Audience Member
This is a horror flick to any male.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
One line summary: Self-involved real estate agent encounters psycho girl friend and her family.
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Norman is a busy, successful real estate agent who is deeply interested in making money, no matter how much time it takes. He likes his girl friends, but tends to cycle them, a new one every so many weeks. Dori, however, gets him to go on a long weekend early enough in the relationship that he decides to go.
Dori has surprises from the beginning. She goes through the 'I love you' dance a bit early. The next morning, Dori introduces Albert and Dolly, her son and daughter. Then she introduces her grandfather and grandmother as well. Norman is by no means ready or willing for this to happen.
Norman attempts to leave, but Dori has sawed off the steering wheel on his Porsche. This is where he needed to do anything he could to leave. He comes close to it, but his cell phone reception is poor. Dori slams him over the head with an iron, then ties him down to a bed. The kids are on with it, as are grandpa and grandma.
The festive tortures that the kidnappers put Norman through are both ordinary and disgusting. They celebrate all sorts of holidays during the long weekend: Valentine's Day, Easter, Father's Day. They tie him up with duct tape, chain his legs together, then make fun of him when he cannot hold his bladder after a long time.
Norman does his best to leave, but the ball and chains make it difficult. They talk, and talk, and talk.
Norman does get free, locks Dori away, then starts to run away. Dori suckers him in by yelling that Dolly had trouble breathing. This was an horrid moment, when Norman's small piece of compassion is leveraged by this family of psychos. They re-capture him, then subject him to Christmas carols while dressed for Halloween.
Norman knows he's in trouble when the New Year's celebration involves voting, rather like the voting in an elimination derby, such as Survivor. Is there any way out for Norman?
--------Scores-------
Cinematography: 8/10 Well done.
Sound: 10/10 No problems.
Acting: 8/10 I liked the performances of the veteran actors. The child actors did well in their roles.
Screenplay: 7/10 Story makes sense in a sick sort of way.
-------Conclusions-------
A bit too much of the PC bovine scatology. Dori sounds oh, so calm and clear and philosophical as she drags Norman's body into the shed. This is one of the harshest crushings of the human spirit I have seen in quite a while. This is horror at its purest, not a thriller, as billed. 'I still believe in love,' says the kidnapping multiple murderess at the end. A much better ending would be that Norman escapes when he had the chance, comes back with police, and the four kidnappers are killed in a hail of bullets. That would have been a thriller, as opposed to this embrace of murderous madness.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Kind of like Misery meets House of 1000 corpses but in a kindergarten made-for-tv way.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
Full Review
jesse o
There's a review here for this movie that says that the movie isn't funny enough to be considered a comedy nor is it brutal enough to be considered horror. And, to be honest, I completely agree with this assessment 1000%. I couldn't even agree more with this. I was trying to figure out what the problem was that I had with this movie, and I think that sums it up completely. It's a movie that probably tries too hard to mix its horror sensibilities with its comedic sensibilities. They try WAY too hard, it really goes out of its way to try to make this family seem as perfect as possible in order to sell the brutality of what it is they're doing. I liken this to another horror film sharing a similar concept, The Woman. Here you have this father and son, who've found a feral woman in the woods that they then take to a shed they own. There they proceed to tie her up and completely have their way with her, all the while still pretending to be the perfect husband and the perfect son to the mother of the family. The thing is that The Woman isn't afraid to get nasty and dirty when it needs to, something this movie is REALLY afraid of. All things considered, per horror standards, what happened to Norman in this movie, at least until the climax really isn't that bad. Yea, he is held hostage against his will, and he did get hit across the head with several objects, but his ordeal wasn't exactly horrifying. And, again, this ties back to the issue of the ordeal not being particularly brutal enough to justify it being promoted as a horror movie. What the Muppets did to Jack Black during their telethon in their last movie was considerably worse than what Norman went through here. And I'm not even kidding when I say that. I did think the movie had some funny lines and some solid acting per low-budget horror movie standards, but the film doesn't really have its own identity, it tries to be comedy and horror without ever really succeeding at any of them. There's a good concept here with this woman who would do absolutely anything when she's in love to try to make her significant other into the perfect man. And I do mean absolutely anything. So the concept was at least good enough, and Katia Winter was good as the lead. The execution, however, left a lot to be desired and it made this movie slightly below average.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I didn't get bored, a little creepy but interesting.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
mala, simplemente mala
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
Full Review
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