Reviews

...but should have been better still.

It might be unfair to do this but given the fact that the director worked at fangoria I expected something a bit more ground breaking. and the acting...oy vey.

Making a movie is hard and the results do not always reflect the talent and drive of the filmmakers. That said, the film is technically solid and had the script and actors managed to make one care whether the characters lived or died it might have been a winner.

Some good location work doesn't hide the fact that the only thing that livens up the pace is when another dull character gets offed. Dee Wallace Stone shows up briefly and one can only wish she'd been the major focus of the film but I suppose it's a hard and fast rule that all characters in horror movies must be teenagers.

In the every burgeoning genre of Bigfoot horror, this goes right to the top, along with Abomination. Admittedly, when this includes stuff like Shriek of the Mutilated it isn't saying much.

This was done on a modest budget, according to the director (caught this at a horror film convention) but it looks every bit as good as anything on the Sci Fi channel with the added benefit of good acting and an actual script.

One thing i hate in these movie is bad CGI and while I wish they'd gone more for practical effects, the CGI used was pretty good. It's a wise filmmaker who knows to keep things to a minimum.

I hope this gets a good release with a push because it's way better than just about any other bigfoot movie out there (other than the aforementioned Abominable, which gets the nod thanks to some effective gore.)

Dudes...you have the chance to get released by Lionsgate! Most low budget filmmakers would KILL for that chance! Obviously, they could not care less about the script...so why, why, why would you put so little thought into it? I would give this a 2 if it weren't for the fact that I know one of the guys who did lighting and his reports about how much fun it was. Well, OK, so the filmmakers weren't just a bunch of hacks spewing out whatever crap they could...unfortunately that's what it looks like.

Good photography, good lighting (nice job, bud!) but for a horror movie there is virtually no blood. What the hey? The cussing alone ensured an R rating so why not deliver? The actors were average looking but so what? One of the nice things about indie movies is that everyone does not look like a Vogue model.

So don't expect much. BUT...my buddy told me he thought the people behind this movie would go on to better things and sure enough the director is making a movie right now with Bruce Willis. So don't be too quick to dismiss even a sub par effort like this--everyone has to start somewhere.

Very low budget effort from a director who has made a name for himself in fanfilms. Frankly, this is more of the same, a thinly veiled remake of Halloween. Why, when given the chance to do something original he fell back on the tried and true is a mystery and a bit of a shame as there is considerable talent on display. Even casting a family member as the lead worked out as she is one of the better actors in the film.

The reviews here are suspiciously high, I have to assume they are from friends and cast members. (Ironically, I found out about this film due to a feud the director is having with another filmmaker who does the same astroturfing!) Knock it off guys! My advice to Mr Notarile would be to do something entirely new. he has shown he can make a good film based on the ideas of others, now take that and do something we haven't seen!

The guys who made this movie did some work with a guy I knew so it was on my radar for some time. I was looking forward to seeing it at the local theater for the premiere until i found out they were charging $20 for a ticket!!! $20 for the "honor" of being first to see a low budget movie? My dopey friend coughed up the bucks, one of the few nitwits willing to do so but had little to say after it was over. Having watched it on video I now see why.

First off, understand that any place you go an read reviews about this movie that rave about it--they were written by the guys who did it. You'll start to notice certain phrases or patterns that keep popping up. Like the emphasis on the music (which is just stuff you could do on a computer, no big deal there) and the fact that it was shot on film, which would mean something if it didn't pretty much look like most of the shot on video movies that are coming out now. Hate to break the news guys, but you would have been way better off investing in one of the high end digital cameras. (The theatrical showing was on a digital projector so I guess they ran out of money to strike prints, pretty much the whole point to shooting on film!) The acting ranges from terrible (no need to pick on any amateur actors) and pretty good (Teresa Alexandria, whose nude scene is the main highlight of the movie--it's completely gratuitous but so what?). The photography is good.

None of that matters much in a story that goes nowhere. Give them credit for trying to be more than just a slasher flick but the "message" and "shock ending" are so dreadfully done that the film collapses by the end. You hope against hope that it's building up to some big...something...but when it comes you realize you just wasted your time.

Regretfully, the movie does not have enough laugh out loud bad scenes to make it MST worthy, though it does have a few--a hysterically low budget car crash that must have been filmed when the money ran out, the weird logic of a white kid growing up to become a Native American played by an African American, scenes that go from day to night, a set that is supposed to be big but is obviously the size of a parking lot, a May/December romance subplot that goes nowhere, strains belief to the breaking point and has one of the worst actors in the movie playing December (was he an investor?)...cut this down to 25 minutes and you have something entertaining.

But what makes this movie more than a footnote is the sheer balls to the wall chutzpah of the guys who made it, flooding every venue they can find with fake testimonials. Not content with just giving it 8 stars more than it deserves (which would give it a 9) they pretend to be casual uninvolved fans who just happened to stumble across this movie and think it's the scariest thing since cancer and that the villain is pretty much Jason, Freddy, Pinhead and Lindsay Lohan all wrapped up. The sad thing is, I think they believe it! (You may also note that some of the comments they get in reply seem to also be from a particular group of people, evidently folks they ticked off along the way. Whether any of them have actually seen the finished product is unclear.) Bottom line--it's a lousy movie and it cost more than a movie this lousy should cost. I'll give them credit for getting it made but given the results will anyone let them do it again?

ADDENDUM: to the reviewer above (who sounds suspiciously like one of the people making the movie! Give these guys credit for persistence!) 1- No, the people who went to the "World premiere" did not get a DVD. They got a film that was shot on 35 mm but projected on the screen with a digital projector. In fairness, he did get to meet one of the nice young ladies in the movie and the opportunity to get the seat of his choice in the near empty theater. 2- I have seen the movie on DVD. Sorry, an east Indian kid (I'll take your word for it since you were clearly there!) who is supposed to be half white half Native American is probably not going to grow up to become an African American! ("Sometimes darken with age" good grief.) Not a big deal but with the day to night transitions and ridiculous "car crash" sequence it just adds to the sense that the makers of the movie did not care. Which is unfortunate, because they clearly did care. (For that matter, at least one of the "Indians" at the end sure looked like your average potbellied white guy!) 3- The sound is No. Big. Deal. Unless you are the guy who did it, or his mom. It was passable, it wasn't so bad it took you out of the movie. 4- I think it would be smarter to promote the movie for what it is--anyone renting it and thinking they are getting an 8-10 scale movie is going to be very ticked off. For a real movie it's a 1-2. If one looks at it as a low budget affair by first timers it probably deserves to be bumped up to a 5-6.

20 years ago Pericles Lewnes directed Redneck Zombies, one of the first shot on video features to get a major release when Troma picked it up. Anyone expecting a return to that style of extreme comedy horror will be amazed at Lewnes second fictional outing. If a film could be imagined that would be the exact polar opposite to Redneck Zombies it would probably look a lot like Loop.

Too much description will spoil part of the enjoyment of the film; for most of its running time the viewer is in the same state of confusion as the protagonist (Lewnes, effective as a man questioning his own sanity). Fans of Vonnegut and Philip K Dick should appreciate the twists in the plot's journey.

Technically the film is near flawless. Low budget to be sure but it's hard to imagine how the story would have been much improved with Hollywood flash and gloss. Above all, this is a film of ideas; those looking for a movie to watch causally should look elsewhere. If you have people around you who like to wander off for a few minutes and then come back and ask what happened you'd be well advised to lock them out of the house.

One more observation--if you are one of those folks who is a die hard partisan on things like politics or Iraq you will probably get angered--Lewnes doesn't spare anyone and offers no easy answers. It's rare to find a political film that is more concerned with thinking than with scoring easy propaganda points. It's rare to find a film that so defies easy classification. And it's very rare to find someone who is able to achieve that on such a small budget. Here's hoping that it won't take 2 more decades for Lewnes to tell another story.