Reviews

There is only one death that isn't off screen. That death is the first one and wasn't even interesting; it just looked like he had a couple seizures and bit his tongue. It was also a bold idea to make almost every character completely unlikable. A good comeuppance death in a horror movie can be fun, but all the characters here are weak, bland versions of stereotypes, so not even their deaths spark any satisfaction. An airplane pilot who is sleeping with a stewardess? How titillating! A hot goth girl who is into death AND she's sitting next to a rude, self absorbed "karen" whose husband seems interested in her? How novel! To be honest there wasn't a single scene where I felt tension or anything that made me jump. The ending is stupid and parts of it don't make sense. Two stars because some of the actors really try and the special effects/sets are pretty decent. TLDR: This movie sucks

I saw the movie on Amazon Prime and thought "Sure, why not." After wading through the whole mess I can say, I should have stayed with the "not". The plot itself doesn't sound earth shattering, but does sound like it could provide an interesting little story with the right direction. When I saw that it was a director's "proof of concept" I started getting worried. When I saw that the director was also a main actor /and/ the writer I got more worried. Unsurprisingly he writes himself as a priest who used to be a "soldier and a mercenary" who managed to single handedly kill nine men who tried to rape his wife. We find this out in a completely unnecessary scene where he is praying to God for forgiveness for all the killing he's done. I'm not kidding. That combined with a bunch of confusing scenes that I assume he thought were "artsy" and a plot that seems to be everywhere, makes for an unsatisfying viewing. If the director/actor/writer had actually kept to the synopsis of the film and kept himself and more of his vanity out of it, it probably could have made for an ok indie movie.

The worst part of this movie is the conceit that we should feel any empathy for despicable human beings that have no redeeming qualities. The fact that several of the characters actually end up getting happy endings and reconciliations made me want to tear my hair out. I didn't feel one iota of sympathy for any of them. While there were a few interesting twists and turns, it didn't make up for a clunky script that felt as fake as the attempts to make ANY of the main characters into some kind of heroes.

While this movie has some little scares here and there, it ultimately falls flat. The premise is a bit fresh for the found footage genre: Four friends on a road trip to find the best "extreme" haunt, but inadvertently bring the haunt to themselves. The acting is decent, the movie looks pretty good but sadly those are the only pluses. The scenes at the various haunted houses were the most interesting part of this movie to me, as the absolute idiocy of the characters stretched my suspension of disbelief. **SPOILERS** For example, after being accosted by various haunted house workers MULTIPLE TIMES while parking their RV in the middle nowhere over the course of the movie, the characters CONTINUE to park their RV in the middle of nowhere in woods or a field rather than finding a campsite, a WalMart or anywhere else that would be safer. Especially makes no sense since at least the first few stops on their haunted house tour are planned, so why wouldn't they also plan to stop the RV somewhere convenient? They also seem to think being stalked doesn't need a call to the police or, I don't know...STOPPING THEIR TRIP?! The female character even almost gets raped by some haunted house workers, and two seconds later is chomping on snacks in the RV, happily going onto the "extreme haunt" without a care. This makes their screams and panicking with each "scary" encounter ultimately meaningless, because it doesn't ever seem to be enough for even one of them to suggest that keeping going might be dangerous. By the middle of the movie I found myself murmuring to myself "They are so stupid they deserve to get killed." Ultimately even the end of the movie was kind of 'eh' as there was absolutely no gore or anything gross to make the hour and twenty minutes you already watched really worth it. If you are really bored on a rainy Sunday and want to yell at idiot twenty somethings this movie is for you, otherwise skip it.