A small independent news crew investigates a series of unexplained disappearances in a small Midwestern county.
This film will be a treat for those who love horror icons. Brian Krause ("Sleepwalkers") stars as Cyrus, with plenty of screen time for Danielle Harris as Maria and Lance Henriksen as Emmett. Even Doug Jones and Tiffany Shepis show up for a while.
This film has received some criticism for not being very original and following old horror movie, especially slasher, clichés. And yes, it does have some. But I think this was sort of the point... clearly the writer-director is a horror fan based on his casting, so he must have been paying homage to his favorites. This is no different than what Rob Zombie did with "House of 1000 Corpses" (though that one was a little too blatant in my opinion).
The film claims to be based on true events, which I strongly suspected was completely false. I called out director Mark Vadik on this, and he set the record straight: it is, in fact, based very loosely on the life of serial killer Fritz Haarmann, with some background details of other serial killers thrown in. So, I suppose, we have to let this slide. (I strongly urge you to look into Haarmann's story -- it is pretty graphic, and a closer telling would be an amazingly demented film.)
Vadik also informed me that the claim of the film being banned in six countries is true. They are ones you might expect -- United Arab Emirates and the Middle Eastern countries -- but this is still a cool claim. While any number of reasons could be behind the ban, there is one sequence involving breast feeding that likely got some people's heckles raised.
Check this one out. This is a breakout role for Brian Krause, who was already a big star from "Charmed". He spent much time researching killers -- particularly BTK and the Green River Killer -- for this role, and even did much of the second unit directing, picking up important shots of death scenes. His work is subtle, but the reason the film is good rather than forgettable.
