The Cycle is set in the small town of Bradford in Pensylvania as a woman named Carrie Mitchell (Daryl Hannah) drives from California to Bangor via the back-roads of the US. While driving along at night Carrie has to stop suddenly to avoid running into a teenage girl named Amy Singer (Leah Gibson) standing in the middle of the road, Amy is blood stained & incoherent as she ask's Carrie for help. Inside the car Amy tells Carrie that her four friends have been murdered by a deformed redneck & that a mass grave of murdered people is nearby & they need to tell the police. Carrie heads for the nearest gas station & phones the police but discovers that Amy isn't quite what she appears & that Carrie herself is in great danger...
Also known as The Devil's Ground in Canada this Canadian production was written & directed by Michael Bafaro & starts out like your average uninspired teen backwoods slasher but totally changes direction for the last fifteen minutes & becomes some sort of supernatural ghost story & it's a very abrupt change that comes across as very awkward & for me didn't work, much like the rest of the film really. The whole set-up is that of a woman finding a teenage girl wandering around in the woods & giving her a lift to safety & the girl tells the story of how all her friends were killed which means we know from the get-go who is going to live & who is going to die out of the usual faceless teen character's which doesn't help matters, the lack of gore or memorable kill scenes doesn't help either & after a straight forward tale of a few teens being killed off by deformed backwood Rednecks before a rather striking change in direction as The Cycle becomes a ghost story that leaves more questions than answers. The whole thing is dull, at 88 minutes it's too long & it takes ages to get going, the teen slasher part is extremely routine & predictable while the ghost twist ending is confusing & doesn't work. The character's are all dull, the plot tries but fails to do something different with the tired old slasher genre & it's not very fun to watch. Also I have no idea why it's called The Cycle, sure I understand that the teens being killed by the Rednecks is part of a cycle as more teen turn up & get killed over & over again but you could say that about any backwoods slasher flick so I really don't particularly get the significance although I must say when I first heard the title The Cycle for some bizarre reason I thought it would be about bikes!
To be fair to this the film is competent & looks alright, I am not sure why there are constant shots of Crow's or Raven's or whatever those birds are but hey the director knew what he was doing, right? There's not much blood or gore here or much to get excited about, there's a chopped off hand, a few quick stabbings & a bit of blood splatter but basically nothing else. This really could have done with some gory kills to make the film just that little bit more memorable. There's fair suspense & tension during one or two scenes but not enough.
Probably shot in Canada this has decent production values actually & is quite well made but as a whole there's nothing that special about it. The acting is alright, one time Hollywood star Daryl Hannah really scrapes the bottom of the barrel these days but at least it's not as bad as Shark Swarm (2008).
The Cycle isn't actually about a bike & doesn't even feature a bike which I found disappointing but not as disappointing as the dull pace, the predictable backwoods teen slasher plot & the lack of any sort of meaningful gore or special effects. You could do worse but you could do better as well, not recommended.
Also known as The Devil's Ground in Canada this Canadian production was written & directed by Michael Bafaro & starts out like your average uninspired teen backwoods slasher but totally changes direction for the last fifteen minutes & becomes some sort of supernatural ghost story & it's a very abrupt change that comes across as very awkward & for me didn't work, much like the rest of the film really. The whole set-up is that of a woman finding a teenage girl wandering around in the woods & giving her a lift to safety & the girl tells the story of how all her friends were killed which means we know from the get-go who is going to live & who is going to die out of the usual faceless teen character's which doesn't help matters, the lack of gore or memorable kill scenes doesn't help either & after a straight forward tale of a few teens being killed off by deformed backwood Rednecks before a rather striking change in direction as The Cycle becomes a ghost story that leaves more questions than answers. The whole thing is dull, at 88 minutes it's too long & it takes ages to get going, the teen slasher part is extremely routine & predictable while the ghost twist ending is confusing & doesn't work. The character's are all dull, the plot tries but fails to do something different with the tired old slasher genre & it's not very fun to watch. Also I have no idea why it's called The Cycle, sure I understand that the teens being killed by the Rednecks is part of a cycle as more teen turn up & get killed over & over again but you could say that about any backwoods slasher flick so I really don't particularly get the significance although I must say when I first heard the title The Cycle for some bizarre reason I thought it would be about bikes!
To be fair to this the film is competent & looks alright, I am not sure why there are constant shots of Crow's or Raven's or whatever those birds are but hey the director knew what he was doing, right? There's not much blood or gore here or much to get excited about, there's a chopped off hand, a few quick stabbings & a bit of blood splatter but basically nothing else. This really could have done with some gory kills to make the film just that little bit more memorable. There's fair suspense & tension during one or two scenes but not enough.
Probably shot in Canada this has decent production values actually & is quite well made but as a whole there's nothing that special about it. The acting is alright, one time Hollywood star Daryl Hannah really scrapes the bottom of the barrel these days but at least it's not as bad as Shark Swarm (2008).
The Cycle isn't actually about a bike & doesn't even feature a bike which I found disappointing but not as disappointing as the dull pace, the predictable backwoods teen slasher plot & the lack of any sort of meaningful gore or special effects. You could do worse but you could do better as well, not recommended.