I didn't know much about this going in... I just liked the poster and the name. I don't watch previews these days, they give to much away. Anyway, I had not expectations so I couldn't be disappointed... but it was surprisingly good. Sure, it's obviously made on a small budget... but in my opinion most of the better horror films are. This is your basic spookhouse movie layered on top of... something else. A clever combination of subgenres I think.
I particularly liked that most of the characters were NOT horny teenagers. The motivations of the characters required older actors and that's a nice change of pace. Also, they weren't particularly glamorous... the people, the cars, the house... all look pretty ordinary. This might have been due to the small budget but if so thank goodness for low-budget horror.
The script and the acting were decent... nothing to distractingly bad. Though I don't get why the creepy town leader guy would tell the family the backstory of the house if he wanted them to stay so badly (who would want to live in an old mortuary?).
The only real weakness of the movie is what, for me, were comical amounts of gore. There is no subtlety to the kills... and people just explode like their cardboard boxes full of fruit punch. It seems like a big chunk of the budget must have been spent on the gore FX when really going with less overt FX would have been less ridiculous and probably cost less.
Still, I quite enjoyed it and it gave me some fun ideas for our next game of Call of Cthulhu.
I particularly liked that most of the characters were NOT horny teenagers. The motivations of the characters required older actors and that's a nice change of pace. Also, they weren't particularly glamorous... the people, the cars, the house... all look pretty ordinary. This might have been due to the small budget but if so thank goodness for low-budget horror.
The script and the acting were decent... nothing to distractingly bad. Though I don't get why the creepy town leader guy would tell the family the backstory of the house if he wanted them to stay so badly (who would want to live in an old mortuary?).
The only real weakness of the movie is what, for me, were comical amounts of gore. There is no subtlety to the kills... and people just explode like their cardboard boxes full of fruit punch. It seems like a big chunk of the budget must have been spent on the gore FX when really going with less overt FX would have been less ridiculous and probably cost less.
Still, I quite enjoyed it and it gave me some fun ideas for our next game of Call of Cthulhu.