The Dreamscale movie review marathon continues with yet another shitty cheapo from one of the cheapest arseholes out there, Oren Peli.

IMO, Oren Peli really sucks as a writer and movie maker.  Do any fans really enjoy what he serves up?  I know I sure don't.  But, he obviously pleases himself and the studios he works for, because somehow his movies make money hand over fist.

Just for the record, his latest was made on the ultra cheap cheap (big surprise, huh?) for around $1 Million.  It somehow made $37 Million WW, so again, everyone but those that paid to see it, are very happy.

I'll be honest.  I wasn't hating this at all for at least the first 45 minutes, but keep in mind that the movie proper is less than 80 minutes long.  There was some suspense, some scares, and some potential.  The big problem here is kind of the opposite of many cheapos that show "too much" - this thing decided to show pretty much nothing, and I can't live with that.

It's a decent to OK setup, but as I said above, nothing happens onscreen.  No kills.  No gore.  No nudity, and after introing character "Natalie" (Olivia Taylor Dudley) in a low cut top with large melon-like breasts just waiting to show themselves, that's just a kick in the balls.

Many horror/slasher cliches on display here that are downright stupid and unacceptable.  No character for any of the characters - and when we have this, how and why would we care when they are in peril or get killed O.S.?  Biggest deathblow for me was a finale that didn't pack any punch and a last minute attempt to be horrific that wasn't at all.

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Peli spoke on an interview about the lack of budget here and said that in his opinion, a lack of budget makes him work harder on his characters and the like.  Really?  You sure could have fooled me, Oren, you arsehole!  But more importantly, why is the budget so fucking pathetic?  The movie wasn't a hit with anyone, but still did $37 Million!!!!  C'mon guys...why the insane greed?

Logic has once again been thrown out the window or the intelligence on display is that of fucking newts.  The group is only about 13 miles away from the checkpoint/civilizaton, but their attempt to hike to it somehow takes the entire day (daylight), and they don't make it more than a few hundred yards, in reality.

Another clunker that sucked the life out of me for an hour and a half and pissed me off because alot of moola was made, that shouldn't have been.  I think I'm done with Oren Peli.  He's a fucking hack in terms of delivering what horror fans want to see.

The main guy (the dude from the friday the 13th remake, Johnathan Sadowski or something) was the only good thing about this movie. he's a pretty decent actor and he deserves more work.

~Zack~

I had skipped this when it hit theaters. I saw it on DVD about a month ago. I started to really like the film in the first half hour. At first I thought this was going to be a found footage flick, but it was simply a documentary style/guerrilla filmmaking attempt. I was with the pic until, as Jeff pointed out, the logic error became a narrative problem.

No scares. Characters were getting hard to keep track of. When I saw that ending, I thought...that was much more interesting than the last twenty minutes. An 80 minute film seems like two hours. I watched it all the way through, and found myself admitting one truth.

When the Manson tune and the end credits are more engaging than the 80 minutes that came before...?  >:(

But...the flick was made on a low budget, they strongarmed and hoodwinked audiences and made a little profit. It was a dead fly on a piece of dogshit, and people did this junkheap for a fast paycheck.

And yes, I too think Orin is a hack.

if Oren Peli can make 37 million on a 1 million budget ...reguardless of what you may think of his movies... hes going to keep getting work. why do you think there was 5 Saw sequals? Horror films just rake in the bucks.

i think its actually smart on his part... its kind of hard not to make money on a 1 million budget when youre getting decent nation-wide theater releases. maybe hes not such a dumbass afterall.

Quoted from Penoyer79 if Oren Peli can make 37 million on a 1 million budget ...reguardless of what you may think of his movies... hes going to keep getting work. why do you think there was 5 Saw sequals? Horror films just rake in the bucks. i think its actually smart on his part... its kind of hard not to make money on a 1 million budget when youre getting decent nation-wide theater releases. maybe hes not such a dumbass afterall.

And this is exactly then problem.  Sure he's happy, and sure, the Producers and the like are happy.  But what about us fans?  What about the peeps who fill these areseholes' pockets with money?  Don't we matter at all?

I just don't believe in releasing garbage for a paycheck.  It ain't right, it ain't fair, and IMO, these fucks need to be strung up by their balls.

It's this kind of mindset that gives the entire horror genre a really bad name.

I caught this a while ago and was dissapointed by the third act.
Thought this was a found footage flick at first,

But in the end it was a ho-hum affair and very short.
Some scares and creepy moments early on, but the reveal was silly.

Another low budget cash grab from the new manufacturers of what passes for horror.
I hope enough of these fail that they'll ease up on the meat grinder.

But that seems unlikely, Sinister 2 was just announced.
And we've got Insidious 2 later this year. At least the first one of those didn't suck. ;D

E.D.

I had high hopes for this since when I was younger I was totally intruiged by the Chernobyl incident, but I didn't enjoy it at all.  Had no substance to back upmthe scares, and wasn't even entertaining.  

However, lots of people must have enjoyed it, if it went on to gross 37mill WW.