Five Across the Eyes (2006) User Reviews

Annoying and Painful to Watch Amateurish Film

[claudio_carvalho · 2/10 · 21 May 2011]

The teenagers Isabella (Sandra Paduch), Jamie (Danielle Lilley), Melanie (Mia Yi), Caroline (Angela Brunda) and Stephanie (Jennifer Barnett) are lost in a shortcut they took in their way back home. The inexperienced Bell is driving her mother's van and is worried about the late hour. The quintet decides to stop in an isolated store to ask for directions, and Bell accidentally bumps one headlight of a parked SUV. The girls decide to leave the place and drive in the dark and lonely road trying to reach the main road. They decide to make a u-turn and they are chased by the driver (Veronica Garcia) of the SUV along a night of terror.

After the idea of "The Blair Witch Project", many filmmakers have found a way of making low-budget movies in a kind of American version of the Dogma 95, some of them engaging like the Spanish "REC" but most of them complete failures.

"Five across the Eyes" is completely amateurish film and debut of the directors, writers, cast and crew and uses the same style, with hand held camera, poor lighting and few locations. The hysteric girls are annoying, screaming and crying along the 95 minutes running time. Further, they have unreasonable silly behavior along the most loneliness road of the world, giving the chance of a maniac killer attacks them several times. This film is painful to watch, with the excessive sadism and violence, and should be shorter and shorter. The only consolation is that I have seen films worse than this one, reason for my rating. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Através dos Olhos" ("Through the Eyes")

Nice amateur attempt , but nothing more

[preming1 · 2/10 · 16 March 2008]

This movie has many problem associated with it that makes it come off like a low budget class project from someone in film school. I have to give it credit on its campiness though. Many times throughout the movie I found myself laughing hysterically. It was so bad at times that it was comical, which made it a fun watch.

If you're looking for a low-grade slasher movie with a twist of psychological horror and a dash of campy ridiculousness, then pop a bowl of popcorn, invite some friends over, and have some fun.

I agree with other comments that the sound is very bad. Dialog is next to impossible to follow much of the time and the soundtrack is kind of just there.

I really wanted to like it, but...

[Nightmare-Maker · 3/10 · 15 March 2008]

After just watching FIVE ACROSS THE EYES, I gotta be honest...I just didn't like it. I had read so many good reviews on this movie, but I just did'nt get where these reviews have came from,

I have got a lot of time for newcomers into film-making, and I'm sure the directors will do well for themselves, but the budget they had was the main problem, there was two cameras used in the entire film (which was OK) but they seemed like really cheap cameras. Another problem was the sound, you get all these girls screaming and shouting all at the same time, all talking on top of each other - it's just impossible to hear what they're saying.

It had a good idea going for it, in a nutshell, they hit a parked car then drive off, a short while later they are getting chased by the car they hit, driven by a mad woman, who wants to kill them, and has plenty of chances to do so!...and on the other hand the girls have plenty of chances to escape, but don't!

Very frustrating...I only just scraped through this one!

90 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

[steve_rattray · 1/10 · 11 May 2008]

I can't believe anyone liked this movie. I've seen a lot of low-budget indie films, but this one absolutely sucked. Low budget doesn't mean the movie has to be demented. Horror doesn't mean the movie has to be demented. There was nothing scary about this movie at all. It was just a gore-fest, and a particularly disturbing one at that. The acting was average, considering they were all unheard of actors, but the story was pathetic, the dialog was pathetic. The movie tries to come off as "artistic", or something. This is not one of those really great indie films that cost only thousands of dollars to make, but are incredibly well done. This was nothing more than an excuse for some extremely sick people to put their perverse obsessions on film. Other reviews here also said that the soundtrack sucked...that's because most of it was written by the same person, and some of the songs were written by one of the writers of the movie. There were no redeeming qualities to this movie at all. A complete waste of my time and money.

Painful

[NOR-Viking · 1/10 · 13 March 2008]

The word in the summary sums it up d'oh ;) Five girls get lost trying to find their way home, when they stop at a store to get directions they hit a parked car breaking one headlight on it, they flea the scene in fair of getting in trouble but suddenly they see one headlight coming up behind them (ooooh).

From there out everything is screaming, crying and violence when they try to get away from this crazy person who lost it because of a headlight ;), well the screaming and crying pretty much stays through the entire movie (very annoying) The movie is shot, with a cheap camera trying to make it seem "real" or "shocking" I guess, it's just embarrassing and useless though. In lack of anything better to compare it with, "Blair witch style".

The screaming and crying for pretty much the entire movie with crappy sound was over the top annoying, you literally get a headache :)

I'm sorry but this was not scary, only an annoying painful piece of crap movie.

An Honest Review from a Horror Fan

[supamike20042004 · 1/10 · 4 May 2008]

• Contains miner spoilers -

I have seen a number of decent Indie horror films such as The Hamiltons, The Boys Love Mandy Lane and Cabin Fever; unfortunately I felt Five Across the Eyes does not fall into this category. From start to finish the film is plagued with amateurish acting resonating from a very poor script, god only knows why the writer(s) thought dialogue such as "No don't go out there; don't go out there she'll get you: if she gets you she'll kill you and if she kills you you're dead" is of movie quality.

This film displays very little character development and to be honest I couldn't care less about what pain and torture was inflicted upon them as they are just a group of ditsy college girls who show almost no redeeming qualities'. All they do is cry and whinge throughout the entire movie and if the girls aren't crying their arguing; when they do converse the topics are completely random: about dating boys or how one of the girls father was recently cremated (appropriate subjects when you're being chased by a psychotic killer).

The soundtrack is also abysmal exhibiting corny techno music during both the start and end credits (although hearing the credit music knowing the end was nearing seemed like heaven).

The camera-work is appalling and at times makes the film unwatchable. I'm guessing due to having little or no budget the director was limited to just one digital camera which resides in the girls' car almost the entire movie. I think this was an effort to stick the audience as close to the action as possible: to feel and experience what the girls are going through. But due to a very shaky camera, grainy picture and being too close to the action it can be hard to tell what is going on during action scenes and is simply chaotic. It's one thing to make a film subjective but it's another to have action on the screen that an audience can't decipher because of the poor cinematography.

I understand that Five Across the Eyes is a low budget indie film but that does not excuse the extremely poor quality. There are no redeeming factors to this film: bad acting, poor scripting, shoddy camera-work and no story. In light off all this I decided to give the film 1 out of 10 as it left me very disappointed; wanting a meteor to hit the earth bringing me sweet relief. Its 94 minutes off stupid college girls crying, arguing, aimlessly running and having random inappropriate conversations. However, how many times do you get to see girls defecating into their hands and throwing the crap onto the windscreen of a chasing car.

long time ago I've seen such a bad thing

[trashgang · 1/10 · 26 January 2015]

What the hell was this. The only thing I have to say to the producer is well done on part of selling this world wide. I mean, if you will ever see this utterly bad movie you will know what I actually are bragging about.

I can't say a positive thing on no parts of this flick. the acting is awful, the use of the camera makes you sick, the effects are below zero and the story is written on one line. The words they are saying and things they are talking about men, really.

The horror is simple, driving softly to a car makes the owner goes berserk and is out to punish the girls. But the girls fight back with throwing things to the car, by sh*tting out of the window to the car, again, really. But wait, the victims have to undress (off-camera) naked and have to p*ss on their clothes and one of the girls is sick in the car throwing up. That's the horror. Towards the end the victims can take revenge on the killer but even that takes way too long.

At the end of the day this is just a waist of time, pure trash but then in a bad way.

Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 1/5 Story 0,5/5 Comedy 0/5

How do they have the audacity to release this?

[imdb-18193 · 1/10 · 14 December 2008]

This really is the most dreadful film I have ever seen. I simply have no idea how anyone has the audacity to put this on release.

The production standards are atrocious. There is no pretence here at cinematography. The camera work, scripting, acting and sound are unbelievably crass. I think there is a plot, but it could have been done in 10 minutes sparing us the time to watch it. The hysterical neurotic girls at the centre of this piece have no credibility whatsoever.

I would urge anyone to avoid spending any time or money on this Title. It is truly atrocious.

JDD - 14 December 2008

Simply one of the worst movies ever! ...and a blair-witch wannabe

[shjiemon · 1/10 · 7 September 2007]

I think this movie was supposed to be shocking. But the only way in which it is indeed shocking is how shocking badly it's been made ...and simply is. It's one-and-a-half hour of torment. Even more so for the viewer than for the characters in the movie (the five girls).

Sure the main characters get their bloody piece in a bad way, which is basically fine, since it's a horror-movie. And I (usually) like horror-movies. I've no problem with violence in these type of movies per se. However all the violence in this film serves no end whatsoever. It's no spectacle other than that it's simply grotesque. It's so lame it even gets boring, and really quick too.

The worst thing (if the above wasn't bad enough for ya) about this movie is that they've tried to copy the Blair Whitch Project, by filming with cheap hand-held-cameras. But (again, this too) serves no end whatsoever. In the "Blair Which", sure enough, there's an explanation, namely they are their with a camera looking for the blair witch. In this film, there's no other explanation than: "Hey ya'll we wanted this to LOOK LIKE the Blair Whitch!!" The sound in the movie is also something to get depressed about. The girls are screaming so hysterically that many a time you can't make out what they're saying. Also, no effort has been made to make anything any better, sound-wise or other wise.

Than finally, there's the soundtrack, which is just as bad as the rest, and varies from cheap euro-house to the worst grungy hard-rock...

My advise: Don't watch this under ANY circumstances.

this is one of the worst movies i've seen this year

[rrasull · 1/10 · 24 March 2008]

Do not waste your time watching this! Unless you want to study it for all the wrong things you shouldn't do to make a good film. I am not one to usually review a movie, but this one is personal. I wasted precious time which they cannot give back. I feel compelled to write this report to warn others not to waste their time watching this crap. If this was a student project, i would have to say not bad, but only for the first 15 min... after that it gets annoying. the screaming, the bad audio, the bad video (a good camera man could have made it much better). and yes, whats with the Blair-Witch effect? no budget? I was hoping it was going to get better, but it doesn't. Now how the hell did it deserves a 4? 2 is more fair but 1 for wasting my time! I have said my peace.

Five Across The Eyes is a remarkable achievement

[pierre-57 · 10/10 · 11 September 2007]

This movie is 91 minutes of real terror. There are no elaborate contraptions, or reasons given for why these five girls are put through this hell. They simply run into the wrong person and spend the rest of the film fighting for their lives trying to get away.

The climax is a classic. A simple and inevitable conclusion that is as realistic as it is depressing. The horrors that happen in this film have a weight to them that you feel--and see on the character's faces. Simply remarkable for a debut feature for all involved.

The film has a nitty gritty video look that some may say is BLAIR WITCHy but that comparison is strange. This is not a documentary. The camera shows the events as they unfold, but no character speaks to it.

The filmmakers have crafted an electrifying experience for fans of extreme cinema, and one I strongly suggest you check out when it is released in your country.

Excellent horror movie.

[videozombi · 7/10 · 28 March 2008]

Five Across The Eyes is an excellent horror movie. It's presents itself as nothing more then horror, it doesn't try to please you or sugar coat anything for you. The movie begins with a group of high school girls (who actually look like high school girls) in a mini-van traveling to a party. They've taken a short cut, gotten lost and stop to ask for directions at a roadside store. While there, they begin goofing off in the van and wind up hitting an SUV parked in the lot. Instead of staying to exchange information with the owner of the truck, they decide to leave and what ensues is nothing but sheer horror.

The movie is not about an angry SUV owner as you might think and not about road rage as others have said, who clearly didn't watch the whole movie. I don't want to give the film away, so I'll leave it at that and get on to the good points. I've seen a lot of bad low budget movies, this isn't one of them. Although obviously low budget, overall the acting is solid, you really feel through almost every scene that the girls are average teenagers and that they are absolutely terrified. The emotions of the girls and the insanity of the person chasing them are well conveyed from start to finish. The film makers were smart enough to realize that they didn't have the budget for lavish special effects, so they use sounds to get to you. They will get to you. The sounds of screaming, the sounds of beatings, the thoughts generated in your mind when you see a shotgun barrel heading for the rear end of a girl bent over the hood of a van. A screwdriver being rammed in a place no one ever intended a screwdriver to go.

The film is incredibly effective and far better then some of the tripe that indie film fans are always pushing as god like. The music, both type and timing is good and fits perfectly with the movie. The locations are perfect, if you've ever been out of a city and driven down a back road you've been where these girls end up. You've felt the feelings they feel as you drive down a dark road and joke nervously when you know your completely exposed to break down, running out of gas, getting lost or being run off the road by some nut. You know, those people who fly by you on a gravel road because your not moving fast enough, with no concern for the hundreds of little rocks spitting back at you. They show no concern for the fact that your an inch away from the ditch, what if one of those people ran you into a dead end, turned around and blocked the exit? You could very well wind up exactly where these girls do.

The big selling point for me with this movie is the fact that the girls actually look like teenagers. Lately I have been so sick of seeing (obviously) twenty somethings and thirty somethings passed off as teens in peril that I think I'll lose my mind if I see it again. It's a never ending torture to me, seeing a 30 year old woman with stretch marks walking down a school hallway with her hair in pig tails wearing a cheerleader's outfit. Or that guy that looks like your father, who supposed to be sixteen smoking pot next to a locker...yeesh. None of that with this movie thank god.

Dramatics aside, if you love horror and you love something along the lines of Duel (1971) updated with a little more story and some pretty girls thrown in, you'll love this movie.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel of horror

[HammTate · 1/10 · 16 June 2008]

The writers and producers of this little outing have plummeted new depths of depravity. Did writer's block set in so badly, OR had ideas dried up so much, that they were forced to include a disgusting scene where a young woman defecates in the back seat of a van, and then promptly throws the excrement at the car behind (mind you at least this summarises what this film is worth). We had already been treated to one of the other women urinating over one of her friends at gunpoint, as well as numerous episodes of graphic vomiting; once would have sufficed... we got the message! This really is taking toilet humour to another level! Had the script and acting been better then I could have easily forgotten that I was watching a film shot entirely on low budget video. This was a fairly original storyline, with a clever (the only) piece of direction in that we only ever got to take the viewpoint from inside of the van; thus making it feel much more real. We never got to see inside any other locations, such as the store or the field where several of the women disappeared, and this could have added much needed tension.

The script was dire. Lines like: 'I don't feel too good... I want to go home' after one of the girls has been pursued by a psychopath; subjected to rape by a screwdriver and shot at, seem a little undercooked.

The acting was diabolical (apart from the maniac). Did all the main 5 actresses in this learn acting by taking a correspondence course during a long postal strike! The sound was so bad that I had to watch the entire film with the subtitles on.

The director seemed to have an easy job in this. It seems that the only direction he must have given was: 'Scream girls'.

AND AS FOR THE SCREAMING...... If you watch this please be sure to have some paracetamol at the ready!

Not so good "No budget movie"

[deinostri1 · 2/10 · 6 March 2013]

Im really interested in low or no budget movies that provides a genuine feeling and atmosphere. The silent house is an excellent example, because despite its flaws, it offers an original atmosphere at a minuscule budget. Another film (a short film you can watch for free on youtube)that does offer a lot of emotion in a horrifying, but comically painful way is Phantom miscarriage. Five across the eyes don't really give me anything! The story is simple, a couple of young girls, get lost, bumps into a strangers car by accident and escapes. Pretty soon they are chased by a maniac woman who tries to kill them. A typical slasher story.

Its nice that the creators of this film have made an attempts to create something unique, but wiggly camera angles, bad acting, and a plot not worked through enough gives me nothing. I saw a bunch of amateur movies made by media students, while I was studying drama, and these movies ware far better. Every scene should be worked through in a good movie. The purpose for the scene, the camera angles for the scene, and the actors should have enough time to get into character no matter how bad they are. What the movie really lacks is suspense, effects that are worked through, and a feeling of realism. They had the intent to create something, but failed. Oddly enough they worked hard enough to get the movie released!

I am now dumber then I was 95 minutes ago...

[terrible2 · 1/10 · 9 December 2008]

Um... Okay, I guess I get the whole shaky-cam, gorilla-style filming technique but unfortunately I think a gorilla could have made a better movie... This thing was just a complete mess from the get go. Bad acting, bad directing, bad story and horrific cinematography. How this piece of garbage was released I will never know, but it has and unfortunately I watched it. Filmed on location in Tennessee by the directing team of Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen (Harry and Lloyd), "Five Across The Eyes" I'm assuming is supposed to resemble a "Blair Witch" type film but falls short... Okay it nose dives off a cliff. I was actually embarrassed for these young women, whom I'm sure were promised Hollywood stardom, but ended up in this dung heap. The dialog is ridiculous, and actually aggravates you as you listen to it. How this is supposed to be a horror flick is another mystery, as there is nothing even remotely scary about it, except for the fact that I watched it... Try this one on for size: There is 5 of you and 1 of her, do the math and beat her ass... "The End". Saddly it went on (and on) for 95 more minutes of mind-numbing stupidity...

I saw it for free, and wanted my money back.

Feels like five hours

[RazorFriendly2 · 2/10 · 17 November 2008]

As horror fans we all know that blind rentals are a crap-shoot. Sometimes we find a real gem, but many times we find that the film we've just spent our hard earned money on is nothing more than a putrid steamer made worse by the completely undeserved rave reviews and film fest awards listed on the box. Such is the case with Five Across the Eyes ( a title I'm sure is a double entendre referring to both the films budget and the compulsion anyone watching it might have to using all five fingers to stab their eyes out ).

The story, or, at least what the *ahem* writers think passes for one, centers on a group of teen girls who unwisely decide to go on a backwoods joyride late at night after leaving a football game and run afoul of a crazy woman who plays cat and mouse with them as punishment for what she thinks the girls found in her car after a fender-bender in a gas station parking lot.

In fairness, it's an interesting idea. Some of the best horrors have very simple story lines. It's in the execution of Five Across the Eyes that this idea falls flat. The film tries to be a cross between The Blair Witch Project with its shaky camera work and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in its bare-bones approach to the material but succeeds at being neither. What we get instead are redundant scenes of chase, torture, release; chase torture, release, in that order for 94 minutes with long interludes of bitching, moaning, and incoherent rambling acting as plenty of padding in-between chase sequences.

The look of the film is incredibly grainy and dark, which, in a better made film might have enhanced the tension and the realism. Here it's merely annoying. The characters are undeveloped and the viewer is hard-pressed to find anything to sympathize with them. One character stops to get a first-aid kit and tend to some scrapes on her face while gunshots heard in the background indicate her friends may be getting killed. Another girl mutters hilariously dumb lines like "Don't go out there, she'll get you, if she gets you she'll kill you and if she kill's you you're dead".

It was an accolade from Fangoria magazine and Dreadcentral.com listed on the box that compelled me to check this one out. Talk about a fake orgasm! Perhaps my expectations would have been met had this been in the comedy section. I'm all for low-budget Indie horror but this one takes the crap-cake. Give Five Across the Eyes (or FATE; get it?) a pass.

RazorFriendly gives FATE 1 slash out of five /

Girls screaming on a video phone

[Chancery_Stone · 1/10 · 2 July 2008]

How, in the name of all that's holy, did this film ever get distribution? It looks as if it has been shot on someone's mobile phone and takes the screaming girl victim scenario to whole new depths. They literally scream for the full 90 minutes of the movie. And that's all they do. There is no plot, no tension, no characters, and not a lot of acting. Just screaming and more screaming.

I gave up after fifteen minutes and fast-wound through it to see if anything happened. It doesn't - except for screaming, of course. Odlly enough, the act of going through it on fast forward highlights another problem - there is no camera-work to speak of. Every shot looks like every other shot - middle distance, one angle, dull, dull, DULL.

It's not so bad it's good. It's just plain bad.

That Was Painful

[r_swipe · 1/10 · 13 May 2008]

Five across the eyes ain't worth one off the wrist, I must admit at one point i was really worried, for about 30 seconds nobody made a noise and i thought my speakers had blown or that i had gone deaf with the constant screaming and high pitch yelling, me and the speakers are OK now thanks for asking, funnily enough that was the best bit of the film.

I won't waste your time telling you the plot, read the other comments for that.

If you have bought this DVD but not yet unwrapped it Don't, take it back and demand your money back, i've wasted mine don't do the same.

I was actually shouting at the telly " they're over here in the car, look for the camera lights, and get the camera man first ", i have left the swear words out but you can guess where they go.

If anybody would like to buy this film (it's really good) it's yours for a ten quid.

A real slap in the face!!

[impossiblehim · 2/10 · 1 May 2008]

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS...BUT DOUBT IT CAN ACTUALLY BE SPOILT!!.

Five Across The Eyes can be summed up in one word....Amateurish. This film tries it's best to be different from most films by the 'Blair Witch' type of filming....it doesn't work....it just ends up looking and feeling like somebody had a cheap video camera, a van and decided to make a movie. The story has no explanation, the protagonist is given no real motivation (and looks like a lesbian wearing a power-suit compared to the five girls) and there is no violence to speak of...just the sounds of screaming and crunching. The whole film takes place inside a van which means decent scenery is out of the question. The five girls really do their best with what they've been given but on the whole come across as pretty terrible actresses...although with the material given it's hard to judge if they can actually aCt....they spend THE WHOLE movie screaming, squealing and whimpering....so much that half the time it's hard to make out what was said and the cameras are so bad it's actually hard to tell who said it. This video paints itself as a violent torture film but is in fact just five girls in a van screaming in terror...that literally sums up the whole movie.....we then get to the end after what seems like 5 hours of constant screaming and all five girls are still alive... with one minus a finger. The only thumbs up(get it...finger....LOL) is for the poor actresses who tried hard and probably lost their voices(and their pride) after making this terrible movie. Do not judge this by the poster....you'll be very let down.

Avoid at all cost

[J_Edinburgh · 1/10 · 3 May 2008]

This film was positively the worst film I have ever watched. I couldn't sit through the whole thing. I also think writer must have some weird fetish for women peeing puking and crapping... I mean what was that all about! I cant believe this was even made and am disgusted at have #ingwasted a £4 rental fee. The quality both picture and sound are terrible, the acting... well doesn't exist . It was a poor excuse for a film and the scenes of pee, crap and puke were reminiscent of 2 girls 1 cup. Urghh....... AVOID AT ALL COST! The girls looked like they had been picked off the street and only got the part cos they'd be willing to take their tops off... While these girls have nice bodies it certainly didn't make up for the fact their shrieking was awful unconvincing and a pain to my ears.

This was like (possibly worse) than an ammateur school production without any proper direction and hey there is no need for a set as it all seems to revolve around a car?!

Definatey not one to buy folks. Sorry if my first comment is terribly negative but I could not find anything positive to say and I would like to think I may save someone else wasting their money like I have.

Absurdist theater extremely well done, A new take on camp.

[sitenoise · 9/10 · 2 April 2008]

Every frame of this real time 90 film is shot from inside the van. Yes, it's grainy and hand-held, but it's creatively envisioned and executed. You are the camera, along for the ride. When filming the girls changing a flat tire you can only get the shot via the side-view mirror. Priceless. Most of the humor in the film is achieved by being that omniscient, yet part of the mix, set of eyes. The one-liners are eaves-dropped upon, not thrown in your face.

This isn't gore, though there is a fair amount of blood splashed around. There is nothing supernatural. There is just waiting for the next horrible thing in store for these girls at the hands of the soccer mom. Then something really horrible happens and it's downplayed, like pulling a screwdriver from between the legs of one of the girls, or watching from inside the van as another girl appears to get a shotgun up the butt. Another girl gets her mouth taped shut after after being loaded with fish hooks. But these 'gorable' moments aren't the focus. You really have to see this film to see how subtle and understated it is.

This film is not bad because of incompetence, it's post-modern low-brow, not adolescent, by design. It's high-brow-low-brow.

What I found most entertaining was the emotional back-and-forth between dread-filled screaming teenagers and dead-pan humor—which is NOT AT ALL like cheap horror comedy humor. This is not a send-up and it's not meant to be satire. The humor is achieved through the comic timing of the director and editor and the choices they make. There is no setup to the punches, you catch them peripherally and that's what makes them good.

A soccer mom with a big, perfectly white teeth smile haunts these girls. Genius. How many more hillbillies can a horror fan take?

One commenter noted that the sound design of the dialog was a little sub-par and I agree. I really want to watch this again with subtitles. It seems that the soccer mom terrorist is charging the girls with ruining her family and she scolds them over and over at extremely high volume. It's as if she is taking the role of uber-mom to all these girls. She's rather large physically, not fat, and has a very big mouth (filled with perfect white teeth, as I mentioned before ... and they almost glow, adding to the surreal nature of things). That we can't really discern what her motives are puts us in the same state of mind as the girls.

The girls themselves go back and forth between bitching at one another to last-rites declarations of love and apology as they sense the end may be near.

Forget Blair Witch, if you saw the Spanish horror film REC and liked it, give this one a shot. I thought it was going to be a cheap exploitation flick. The fact that the first thing the soccer mom does when she catches the girls is make them take all their clothes off and put them in a pile and make one of the girls pee on them, well ... I thought, yep, exploitation it is. But then the crazy lady just drives off. And there we are, as befuddled by what just happened as the girls.

Backroads Torture

[jfgibson73 · 6/10 · 8 March 2010]

A lot of people seem to really hate this movie, at least from the comment here on IMDb. It does have some problems--extra shaky camera work, a repetitive story, annoying screaming that never stops. Somehow, I enjoyed it anyway.

Five girls are on the way home from a football game when they become lost on a back road. They stop at a country store to ask for directions, and accidentally hit another vehicle as they leave. They argue amongst themselves what to do about it and eventually decide to leave without informing the driver. A few moments later, the same truck they hit is behind them on the road. The girls panic and speed up, getting further off track as they take high-speed turns without knowing where they are. Finally, they hit a dead end. That's when it begins...

Spoilers: The driver of the white truck is crazy woman who pulls a gun on them, makes them get out, and terrorizes them. Before she hurts anyone, however, she leaves. It is clear from her dialog that she is out of her mind, shouting at the girls about things that have nothing to do with them. The girls are extremely upset about how they have been treated, and it takes them several moments to get themselves together and get back in the van.

However, as they head back down the road, they happen to pass the same woman again, and she begins chasing the girls again. At this point, they viewer might be expecting something different to happen, but it ends up with the woman catching the girls again, and this time hurting them physically. The girls are still to frightened to fight back. This happens a couple more times over the course of the next hour, with the woman doing increasingly terrible things to the girls. It gets to be a bit much after a while--you expect the girls to pass out, bleed to death, or go into shock. Finally, the girls have had so much punishment that they are able to fight back, and they beat the woman down. They stab her repeatedly with a screwdriver, then set her body on fire. At this point, I was thinking that they shouldn't destroy the woman's body by burning it, because they are going to want the police to be able to identify the woman and they need them to believe they acted in self-defense.

The girls head back towards home, still lost. They pass the country store and see that the woman killed everyone in there before leaving. We are left to imagine how their lives will be different from now on.

The camera stays in close on all of the actresses, which often makes it hard to see what is happening, especially when there is a lot of movement. The camera tends to look like it is rolling around on the ground along with the girls, so I missed a lot of details that I think were meant to be more clear than they were. For some reason, I liked this movie anyways. I can't really defend it. It has lots of weaknesses--the writing, the acting, the visual style. I think maybe I had lower expectations because I was able to see some screen-shots of the movie before watching it, so I had lowered expectations about what I was getting. It is definitely not a slick production. You have to be willing to sit through a movie that looks like it was filmed on someone's home camcorder. After seeing it once, I will give it a six out of ten. I was entertained along the way, and satisfied with the conclusion.

My Review

[joemamaohio · 1/10 · 23 September 2008]

I'll keep this fast and sweet. Five girls on their way home from a football game decide to take a 'short cut' that leads them down a deserted forest-ridden road. Of course nothing but good things happen to them, and they safely arrive at their destination.

Alright, they don't. Soon they're hunted down by a deranged chick who has some severe mental issues, and what ensues is 90 minutes of sheer boredom.

I hope to never see any of these actors in any movie ever again. Their screaming, screeching voices gave me a headache, and the script was so poorly written that it included a lot of repeat phrases and nonsensical hysterical screaming. All in all, one of the worst cheap horror flicks I've ever seen...and I've seen a lot.

Meh I've seen much worse.

[lost-in-limbo · 4/10 · 7 June 2008]

I'm dumbfounded. Yes that's right. I'm really caught here. No way did I find it awful, but on the other hand it was a frustrating experience in macabre hysterical and murky incoherency. The idea behind such a trim, minimal low-budget Indie production isn't bad, but it's a confused muddle and in the end didn't do anything for me. It's amateurish and simple; it wants to exploit beyond reasoning and do so in that of-late fashionably rapid filming style. We have the documentary laced (hand-held) camera moving everywhere (despite never leaving the van), and sometimes feeling unfocused and blurry making certain details hard to figure out. Lately you kind of get use to it, but there are times when it does become too distracting and even nauseating. Keeping it still will help. The context has little groundwork (which has five teenage girls on their way home from a football game late at night and becoming lost on the back roads. At a road-side store they become involved in a minor accident which smashes an unoccupied SUV headlight. Scared, they flee and not too long that one-light SUV appears behind them. Soon to make their night an unforgettable ordeal in terror) spending most of the time playing out a drawn out, noisy and relentless cat and mouse game.

As for being disturbing… I guess that depends. Some moments can make you squirm with its attention to pain, desperation and demented brutality (with good use of piercing sound FX that seem to be more favoured over the imagery and not forgetting the alienating background sound effects), but also I found myself snickering too. In passages it can be repellent and intense with a real gradual rush, but hardly believable. The injuries of random characters never seem as serious like you were to believe, despite obviously they should be. Watch how blood runs freely, but it's not entirely convincing and can get dull. The constant nocturnal car chase could only do so much before getting repetitive. We get screaming, spewing, bleeding, running, cursing, body fluids and so on. Quite unpleasant details followed too. With little really to do, it needed a much stronger script than the measly forced one that was penned up. Too many cringe-moments arose from it, and there was not much in the way of depth for the characters and situation they were in. It was about set-pieces, waiting for next torturous encounter and it drew it out long enough. Helping out is it had an unpredictable pattern.

The performances; Jennifer Barnett, Angela Brunda, Danielle Lilley, Sandra Paduch and Mia Yi are workman-like with their distraught characters and draw an authentic chemistry to make up for the script's weaknesses in its character-foundation . Veronica Garcia's flipped-out, bug-eyed intensity as the loony driver of the SUV was something… yeah something. Her character's real motivation for terrorising the girls and her unstable state of mind is virtually non-existent. I guess being psychotic was good enough. Now probably the most unnerving thing I came across in the feature was that hideous soundtrack. Terrible techno music, to cheesy hard-rock and an overwrought closing score. It never felt overdone or got in the way, but it did stick out like a sore thumb. Co-directors Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen try to get the most out of their slight resources, but even with it edgy spirit it ends up being something quite ramshackle. Maybe it was enjoyable to make, but watching it just wasn't the case.

This film is sick!

[emmamorton86 · 1/10 · 11 May 2008]

Im the type of person who always goes 2 to horror section when I'm picking a film, so i picked five across the eyes, i was disgusted with this film and thought there was no story line and no point that you could enjoy it,it made my skin crawl to think that people like to watch films that just encourage violence for the hell of it it was low budget and very rubbish! i think i could of done better myself. i think that it was the worst film i have ever seen in my life and you should not bother to watch it the actors were rubbish the camera was awful the picture was bad and the sound was not up to scratch, i think it was a little bit like a cheep rip of off the baler which project and it has not worked at all it was foul.