault weapons at the enemy.

You have seen better films than Battle Earth, but you have seen way worse, too. It won't be your new favorite film, but it might make you say, "that was worth the $1.20, but we have to return this by 9:00 or they'll charge us for another night."

Battle Earth hits DVD on May 28. Buy it here.

REVIEW: STRIPPED

I suppose if it had been a bigger hit, or if someone had thought of it, Stripped would have been marketed as "Project X meets Hostel." Because that's pretty much what we have here: "found footage" of a group of horny frat-boy types hauling ass to Vegas for a weekend of debauchery, but finding themselves victimized and stalked by a group of black market organ traffickers.

It is Graham's 21st birthday, and so it's off to Sin City with his BFFs Luke, Cameron, and Tommy. They like to smoke weed and drink booze. They make an awful lot of jokes, some involving puke and some involving mothers. They call each other "fag" and make fun of Twilight. Because, you know, kids.

Along the way they pick up Capri, who crashes the party to hitch a ride so she can meet up with her boyfriend, Jake, who lives in Vegas. Once that happens, drama ensues when it's revealed she once had some kind of romantic tryst with Luke. But the kids quickly get back to their jokes and the social awkwardness is left behind for the time being. After stopping off at a gas station bathroom, they discover a business card promising "women willing to do anything to make you happy." (That means hookers.)  And we have a catalyst!

"Mind if I fornicate?"

The minute we meet out first character, you can immediately tell he, and all his cohorts, are going to be obnoxious and unlikable. That's a huge problem, especially in this genre. For Stripped, it's genuinely hard to tell if this was a conscious choice to make the eventual bloodletting all the more satisfying, or if the desire to make our kids "realistic" and "fun" didn't really work out that way. They fart, talk about fucking constantly, and make references to having sex with babies. (Seriously.) Either way, I don't care about any of these kids, at all.

Stripped, as a "story," takes entirely too long to get going. Except for the rather cheap and brief cuts of debauchery and torture soon to come (foreshadowing, only far less subtle!), the first 40 minutes is nothing but watching handsome and/or pretty young people hang out, high five, test your patience, and hold beer bottles. It is around the 40-minute mark when the kids finally get to the shady, out-of-the-way place where the strippers/hookers hang out.

Oddly, it is around the 45-minute mark where director J.M.R. Luna abandons the found footage aesthetic altogether and begins to shoot the film traditionally, which is jarring, to say the least. There is an attempt to maintain the style using surveillance cameras (which make no sense existing in an incredibly illegal and murderous operation), but all this does is make the brief, traditionally-shot sequences stick out all the more. Adding to this confusion is they seem to have used the same camera for every shot - the "found footage" amateur stuff as well as the real-movie, traditional stuff. So, take your established inconsistency, add this newer confusion, and you have Stripped: the feature film that dares you to figure out what's happening.

And finally, it is around the 50-minute mark when anything the least bit resembling a horror film finally begins to occur. This in a 75-minute film.

There is absolutely no attempt at coherence in Stripped. Although it's plainly established there is only ever one camera in use for most of the trip, suddenly, when it's essential to the plot, Capri randomly has her own camera. And speaking of, there's absolutely no reason, once Capri attempts to find her friends in a seedy whore house and becomes understandably scared, that she would hold her camera out at arm's length and film her own face as she walks around - especially when it's been established the filmmakers are willing to switch perspective to  traditional shooting, which easily could have been employed here. The most damning aspect to this is that Capri clearly has a camera - speaks directly into it at one point, like a diary - but then when she walks by in a "surveillance camera" shot, is obviously not holding a camera. This doesn't happen just once, but repeatedly.

I mean, what the fuck?

Honestly, there isn't much I can say about Stripped that's positive. The acting is decent, but only because it's not hard to get a bunch of kids to act obnoxious and silly. The girls were pretty and the boys were handsome. Everything shot was in frame and in focus. The strippers showed off their cleavage and sometimes their goods (if you're into that sort of thing). When the kids are killed and harvested (spoiler?), smile in relief, because it means the end is coming. 

I mean...that's it.

Look, if you always wanted to see the guys from "Jackass" get sliced up to rock/rap, all mixed with a lot of nudity, AND a scene where a naked boy fist-fights a crazy surgeon, now's your chance. Normally I'd feel guilty trashing a film this bad, but I don't this time. Maybe because this isn't even really a film. To call it such is an insult to filmmakers actually trying.