If you thought this film would be good for a laugh, you're mistaken. It's really bad, but it doesn't cross that threshold like Birdemic.
A lot of the stuff is professionally done. The acting is mixed, some good actors, some bad, but the bad is not enough to ruin the picture. The sound is fairly clear, the lighting is fine, there are no technical gaffes.
The dialogue has a strange feeling like it was written by someone who isn't a native speaker. The grammar is correct, but the usage is off. This is not saying that non- native English speakers can't write English dialogues, but natural sounding dialogues are no easy feat that even Hollywood hires dialogue specialists. There is another layer of strangeness in the dialogue in that it feels like it is influenced by TV and films rather than regular speech. It's not enough to be a deal-breaker, but it was noticeable enough for me.
No biggie, it was fine.
Which leaves us with the plot. It is so contrived to the point of being unbelievable.
Here comes the spoilers:
Four youths in a sauna. The drunk one leaves and drops some stuff outside the door. He didn't know where to put a portable staircase, so he decides to put it as a doorstopper for the sauna door. He then leaves and goes into a drug-induced deep sleep. Now the door is not completely jammed, so one of the 3 left in the sauna open the door a little and close it, for no reason (supposedly to allow one of the girls to leave to talk to her drunk boyfriend) - this action drops the stairs a little more. Then the girl, who insists that she doesn't want to leave, goes to the door, opens it and shakes it a little so that the stairs slide a little more and jam the door completely. Yes, she went to the door, opened it while saying that she doesn't want to go out.
There are too many ridiculous improbabilities that we have to accept and it goes beyond what is acceptable. The drunk wakes up and goes outside the sauna, but that's exactly when the uncle decides to launch fireworks.
So the movie is how they panic in the sauna and turn on each other. Unlike other films, there's no "let's not turn on each other" speech. A girl skips all that and smashes her friend with a rock to the head. What? Why?
There are random subplots that don't add anything to the story. The main girl takes prescription drugs for mental illness. That's a thread that goes nowhere.
They try all kinds of escape plans, firstly shaking the door, running shoulder barges, breaking the window's glass, shorting the fuse, screaming, etc. The guy in the sauna fights the steamer and causes an explosion. The force of the explosion, with some shaking, helps open the door. One girl escapes, she looks back to see her friend completely fried from the explosion, so she goes to drink water, gets her pills.... AND that was just her imagination.
She was just hallucinating. That didn't happen. Oh, but wait... the explosion really happened. What?
Yes, the explosion happened. Her friend really got fried. What she saw was in her hallucination was real. But she didn't actually go out.
It's such terrible editing that one of my friends thought she had gone out, got water and then came back for her friends, locking herself accidentally again.
The story is so contrived that this is not a bad guess. The reality is that someone hallucinated something, but 50% of the hallucination was real.
Ultimately, it's a horror-thriller, but it's not fun, scary nor thrilling. It's just a bunch of kids screaming in a sauna. They scream for help, then they yell at each other, then go back to screaming for help.
Being in a room watching this film simulates this experience very well, but no one will hear your screams.
A lot of the stuff is professionally done. The acting is mixed, some good actors, some bad, but the bad is not enough to ruin the picture. The sound is fairly clear, the lighting is fine, there are no technical gaffes.
The dialogue has a strange feeling like it was written by someone who isn't a native speaker. The grammar is correct, but the usage is off. This is not saying that non- native English speakers can't write English dialogues, but natural sounding dialogues are no easy feat that even Hollywood hires dialogue specialists. There is another layer of strangeness in the dialogue in that it feels like it is influenced by TV and films rather than regular speech. It's not enough to be a deal-breaker, but it was noticeable enough for me.
No biggie, it was fine.
Which leaves us with the plot. It is so contrived to the point of being unbelievable.
Here comes the spoilers:
Four youths in a sauna. The drunk one leaves and drops some stuff outside the door. He didn't know where to put a portable staircase, so he decides to put it as a doorstopper for the sauna door. He then leaves and goes into a drug-induced deep sleep. Now the door is not completely jammed, so one of the 3 left in the sauna open the door a little and close it, for no reason (supposedly to allow one of the girls to leave to talk to her drunk boyfriend) - this action drops the stairs a little more. Then the girl, who insists that she doesn't want to leave, goes to the door, opens it and shakes it a little so that the stairs slide a little more and jam the door completely. Yes, she went to the door, opened it while saying that she doesn't want to go out.
There are too many ridiculous improbabilities that we have to accept and it goes beyond what is acceptable. The drunk wakes up and goes outside the sauna, but that's exactly when the uncle decides to launch fireworks.
So the movie is how they panic in the sauna and turn on each other. Unlike other films, there's no "let's not turn on each other" speech. A girl skips all that and smashes her friend with a rock to the head. What? Why?
There are random subplots that don't add anything to the story. The main girl takes prescription drugs for mental illness. That's a thread that goes nowhere.
They try all kinds of escape plans, firstly shaking the door, running shoulder barges, breaking the window's glass, shorting the fuse, screaming, etc. The guy in the sauna fights the steamer and causes an explosion. The force of the explosion, with some shaking, helps open the door. One girl escapes, she looks back to see her friend completely fried from the explosion, so she goes to drink water, gets her pills.... AND that was just her imagination.
She was just hallucinating. That didn't happen. Oh, but wait... the explosion really happened. What?
Yes, the explosion happened. Her friend really got fried. What she saw was in her hallucination was real. But she didn't actually go out.
It's such terrible editing that one of my friends thought she had gone out, got water and then came back for her friends, locking herself accidentally again.
The story is so contrived that this is not a bad guess. The reality is that someone hallucinated something, but 50% of the hallucination was real.
Ultimately, it's a horror-thriller, but it's not fun, scary nor thrilling. It's just a bunch of kids screaming in a sauna. They scream for help, then they yell at each other, then go back to screaming for help.
Being in a room watching this film simulates this experience very well, but no one will hear your screams.