Audience Member
no new tale to tell here
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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Audience Member
Witches' Night (Paul Traynor, 2007)
On at least one level, Witches' Night is the quintessential direct-to-video horror movie. If you're looking for a flick that delivers every last horror movie trope you've seen since the mid-seventies, then look no further; you've found nirvana in a DVD case. This will give you everything you've been looking for, in much the same way you can find everything you want in a romance novel if you pick up a book by Barbara Cartland or Danielle Steel.
Of course, the icky dark side to that is that the reason people read Cartland and Steel is that they're safe, above all. Withina page of meeting any given character, you know exactly what that character's trajectory will be through the novel. When you come upon a situation, you know exactly how the repercussions from that situation will affect everything that happens after. It's not a quality one should aspire to as an author, though it's impossible to argue with the number of people who've bought the two ladies' books (wikipedia reports Steel has sold more than eight hundred million books worldwide as of 2005, Cartland's website reports her sales figures at 350 million as of 2011). It is even less a quality one should aspire to as a filmmaker, where people seem far less likely to put up with it; as I write this in mid-2011, Witches' Night, which has racked up just 227 votes in the four years since its release, has a pretty woeful 4.3 IMDB rating. (It is unreviewed at Rotten Tomatoes, perhaps for the better.)
Now, listen to this story, and tell me if you've heard this one before. Four guys head out into the middle of nowhere after one of them, Jim (Jeepers Creepers 2's Gil McKinney), is left at the altar. The other three are his erstwhile groomsmen; his layabout brother Bill (Batman Begins' Jeff Christian) and their friends Rick (Public Enemies' Wesley Walker) and Ted (Jeff Alba in his first feature appearance; no idea if he's related to Jessica). You've got the jilted would-be husband, the stoner brother who's an assistant manager at a chain restaurant, the bitter guy whose nicest sobriquet for any woman in this movie is âskankâ?, and the married one who finds himself faced with temptation. Want to make any guesses on who the final girl is, who dies first, etc.? I don't need to hear your answers to know you're right. In any case, ed decides they need to go canoeing to get their heads right, and at the local bait and tackle shop, they rent a couple of canoes from Marge (The Evil Dead's Betsy Baker), half of the old married couple who run the place. She tells them a story on the way up to the dropoff point about how there's a commune of old ladies who live out there that the locals consider witches, when in reality they're just folks who want to live an alternative lifestyle (no, not THAT kind of alternative lifestyle, get your mind out of the gutter. Though it would have been nice if... no, won't go there). All well and good until the boys, deep into their beers and grilling up the steaks, hear the laughter of nubile young ladies farther off in the woods. After a brief conversation in which Rick and Ted push for going to investigate while Jim and Bill resist, they head off with the cooler in search of companionship and find four lovely young things sitting around their own fire, who turn out to be Eva (The Thirsting's Lauren Ryland), June (Sigma Die!'s Meghan Jones), Valerie (Save the Last Dance's Elisabeth Oas), and Gretchen (Stephanie Cantu in her first feature appearance), each of whom latches onto one of the boys. Jim, uncomfortable and still wounded from the events at the altar, heads back to their own campsite, trailed by Bill, while the others stick around. When Ted gets back in the morning, his face is marked with an odd rash where Eva touched him. Even if you hadn't figured it out when you heard that first feminine laugh through the trees, you've got it now, right?
I'm not going to say that it's impossible to take an old dog and teach it new tricks. That happens all the time in horror movies. I'm saying Traynor (no idea if he's related to the infamous Chuck) didn't even try. He's made, essentially, the horror movie Danielle Steel would make if she wrote horror movies. There is nothing here that will surprise you if you're even a casual fan of the genre. There is nudity, briefly, because someone who was working on this movie thought âthat's what the fans want to seeâ?. Which is exactly what they were thinking when they came up with everything else about this movie. There's not a single original thought to be found in it. It is safe, it is boring, and thus, it is not at all worth watching. Â 1/2
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Four campers learn that they will most likely die on Halloween night...That's pretty much the story. The blood and vilolence were good, but the acting was bad. Half the movie was dark, too. You could barely see what's going on. All and all, It was good i guess.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
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Audience Member
Would have given the movie a higher rating if actions scenes weren't filmed in the dark
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
01/17/23
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Audience Member
low budget film but ok for chiller tv
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/15/23
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Audience Member
A promising first half falls flat the moment the witches make their appearance and just becomes as predictable as Hell. The better than average performances from the male leads compensates for this and keeps you watching even when you're groaning at whats on screen.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
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