Crowsnest Movie Review

Crowsnest
                                            

Crowsnest is a found-footage or caught-on-camera style horror thriller movie released in 2012. This film is written by John Sheppard and directed by Brenton Spencer. The leading characters of the movie Crowsnest are played by Mittita Barber, Aslam Husain, Victor Zinck Jr., Chelsey Reist and Christie Burke.

The movie Crowsnest tells the story of a group of teenagers who are heading to a cabin in the jungle to spend their holidays. But on the way, they start experiencing paranormal events and then fall victim to some psychopaths.

A scene from the movie Crowsnest

Plot: 
Crowsnest starts with a boy named Justin recording the neighborhood from his window with a camera, which he has just got as a gift on his birthday from his girlfriend Brooke. Then his girlfriend’s friend Amanda and Amanda’s boyfriend Kirk come to his apartment to wish him. Justin keeps recording his everyday life with the camera, which irritates Brooke.

On the next day, these two couples and Amanda’s sister together start for a trip to a cabin in the jungle which is owned by Kirk’s parents. All of them are having fun just like normal young people except Amanda’s sister, who is a serious person and doesn’t take part in their jokes. After leaving the town, at one point, Kirk (who is driving the car) gets confused about the direction and finally they lose their way in the hills.

They stop at a nearby place to buy cheap beers. There Brooke sees a strange girl, who disappears in a few seconds. The boys also meet a horrifying old man who warns them to go back, otherwise all of them will die. They ignore the warning and heads further. At one place, they find the skinned dead body of a wild animal (maybe a deer). This scene makes Amanda's sister sick and she wants to throw up. So they stop by the road. Then a RV rushes by them nearly killing Amanda. 

The boys get furious and rush after the RV,. But at one point, the RV manages to chase them and keeps hitting their car from behind. After some time, they outrun the RV and again stop to check the condition of their car. The RV comes there again and this time, hits Amanda's sister. Then the RV runs away and the terrified group starts to look for help. None of them finds any signal in their phone so they go uphill to get network coverage. Their car stops suddenly on the way and they find something is broken. In the meantime, they find that Amanda's sister has died. When they can't move their car, the boys and Brook start to go uphill though the jungle by foot, leaving Amanda in the car with her sister. Soon after they leave, they hear Amanda's scream and rush back to the car, but find that neither the car nor anyone is there.

Justin blames all of these to Kirk and over this issue they start to fight. Finally Justin runs away from Brook and Krik and goes with the camera. After some time he finds the RV. Two people from the RV come out and then Justin enters there, finding Amanda injured and chained. He also finds a strange girl who is trying to eat a part of Amanda's sister. He kills the girl and then runs away from the RV, unable to take Amanda with him. But the two men from the RV comes back, find him and then kill him.

Brook and Kirk find the camera. They are then chased by the two men from the RV. Brook and Kirk try to hide from them, find their car and get away from the place to safety.

My review about Crowsnest:
I didn't expect much from the movie Crowsnest , but I was amazed to find it pretty good.

Now a days, a lot of horror movies are made in this accidentally-caught-on-camera style and most of them are not impressive at all. This style is getting overused and boring, but Crowsnest is a rare impressive one of them. Here, the director has shown how to successfully take the advantages of making a movie in this style.

The plot of Crowsnest  is very thin and straightforward. The ending is predictable. If you have watched a few horror movies of this style, you will be able to predict its ending successfully. There is almost no twist.

But other than the plot, everything else about Crowsnest is pretty good. The director has succeed to keep the tension high in this one. Once the thrill starts, it will be good enough to keep you at the tip of your chair till the end of the movie. We must give him credit for this movie, which seems so interesting with such a weak plot. Crownest gives you enough time to get to know the characters before jumping in to the fun parts.

The acting of all the characters in Crowsnest are good. The dialogue are not that high class, but still good. The screenplay is also not weak. The artists are good looking and fit to their characters.

The makeups are also good to but Crowsnest is a little weak on special effects. Some effects with blood didn't look natural. Another thing is, after Amanda's sister got hit by the RV, we did not see much of injury signs on her.

Here in Crowsnest, the director has successfully taken all the advantages of the style of this film. Not every details is shown here but it does not harm the viewing experience. I could not find any overuse of special effects.

For some nudity at the beginning of the film, some graphic scenes and for the language, Crowsnest is not suitable for kids.

So, finally, as I've said, I liked Crowsnest very much. Don't let a poor IMDB rating (3.4, while I am writing this review) stop you from watching Crowsnest. This movie is not popular or not much talked about, but it surely is worth a shot. I'd definitely recommend watching this good horror thriller to all movie lovers.

Have you watched Crowsnest already? How did you feel about it? Share in comments. 

To know more about it:

IMDB link: Crowsnest IMDB

Wikipedia link: no wikipedia entry about Crowsnest is found. 

To buy or rent this movie from Amazon or to watch online, click here: Crowsnest Movie

Backslasher Movie Review

Backslasher

                                                

Backslasher is a horror thriller movie released in 2012. This movie is written and directed by Tim Cowles. The main characters of Backslasher are played by Eleanor James, Emily Eaves, Michael Gamarano, Lucie Howard and Mike Prince.

The movie Backslasher is about a young model, whose friends are getting killed one by one by a serial killer, where the serial killer uses social networking sites to find the victims.

A scene from the movie Backslasher

Plot:

Becca is a young model who lives with her friends. She is passionate about lingerie and adult toys. She is trying to gain fame by vlogging (video blogging) in a social network. She and her other friends never worry about putting their personal information in social networks, open to thousands of accepted friends whom they don’t know at all. One day, she and a friend of hers blog about another friend and soon she receives a mysterious video comment from another girl.

Becca’s boyfriend visits her one day and tells her that he is moving to Germany. He does not change his decision after Becca requests him several times. At the same time, one of her friends was making out with her boyfriend in the car, when they hear a suspicious sound. Soon, a stranger kills both of them.

Becca’s boyfriend comes back to her and they have sex. Then the boyfriend leaves without changing his previous decision. Becca goes to take a shower and then she hears some noise in her room. Coming back, she finds the necklace of her friend who was killed, on her bed. She doesn’t know about the incident till then and can’t find anyone responsible to keep the necklace there.

She wants to change her place and visits some agent, but that man wants to take advantage of her. She barely escapes from there.

She soon gets a lot of spam messages from that friend. Her other friends get a friend request from a mysterious person who named him/herself as ‘/’. Becca calls and then visits her web server manager to know the whereabouts of her friend who is killed, but the manager can’t give her anything.

Then, the girl who posted a video comment on Becca’s blog gets kidnapped by someone. Then Becca receives a video message, where she sees that the girl is kept captive and is beaten by the kidnapper, who later kills the girl.

Soon, the killer goes after each of Becca’s friend one by one and kills them. He/she continues this till he/she reaches Becca.

My reviews about Backslasher:

First of all, I didn’t like the movie Backslasher at all, and I guess nobody else will. There is nothing at all in this movie to like. I felt like I’ve wasted the whole time watching it. Surely, Backslasher can secure its place in your worst-movies-of-all times list.

The plot is very weak and the screenplay is worse. Actually, at the ending I couldn’t find the point of this movie at all. I felt no sense of suspense in the whole movie Backslasher.

The acting were horrible and the dialogues were poor in Backslasher. The make ups were also poor as well. The bloods and the effects of killing were awful. The lighting and the camera works are one of the worsts I’ve ever seen.

The only not-so-bad thing about Backslasher is its music and some sound effects.

There are a few nude scenes in this movie which makes it not suitable for kids.

So, overall, watching Backslasher was a total waste of time. In a rude way, this movie is not worth watching for even 10 minutes. Will I recommend watching Backslasher to anyone? That will be a big NO.

Have you watched Backslasher? Share your views with others in the comments.

If you are still interested:

IMDB link : Backslasher Movie IMDB

Wikipedia Link: No Wikipedia entry was found for Backslasher.  

If you are still interested to watch this movie, then you can buy or rent it over Amazon by clicking here : Backslasher Movie

The Ruins Movie Reviews

The Ruins

                                                   

The Ruins is a horror thriller movie released in 2008. This movie is written by (screenplay) Scott B. Smith and directed by Carter Smith. The plot of this film is adopted from the novel of the same name by Scott B. Smith. The leading characters of The Ruins are played by Jordan Patrick Smith, Jonathan Tucker, Shawn Ashmore, Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey and Joe Anderson.

In The Ruins, we see a group of friends visiting a Mayan ruin, where they fall victim to the strange nature there and start getting killed one by one.

A scene from the movie The Ruins

Plot:

The Ruins starts with two couples, enjoying their vacation in a resort in Mexico. They meet a German tourist in their resort, who offeres them to take part on a trip he was going, which will take them to an archaeological dig at a remote Mayan ruin. He said, his brother has gone there but has not returned yet, so he is going to look for him. He already has another companion for his trip, a Greek tourist from the same resort. The couples accept his offer.

They start at the fixed day and reach to place from where they take a ride in a truck to a dense jungle. None of their phones can’t find any signal except the German’s. Then they find a hidden path, which takes them to that ruin. A girl from the couples feels suspicious about why the path is hidden, but finally goes there for peer pressure. 

The archaeological site looks something like a pyramid where most of it is covered with some vines. As soon as they reach there, some local people come and threat them with guns and arrows. They start screaming at them, but none of the groups understand the other’s language. When the German gives his phone to the leader of the local group to show his brother’s photo and enquire about him, a misunderstanding gets created and the local people kill the Greek. Being scared, the couples and the German run to the top of the ruin. Surprisingly, the local people don’t follow them there, instead they keep waiting for them by keeping a distance from the ruin. They also set a camp there and bring more people.

At the top of the ruin, the tourist group decide to stay there till help comes. They assume, when neither them nor the Greek goes back to the hotel on the next day, the Greek’s friends will come to look for them following the map they left at the hotel. They are also hopeful that, from the hotel, there absence will be informed to the police and they will come to look for them. At the top, they find two tents and other camping instruments abandoned by any previous team. The German then finds the dead body of his brother. They also hear a ringtone coming from the bottom of the pyramid. Using a shaft set up by any previous team, the German starts to go inside the pyramid to get that phone and call for help. But he falls. Then one of the girls goes down and finds him paralyzed by breaking his bones. She also cuts her knees while climbing down. She then, with the help of the other girl who comes down and the boys who run the crane, brings the German out on the top.

They find that the German’s physical condition is not good, so they make a comfortable place for him. Meanwhile, a couple goes down to the ground to reason with the locals, but fail. Becoming frustrated, she throws some vine to a little boy and later on, the villagers kill that boy. The couples understand that there is something wrong with it and the villagers are scared of the vines.    

The next morning, after waking up, they find that the vines have grown on the wound of the German and one of the girls. They remove some part of those. The cell phone from the bottom of the shaft keeps ringing, so the two girls again go down the shaft. At the bottom of the mine, they find a dead body and a broken phone, and also find the fact that, the flowers of the vine are making the sound of the ringtone. The vines attack the girls and they finally manage to escape and come on top. The group then realizes that the vines are killing the people here and that’s why the local people don’t want them to come down from the ruin. The flowers also have the ability to mimic any sound they hear. They also realize that they have no other option than to wait for help to arrive.

The German’s condition gets worse and finally, one from the group decides to cut off his legs so save his life. After some arguing, all of them agree to it and then they do it together. The legs are then taken by the veins. Staying in a situation like this, they start to lose control over themselves. One girl, who was infected by the vines, hears something and starts fighting with her boyfriend. Later, when she finds out that she has several plants inside her body, starts to cut herself to get rid of it. She then stabs her boyfriend who tries to save her. Finally, there is only a couple left alive and one of them gets ready to make a sacrifice to save the other.

My reviews about The Ruins:

First of all, The Ruins is a rare horror movie which I liked.

The plot of The Ruins is good and interesting. The ending is not like something which we are used to see regularly in horror films. It was not easy to predict the ending and the ending leaves the probation for the continuation of this movie. But not only the ending, the director has succeed to keep the suspense up throughout the movie. For more than half of the time in The Ruins  it will keep you wondering about what is actually happening here. What the local people want, who is responsible for the dead bodies, the mystery about the ringtone are something which will keep you wondering until the answers are shown.

The acting of most of the characters in The Ruins are good. I only felt Jonathan Tucker’s acting lacked some facial expressions. Everyone else has done a good job. The dialogues and the make ups also seemed completely fine. Screenplay is also good without any doubt.

The special effects of The Ruins are praiseworthy. The director has successfully kept the use of special effects to a minimum level which matched perfectly with the movie. None of the movements of the vines, or nothing else looked funny or overdo of special effects. This has specially increased the quality of this film.

The only thing I didn’t like in The Ruins is the scene where they cut the legs off the German. The scene was unnecessary graphic, which didn’t match with the whole movie. This level of graphic scene was not needed at all in this movie to make a sense. To me, this single thing has taken the grade of The Ruins a few steps down.

For a small nude scene at the beginning of The Ruins and for some graphic scenes, this one is not suitable for kids.

If you have read the novel, then can’t predict the ending of this movie from that. Although the main plot and name of the characters are same in The Ruins as the novel, but the characters’ actions are different. The ending is also completely different from that of the novel. And about ending, according to Wikipedia, The Ruins is released with three different endings and I’ve watched the one which ends with the car.

So overall, I didn’t expect The Ruins to be any good but it surprised me. With a plot this peculiar, it is hard to make a horror thriller movie, but the director has succeeded in that tough job. I’ll recommend The Ruins to all horror movie fans.

How did you like The Ruins? Share in comments.

To know more:

IMDB link: The Ruins IMDB

Wikipedia Link: The Ruins IMDB

To buy or rent this movie from Amazon, or to watch online, click here : The Ruins Movie