A Brush with Death (Video 2007) Poster

(2007 Video)

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3/10
A waste of some pretty girls.
johannes2000-18 June 2009
Warning: Spoilers
The ingredients are okay: five pretty girls, high on hormones, who go out partying in this luxurious remote villa; some creepy locals; a mysterious but hunky boy-next-door; and an abandoned haunted house in the vicinity. But it's like the pieces of a potentially good puzzle that are put together in the wrong way, they just don't fit.

The five girls all are more or less interchangeable, no character-description whatsoever, so you have hardly any reason to sympathize with anyone of them. The weird man in the haunted house, who's kept hidden for some time as the mysterious force that's responsible for the disappearance and killing of some of the girls, come's totally out-off the blue, it's no-one we've seen before, so how can we relate to his presence and actions? Movies like this traditionally have to have a last grand twist, that should make you jump up just before the lights go on again, and they DO give it a try here, but I saw it coming from the beginning and I'm mostly the last to know things like that.

The only decent thing in this movie is the flash backs to the kid-brothers, where the vicious one plays "prove how much you love me!" and really causes some chills on your spine. But the rest of the supposed horror was lost on me, we never even see a real graphic kill. The acting and the direction are mediocre at best, it's like no-one really believed in the whole thing and just went through the motions the director asked them to.

But hey, I DID like the house (the neat villa, not the haunted one). It deserved a better movie.
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1/10
what a horror flick never should be
trashgang8 September 2009
What can I say about this stinker. No acting, no blood, no gore, no nothing. The storyline is a turkey too, why is that man taking pictures from a girl, why is she almost undressed and in the next shot dressed and then undressed again? Who is that guy, supposed to mislead the viewer thinking he is the killer. How stupid are those girls really want to visit an abandoned house were some atrocities happened. 1954 and 1955 back flashes, huh, who are those kids? the names never appear in the movie. The end, what the hell, see it coming miles away. And what about the conversations between the girls, so stupid, you see them wait until one has finished her sentence. This is no acting. At the end, suddenly there is light in that house but still they think no one lives there. No blood flows, just in snap shots that's the best part, some frames included with blood. You never see any killing of effect used. Can it get worser? I don't think so... a waist of time
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1/10
The old bait and switch
lilshyviolette-118 April 2007
The case quoted one plot while the movie was well barely similar.

Case" Five cheerleaders spend the night in an abandoned farmhouse and find themselves up against a vengeful ghost.

They soon find out the spirit is from a dead boy who painted a portrait of the brother he killed forty years earlier." OK now while there are 5 girls that come off as sluts it is never really clear that they are cheerleaders. The first 2/3 of the film is spent watching them swim and party. This has an R rating but comes off like middle school porn! There is an occasional flashback of a demented older brother making the younger one kill a cat and play some awful how much do you love me game and than suggesting that the younger brother kill their father.

You do see paintings, that appear to be made with blood, of what we can only assume are other victims. BUT lets make things very clear, there is no GHOST the killing brother is alive and well killing more people and evidently has a couple of sons.

If this movie had delivered the plot the case claims it had, perhaps it would have been worth watching.
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5/10
Not So Bad As Indicated In IMDb Rating
claudio_carvalho25 August 2007
The girlfriends Amber (Seanna McDonald), Megan (Missy Sturges), Samantha (Lily Vu), Candice (Ali Thurlow) and Hillary (Nikki Cordell) drive their Jeep to spend a couple of days in a mansion that belong to the uncle of one of the girls in San Joaquin Valley, ninety kilometers north of Los Angeles. They run out gas on the road and the pervert mechanic Walter (Ted Esquivel) and his stutter assistant Caleb (Max Taylor) give the necessary fuel to the girls. While parting in the swimming pool of the house, they meet their neighbor Ranken (Nicholls Melancon) and decide to hold a party in the night in the Rue Family Farmhouse, an abandoned place considered haunted where a couple of people had been murdered many years ago. Later the girls find the truth about the place and the locals.

"A Brush With Death" has a bad screenplay that misleads the viewer, introduces a totally new important character near the end and the cheerleaders have the behavior of sluts, but this B-movie indeed is not so bad as indicated in IMDb rating. Actually it is an average slasher low-budget movie, having a reasonable unknown cast with beautiful actresses and a flawed and silly story with a good conclusion. I bought this DVD without any previous reference and when I saw the IMDb rating, I watched this film with a very low expectation, but in the end, I did not totally dislike this movie. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Obsessão Sanguinária" ("Bloody Obsession")
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5/10
Well... it wasn't awful
mystolibaby6 November 2014
I actually like low budget, usually low rated movies. There is something about them.... sometimes its a mess and laughable. BUT I don't feel like I completely wasted my time viewing this movie. Maybe I would feel different if I paid to see in a movie theater where I was a captive audience. I multi-tasked while viewing. Nothing too important that can be "missed". Not too bad a movie. Now they expect reviews to be ten lines, and although I summed up my feelings about this movie in less, I will take the time to try and balance out the negative reviews just a tad. So I will again say the movie was not to bad in hopes of making enough lines to meet the criteria for a review.
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5/10
Good Hot watch
grayey18 December 2020
There is nothing bad about a movie with five highly attractive young women that are scantily clad for most of the film. Yes, that added a few stars to my rating. The story is not terrible either and the characters are fun. Worth a watch.
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4/10
Goof
zoetroph200619 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
About 32 minutes into this film, the scene where the guy comes over to hang out with the 5 cheerleaders, and 2 of the girls lay on the floor and try to flip the other over in some kind of cheerleader move, anyway as they get up, and the camera stays on them, if you look screen left you will see an overweight camera man on his knees crouched at the end of the couch. At first I thought it was Hillbilly Wayne the auto mechanic with his camera, but rewind shows otherwise.

The continuity in this film was possibly the worse I have ever tried to follow in a B movie. Flashbacks, fast forwards, trying to tell a story, but it is so disjointed it really makes it hard to follow. Cute if not entirely predictable ending.

I have to say it still puzzles me why 5 girls would want to party in a dilapidated old house. Especially these 5 who seemed like they walked out of a Teen Glamour shoot and would not be caught dead (pardon the pun) in a run down :haunted: mansion.

I don't think the movie is a total loss, I still enjoyed it for what it was. Since I cannot make a movie I don't feel I should be critiquing others so harshly. Small budgets sometimes are the blame,other times it's the writing or the acting. In this case, probably a little of all three.
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2/10
Pretty incomprehensible (and inaudible).
innocuous15 August 2010
Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but pretty bad, even for an indie. The plot seems like it was written as part of a class exercise where each class member gets to write one page of a script. There are flashbacks, flash-forwards, and all sorts of discontinuities. Characters are introduced only to be dropped completely, while new and important characters are introduced at the very end of the movie.

A couple of the scenes make you wonder what the movie would have been like if it had been consistent, but these moments are fleeting.

The movie is also not helped by the poor audio. There are times when you think that one of the characters must be deaf because the POV shots show someone talking but you can't hear any dialogue.

Finally, I would have liked to have been there for the casting, as the producer apparently posted a call for interchangeable cheerleader-type girls 19 to 22 years of age, no nudity or acting ability required. Five of them are bad enough, but I'm sure there was a whole line of them at the casting office. That would have made a horror story on its own.
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1/10
let's hear it for the worst horror film of 2007
movieman_kev8 February 2009
Five cheerleaders drive down to one of their uncle's mansion for a mini-vacation, once there they meet Ranken the neighbor from half a mile down, he tells them of an abandoned house close by. A good portion of the movie deals with the girls lounging around the mansion's pool in bikinis (but never do any of the get even topless, that would inject something of interest into the film) with the horror/slasher element of the film relegated to late in the movie (apart from a few asides to other people that don't really go anywhere & some flashbacks) Even if I weren't jaded by atrocious low-budget slasher films, this one would've still bored me to tears. Nothing even remotely approaching competence (much less entertainment) can be found within this wast of celluloid.

My Grade: F
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1/10
Uhh, What The Hell Did I just Watch..?
RobertLThorpe8 February 2013
THe box says 5 girls go out to a rural farm house to get away and then learn a terrible secret about a house next door. Well, after learning the secret they of course decide to go stay in it. Which never unfolds really. You got 5 hot girls that end up swimming half the film and just talking about nothing really. Im not convinced that they even died in the movie at the end. There is no nudity, I don't know why it is R rated, a couple bad words I think. The blood is only thrown against a wall and implying that something bad happens.

The worst part is, in the beginning there is some crazy gas station dude that has during one of the MANY flashback scenes that just have no bearing on the movie, anyway, this old guy kills a dude and them starts taking photos of the girl with a stuttering young man who is the only cool character in the film. They take photos of her, with the guy kissing her and sorta leading to a perversion that would be cool in itself if the real story didn't have to happen.

Over all, the writers need to go to school and learn how to write something entertaining because nothing ever happens in this film. Absolutely boring. The only bright spot is the stuttering guy who actually did a pretty good job. This film makes ED WOOD films look like masterpieces. Horrendous.
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10/10
this movie was one of the best horror movies I've seen in a very long time (spoliers)
datvmanlife24 March 2007
OK so I went out to the videoshop one night and decided to get a b movie cause i hadn't seen one in a while. I thought the name of this had a nice ring to it and i the blurb at the back was a good movie idea. i didn't expect a lot as it was a b movie. boy im surprised i was hoping for a stinker but this should be playing in cinemas around the world. from start which is sick itself to finish which still makes me shudder dear god that concept freakyness evil evil. I now own a copy of this movie i bought one the next day after renting. There is no nudity or on screen brutal gore but who cares the only bit you need to care about is that ending. people have been giving it bad reviews? wtf im shocked this wasn't at the movies. a must for all. if you don't like it than tough for you. to finish off the acting was great, script was great and the direction was great and the score was great i cant find a flaw in this movie after 3 times watching it. enjoy this beautiful movie. the only flaw i can find is that the movie description isn't correct but who cares once you get into the film you don't care
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2/10
Grade C slasher can't rise above its weak script
Wuchakk12 August 2013
RELEASED IN 2007, "A Brush with Death" is a horror/slasher about five cheerleaders on retreat at a vacation home in the country of California. There's an abandoned house nearby that has an infamous history and the girls are intrigued by it. Meanwhile a couple local guys come sniffing around the girls.

There are three basic types of film: Grade A films are professionally-made theatrically released films, which includes everything from moderate-budget to blockbuster; Grade B films are low-budget movies that are either made-for-TV or direct-to-video and these include independent films or indies; Grade C movies are everything below this, which means they have micro-budgets or no-budgets and have an amateurish vibe to them; they'll often strike you as more of a student movie than a legitimate one. "A Brush with Death" (2007) is definitely a Grade C film.

Sometimes Grade B films can be Grade A at heart because of the hard work and professionalism of the filmmakers and cast, like 2010's "Monsters," which only cost around $800,000 but was so well-made that it came across as a Grade A film (which doesn't mean you'll like it, of course). I point this out because sometimes Grade C movies can theoretically be Grade B films at heart, or possibly even Grade A (albeit unlikely). "Another Kind" (2013) is a good example. It only cost $120,000, but it smacks of a modest-budget theatrical release.

I point all this out because, even though "A Brush with Death" is a Grade C film, it doesn't mean it HAS to be a stinker. With a budget of 200,000 the creators had considerably more resources than "Another Kind." So I viewed it with an open mind in the hope that it would rise beyond its limitations. Unfortunately, it didn't. I'm very merciful when it comes to acting. I don't care how no-name the cast members are, if the acting is satisfactory it'll be convincing; if not, it won't. A lot of the acting in "A Brush with Death" is just unconvincing; not all of it, but too much of it. And some of it is downright laughable. Especially when the gas station man abducts & kills a girl and takes loads of pictures of her and, later, when the five protagonists break down on a country road and the man from the gas stations stops by to offer help. These were the first bad signs and the movie never really recovers from this low-level of filmmaking.

The only reasons I'm NOT giving "A Brush with Death" an F is because there's (barely) enough filmmaking talent here that the story moderately kept my attention for the first 50 minutes or so; plus there are some quality visuals, like the haunted house at night, and a few of the actors aren't bad (like the mentally challenged guy); moreover, a few of the girls are decent: Ali Thurlow as Candice, Nikki Cordell as Hillary and Seanna McDonald as Amber. Blonde Candice is easily the most beautiful, but she's inexplicably gone by the 25-minute mark. The script was really lame in parts and it clearly needed more time to work out the kinks and flush out its potential, like George Romero did with "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). Unfortunately, it was rushed and this shows in the finished product. The flick should have never been released to video because it's that poor of a Grade C "film."

THE MOVIE RUNS 81 minutes and was shot in San Joaquin Valley, which is just east of the Bay Area in Northern California.

GRADE: D (2.5/10)
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1/10
Not worth it at half the price.
nogodnomasters19 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The title is a pun as a paint brush is used to paint pictures of the victims with their blood. The cheerleaders are never in cheerleader outfits, nor do they ever take a shower. The do parade around in swim suits for a large part of the movie, which held my attention as well as their playing an idiotic game of "Truth or Dare." But alas, without a pillow fight, their antics failed to provide the right stimulation. Roger Corman where are you?

The horribly done flashback scenes contained some of the worse acting since "Twilight." Did you count how many pictures the pervert took before he had to reload his camera? What was that, about 200 pictures?

$1.99 to watch this film is too much. In fact you would have to pay me to sit through this thing again. Rent something else. The movie is a tease, but doesn't please.
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2/10
Wow, that was bad!
Stevieboy66616 March 2021
I have just watched this online under the title "Cheerleaders Blood" but under any name it sucks big time! Five rather dumb cheerleaders spend a weekend break at a country mansion belonging to the uncle of one of them and in the style of say Texas Chainsaw Massacre some of the local hicks aren't very friendly. The acting, script and plot are all bottom of the barrel, the only half decent performance was Max Taylor as a stuttering hick named Caleb but cruelly called The Retard by the locals. Nothing that can be considered horror happens for nearly the first hour, I can't believe that it took three people to write this drivel. Added to the sheer boredom and frustration is the fact that the sound is terrible, at times it was difficult to hear what is being said by the "actors". I have seen worse movies but trust me when I say that this movie is very, very, very poor.
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