At the End of Eight (2019) User Reviews

At the End of Eight: Unique but flawed

[Platypuschow · 4/10 · 30 November 2023]

Plot

Three young participants sneak into the home of a complete stranger as part of a popular but highly illegal game. The game requires the three players to stay inside for eight hours without being discovered.

Cast

Unfamiliar with anyone in front of or behind the camera.

Verdict

Now straight out of the gate let me praise the writers by saying this is a very unique film, the concept is certainly a new one or at least not something my movie obsessed butt has ever seen before.

Now let me segway into pointing out that the concept is flawed badly and simply didn't work as a feature film. Maybe it would have worked as a short film of less than 30 minutes, here it's unlikable, repetitive and it's impossible to have any empathy with the characters as ultimately they're criminals.

Watch it for the novelty value perhaps, but be aware it's instantly forgettable.

Rants

In a world that celebrates celebrity culture, influencers, commentators, pranks and generally mean spirited ill advised stupid stuff the concept of this movie is 100% believable. I could absolutely see this happening which in turn makes the movie feel realistic. Sadly it still doesn't change the facts, I can't cheer on people who are breaking into someones home for a cash prize and an alarming low one as well.

Breakdown

Very unique concept Concept just doesn't work Forgettable Terrible characters.

Interesting idea but poorly executed

[kellylm99 · 3/10 · 29 August 2020]

The first scene was well done, but unfortunately the movie went downhill from there. The rookie cast and high school direction resulted in laughable moments that were intended to be intense. Giving it three stars for the effort.

It was......Meh

[mdkelly-89876 · 4/10 · 25 September 2023]

The opening is the only reason I watched it. It was definitely cheesy and short-lived. Seemed amateur and thrown together. While the movie had nothing to do with the popular social media platform, it was.much like the Tiktok "challenges" that have become a thing these days. Maybe that was the point of the movie. To bring awareness and show the very real outcomes that can happen when playing those types of games or in the real world, doing tiktok "challenges" like this. Macbeth was probably the best out of the actors. Much like the movie, my synopsis is short and bland. It had potential of being better I think, but there's not much else I can say to say to hype it up, unfortunately.

Offensive, clichéd and dull

[amydelaney-56969 · 1/10 · 18 November 2023]

So you have a "good Christian guy" character doing bad things to help his unwell mother because they can't afford medical care (shocker), a "troubled young woman" character who's trying to pay off debts with bad guys, and an "edgy guy" who does it for the thrill and the money. Then you have an offensive, serial killing combination of two tropes which should have died out decades ago: the "twisted trans person" and "evil split personality" rolled up in one, and a "good cop turned bad" after his kid gets tragically murdered.

Aside from the issues with character writing, the acting is bad, the plot is a mess (how do they still "win" at the end even though the rules clearly state they're not meant to be discovered?!) and the ending is insulting to anyone with more than 2 braincells.

Spoiler alert, the "evil trans, multi-personality serial killer" suddenly stops his attempts at killing the girl because the "Christian good guy" decides to put on a dress and effeminate voice and pretend they're unsure about how to make themselves look pretty. The killer STOPS KILLING THE GIRL in order to COMPLIMENT THE GUY ON HIS DRESS and OFFERS TO GIVE HIM A MAKEOVER ON HIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL. What. The. F.

Maybe you'll enjoy this if you're part of a very specific, very ignorant demographic. Otherwise there's no clear reason it should have any more than one star.

It's so bad

[k_mcday · 1/10 · 23 September 2023]

This movie is so so so bad. It's not even so bad it's good. It's not the typical intentionally corny horror movie that ends up being good. It's just plain bad. I'm not even sure how the average rating is close to 5 stars?

It is written badly. Directed badly. Acted badly.

It is written so horribly that while watching one scene in particular the thought crossed my mind that it looked like an entry for a middle school script contest. In the scene one of the intruders finds a missing person's poster sticking right out of a box. Who on earth bothers to put a missing person's poster in a basement, in a box, but conveniently leaves the bright red "Missing" headline sticking up for all to immediately see?

The plot is everywhere and nowhere. There's a twist at the end that makes no sense and is unnecessary. Where was the director in all of this? Was this person really looking at the script, plot as a whole, and acting and thought "This is great."

My god, the acting was bad from beginning to end. The woman jogging around the neighborhood in the opening scene didnt even do a good job of pretending to jog.

Is this a joke?? Rating of 5.2 -not even close

[staceylee · 1/10 · 18 September 2020]

I paid $1.99 to rent this and I overpaid by $1.99 At first it seemed ok because there wasn't much dialogue but once the "actors" started "acting" it went downhill fast. No budget. No talent. Ignorant story. I could see this as a high school film class production at best. I only finished it because I paid for it -had it been free I would have stopped once the "acting" started ugh. Drivel

gross trash of a film, don't waste your time or money

[dustofwarfare · 1/10 · 9 October 2020]

I signed up for an account just to give this movie one star. It's terrible! The plot starts out with an actual interesting idea, about this underground game of hiding in someone's house. and not being caught for eight hours. Then, it totally abandons what could make for a suspenseful movie by going in a direction that is COMPLETELY ridiculous and mind-numbingly boring, as well as throwing in some random and icky character "development" (a cop setting up innocent people to get revenge, ew???, a cartoonish villain who hated women and dressed in women's clothes b/c ???, all sorts of lazy and tired choices, yawn) and the worst -- WORST -- music and acting...not to mention more plot holes than swiss cheese and a complete and utter lack of tension. I like bad movies but this wasn't bad, it was painful like a toothache. I'm mad I paid 2 dollars for it. I hope the filmmakers do literally anything else with their time, save yours and you'll thank me.

At least it's short

[gregsfootball2011 · 1/10 · 24 September 2023]

The only good thing about this movie is that it is over quick. It's an 1 hour 16 minutes of awful acting, terrible plot, stupid choices, and garbage. I'm usually not this negative but this is trash from the jump. I would recommend you keep looking for something else to watch. The main characters have no previous relationship and then suddenly have this deep concern for each other. The other characters have poor motivation. It's just disappointing in so many ways. Oh and who makes a peanut butter sandwich with a giant sharp chef knife? I take some responsibility for even watching this. I would like to apologize to my wife for making her sit through this.

People forget that this movie had a $4,500 budget

[brooklynfaithjones · 7/10 · 20 September 2023]

Although this movie wasn't great, I think the story is overall good. I think it would have been an incredible movie if it had a higher budget, but the idea is there and I wouldn't be surprised if a larger company made a similar movie, but with celebrity actors and everyone would go crazy. It was a good refresher to see a movie with actors that aren't in every movie, even if that meant some less than amazing scenes. To be honest, the worse scenes ended up just being funny. Around the middle of the movie there is a fight scene, and I can tell that these actors did not know how to do these, and it looked pretty fake, and in that scene the grunts and breathing of the actors was unrealistic, which could have been fixed by making the music louder and audio quieter, but again it just ended up being funny. For such a low budget, it was good.

Really poor execution of an interesting idea

[mrgoth-2 · 1/10 · 15 September 2023]

The idea is to enter someone's home without their knowledge and hide without being discovered for 8 hours. It seemed that two of the three were unable to focus on that simple concept, making poor decisions and snooping around, increasing the risk of being found. After watching I came to the conclusion they took the risk of being jailed for breaking and entering for such a relatively small prize because they are too stupid to hold down a real job. Even a very bad excuse of needing to make money quickly for medical reasons is not well thought out. Very poorly executed, the writing was subpar, the acting mediocre at best. Take a pass on this and watch something decent.

Really good and unique

[joriethomas · 8/10 · 21 October 2020]

All people cry about anymore is how no one writes anything new and when they do, they don't like it. I loved the premise and honestly, it's a really good movie! For a $2,500 budget, the acting was decent and yes it's very low budget but good story that kept you guessing. It's a lot like don't breathe, another movie I love but has subtle differences. Not understanding the hate at all. A low budget wonder in my humble opinion.

It's not perfect but..

[sdryrs · 6/10 · 18 September 2023]

This movie's budget was essentially non-existent. I was curious and looked it up.. it said $4500. I don't know if that's true, but if so... wow! They did incredible. There are a couple of scenes that the acting could be a little better (like any movie) but generally it's very good. It's a nice movie all things considered and I think people are being way too hard on it. I wish people wouldn't compare every movie to a $400 million dollar production. It doesn't make a movie bad if they don't have a huge budget. I hope the creators of this film keep going and make more because I thought it was a good film and all involved did a good job! Enjoyed!!

Absurd

[Christopher370 · 4/10 · 9 October 2023]

I was out of it when the two killers were fist fighting with each other for like 5 minutes upstairs in the bedroom, and the teens decide to go down into the basement rather than run out the front door lol. Why did they do that?!

And besides, they broke into someone's home for a stupid game to win money so I had zero sympathy for any of them. Especially that special idiot who made himself a peanut butter sandwich and drank the homeowner's liquor. I was happy when he was killed.

Then the girl has the gall to say to the homeowner "We didn't do anything!"....Um, yes you did and if you still can't see that after being tied up by the angry homeowner, whose home you broke into you deserve what you get.

There's a lame reveal at the end I won't spoil, but after that part the film tries to make the viewer sympathize and root for the home breakers, but I didn't fall for it and kept on hoping they would meet their deserved demise from the home owners.

I'm giving it 4 stars for the plot and the acting wasn't half bad. And there's the tired trope of giving a long speech with a gun when in reality he would've just fired. I hate when movies pull that because it's not realistic and only served to make the contrived ending which I completely despised. I REALLY hated those final 30 seconds. It was just dumb and sadly entirely expected in today's politically correct films. At least it's short and was free.

Great concept, poor execution

[hooksbrittany · 2/10 · 23 November 2023]

The movie had great potential, but failed to deliver. The acting is decent but the movie is terrible. There's no way to even prove that the houses are picked at random. Just because they say they are. On top of that why would you move around so much if the rules are to sneak in and not get caught. And they made so much noise it's crazy that they still believed no one knew they were in the house. And why they didn't just go back out the window they came in smh so frustrating. All in all I still watched the film all the way through so I guess it wasn't all bad for a low budget film. It was so much that could have been done to make it a good film though.

Good movie done very, very... very poorly!

[jenny451975 · 3/10 · 30 December 2023]

The concept was there: a contest to sneak into a house and stay there for 8 hours. "I see you" did it well, so they tried too. However, the movie just stumbles along, literally - the characters enter the house and stumble, and hit everything, making as much noise as possible! Oh, no big deal! I'm not surprised they were found. The "twist" raised it to 3 stars but i can't forgive bad audio editting (voice overs made me think this movie was a foreign film), nor the clumsey screen writing where they tried to advance the plot with weak dialog. I appreciate the motives of each character but not enough to like any of them. I was just so disappointed.

Poor Everything

[ericslotterbeck · 1/10 · 20 December 2023]

You can definitely tell which reviewers are friends with the "director" and which reviews are just regular people who got scammed into watching this film because oh my god you have to be stupid to rate this garbage over 1 star. This movie left me and my wife speechless and not in a good way. To be constructive: the movies main flaw is not the subpar acting or low budget as other reviews point out. Instead, the main flaw resides in the characters lack of objective. When they first enter the house they are in what could be interpreted as an office space and the first thing that crossed my mind was, "well they can just stay here hidden the entire time." Instead, with an effort to make a exciting film the script leads the characters to make the most unrealistic and irrational decisions given their objective of "just don't get caught." There was no motive to the characters actions making it feel extremely forced and left for a truly non emersive viewing experience. Other reviews cover more of the issues included in this film so read them if wanted but I would not recommend anyone spend their evening with this film.

"Let's hide behind the chainsaws!"

[wasecan · 1/10 · 12 November 2023]

That line from the insurance ad kept running through my mind throughout this whole movie.

I thought this might be a somewhat interesting movie, even if it did look pretty teen-oriented. Wow. Talk about BAD. The writing is worse than anything I've seen for years. I usually scan through the reviews briefly, or at least look at the overall rating, to see if I'm getting into a cheap, homemade, amateurish piece of garbage. That being said, alot of highly rated movies today turn out to be, well, below average. So, if the general public overwhelmingly feels it's crap, it's usually something I'm not likely to be able to finish. This one I did. Barely. The writers are very obviously NOT professional writers, and possibly not even writing students. The actors are almost as bad.

Like another reviewer said, it's not even so-bad-it's-funny, like you'd see on "MST 3000". Just cheap garbage.

No, ma'am...

[dhannigankrueger · 1/10 · 6 September 2020]

The idea was kind of interesting, and the trailer was catchy.. the two cute guys who weren't playing the game were super nice to look at, but other than that it was a total flop for me. The acting didn't feel believable, the plot wasn't scary or exciting, and I never really found that 'I wonder what's going to happen next' feeling :/

Amazing for the budget

[roscoe666 · 6/10 · 28 November 2023]

Apparently this was a micro-budget film, but it feels like a mid-budget one.

It has an early Brian De Palma feel (right down to the 'Dressed to Kill' reference and intrusive incidental music).

It is quite an achievement for the budget, even if it isn't entirely satisfying, but the pacing is done really well and I didn't find myself pausing during watching to check out Youtube, as I often do these days.

I suspect most negative reviews are from teenagers who think if it isn't The Avengers on a 200 million budget then it isn't worth watching.

It doesn't end ambiguously, like so many films nowadays, and, despite the characters doing stupid things and finding it difficult to get out of a house (!), leaves the viewer satisfied at the end of its short run-time.

I kept on wondering how long it would take the protagonists to be discovered in a British house - probably about five minutes, due to their size!

Bad just bad

[ncarb-62068 · 1/10 · 9 October 2023]

Seeing how the actress "jogged" in the beginning of this movie should have been a clue as to how bad this was going to be. I read some of the bad reviews and thought, "could it really be that bad?" It was. Terrible acting. Terrible plot. It doesn't make any sense at all. Only watch this if you want a nice laugh. I don't have much more to say about how bad this is but there's a required character limit on this so I'll just repeat how bad it is. It really does feel like a student project like someone else wrote. This was pretty bad, I'm almost at that limit but yes pass on this one unless you want to laugh with your significant other or friend.

You have to remember something while watching

[stewdmx · 9/10 · 25 September 2020]

I enjoyed it. Everyone else here is saying how the characters all make dumb decisions and that this ruined it for them. You need to remember this before and while you watch... They have never done this before and have no idea what's going on. They are nervous as hell so their mistakes are amplified.

Cool premise. Little slow.

[welhof1 · 6/10 · 16 January 2024]

Any time a movie has a new and unique plot I'll watch it. I'm tired of the same old thrillers out there. This was different. It was pretty cool.

That all being said, it was just kind of flat. It had a few suspenseful parts but not enough to cover all the hype. Speaking of hype, no way this won or was nominated for as many awards as it was.

I main gripe was that no one would have acted the way they did in the same circumstances.

The plot twist was interesting I guess. It didn't seem forced which I liked. I see that a lot. The ending was pretty abrupt and not that satisfying.

Short movie though if you're looking for a quick thriller!

Ridiculous, Horrible and a waste of my time!

[sarahstamm-94408 · 1/10 · 3 November 2023]

I have watched some pretty bad movies in my life and this monstrosity is in the top 3. It had the potential to be a good movie, I think I could have written it better. It was so bad, I laughed the whole time. What's up with the Macbeth character? Made no sense at all. One minute Macbeth is making popcorn then says he is bringing it to some woman painting her toenails all in the same scene. Macbeth changed in to full on women's clothing and painting his toenails in about 15 seconds. I still have no clue why this character was needed. The cop who lost his son teams up with Macbeth the murderer. He is a known murderer by the police but they just let him chill and roam free. I could go on but it's wasting more time. Also, the guy hiding that dresses in Macbeth's outfit is hilarious and makes no sense. The whole movie is a waste of time. Horrible acting, directing and a waste of a plot that could have been good. My good deed of the day...Don't watch this!

A waste

[tsherrod-74622 · 1/10 · 27 September 2020]

I had high hopes for this movie, but unfortunately it was a dud. Terrible plot line... predictable.... and a waste of time.

A truly stupid film

[iamtherobotman · 2/10 · 31 October 2023]

Less than 30 minutes in and we've already had around a dozen needless occurrences of 'forced drama' for the sake of 'forced drama'.

The Black lad is the most frustrating character. First he manages to get his top caught on a crooked nail at the window the three climb through to gain entry. Neither of the other two came close to this obvious nail, but he managed to find it and get caught for what seemed like an eternity. I somehow feel this nail will be a Chekhov gun and will now play a part nearer the end of the film. Then while they're all hiding in a cupboards and a character who's obviously a cross dresser(though this hasn't been revealed yet) decides to get the vacuum to clean up spilled popcorn another of the bad guys magically managed to spill in yet another forced attempt at adding tension to an otherwise bland film, the other two manage to get out of said cupboard and away before the cross dresser enters the room. The Black guy, for some reason decides to re enter the cupboard and hide, but still sticks his head out a mile while the cross dresser is in there getting the vacuum.

This is one of those films which makes you want to scream, not because of the plot and how horrific the events are, but because of how contrived everything is.

The fact the house is in darkness too is ridiculous. Who walks around their house in the darkness?

I'll watch the rest of this just to see how much more ridiculous it gets.