A bachelorette party turns deadly when a chemical reaction overtakes a valley, but being indoors could be just as deadly as being outside.A bachelorette party turns deadly when a chemical reaction overtakes a valley, but being indoors could be just as deadly as being outside.A bachelorette party turns deadly when a chemical reaction overtakes a valley, but being indoors could be just as deadly as being outside.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe movie takes place in Sinclair Valley, a nod to the writer of the movie, Dan Sinclair.
- ConnectionsReferenced in The 50 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen (2014)
Featured review
Sticky, sick, and absolutely riveting
You know you have a good horror movie on your hands when you find yourself talking to the television: "No, no, don't go in there!" "Don't do that, short-hair girl! You'll die!" Haha... Well, that was me at about 1 AM yesterday with the movie "Chemical Peel" (2014). This film gave this horror movie veteran serious heebie-jeebies, which is not an easy feat.
It starts with a group of 20-something women getting together at a cabin-like house out in the woods for a bachelorette party. They're all friends, but there's some friction due to a tragic accident a few years prior where the younger sister of two of the girls got killed. That particular bit of drama fades into the background when the following morning, they find their cabin surrounded by a bad-smelling mist and a lot of dead birds. They soon discover that a deadly chemical spill happened in the area, and the fumes have settled in the valley. The girls are trapped together in a house that is *not* meant to shield them from a disaster of this sort, and a combination of bad luck and tragic character flaws soon make the situation go from bad to cataclysmic.
"Chemical Peel" borrows a LOT from "Cabin Fever" (2002) in terms of both its setting and the source of its horror: being trapped alone with friends who start to turn on you when a contagion or chemical starts to make your very body peel and rot away. It's an incredibly effective and gut-churning brand of body horror, and this movie has plenty of moments to make you wince or squirm. "Peel" has a leg-up as a horror experience on "Fever" in one respect, which is that it avoids the trips into almost comedic bizarro-land that "Fever" explored in its finale. The tension is palpable, the cast is great, and you just feel *bad* for these girls. The film is honestly also a tragedy in the classic sense, in that certain character flaws are crucial to causing the chain of events that unfolds.
There were really only two nitpicks I had about the film. One was that there's a certain character who is a stereotypical "mean girl" to an almost caricatured degree. Anything bad she does, you're honestly expecting after a point. Having her be a bit more nuanced would have made any of her betrayals feel a bit more shocking. I also thought the last 30 seconds of the movie, pre-credits, were a major misstep. Without spoiling anything, the film accomplishes something akin to a jump-scare, but it does so at the cost of likely severely undermining the satisfying personal growth of one of the characters we watched during the movie. You'll get what I mean if you watch it.
Anyway, if you're looking to be genuinely scared or grossed-out, this one gets my seal of approval. "Chemical Peel" is a claustrophobic nightmare that works in large part because it presents a horrific event that *could* actually happen, given the right set of Murphy's Law developments. Not for the squeamish, though.
It starts with a group of 20-something women getting together at a cabin-like house out in the woods for a bachelorette party. They're all friends, but there's some friction due to a tragic accident a few years prior where the younger sister of two of the girls got killed. That particular bit of drama fades into the background when the following morning, they find their cabin surrounded by a bad-smelling mist and a lot of dead birds. They soon discover that a deadly chemical spill happened in the area, and the fumes have settled in the valley. The girls are trapped together in a house that is *not* meant to shield them from a disaster of this sort, and a combination of bad luck and tragic character flaws soon make the situation go from bad to cataclysmic.
"Chemical Peel" borrows a LOT from "Cabin Fever" (2002) in terms of both its setting and the source of its horror: being trapped alone with friends who start to turn on you when a contagion or chemical starts to make your very body peel and rot away. It's an incredibly effective and gut-churning brand of body horror, and this movie has plenty of moments to make you wince or squirm. "Peel" has a leg-up as a horror experience on "Fever" in one respect, which is that it avoids the trips into almost comedic bizarro-land that "Fever" explored in its finale. The tension is palpable, the cast is great, and you just feel *bad* for these girls. The film is honestly also a tragedy in the classic sense, in that certain character flaws are crucial to causing the chain of events that unfolds.
There were really only two nitpicks I had about the film. One was that there's a certain character who is a stereotypical "mean girl" to an almost caricatured degree. Anything bad she does, you're honestly expecting after a point. Having her be a bit more nuanced would have made any of her betrayals feel a bit more shocking. I also thought the last 30 seconds of the movie, pre-credits, were a major misstep. Without spoiling anything, the film accomplishes something akin to a jump-scare, but it does so at the cost of likely severely undermining the satisfying personal growth of one of the characters we watched during the movie. You'll get what I mean if you watch it.
Anyway, if you're looking to be genuinely scared or grossed-out, this one gets my seal of approval. "Chemical Peel" is a claustrophobic nightmare that works in large part because it presents a horrific event that *could* actually happen, given the right set of Murphy's Law developments. Not for the squeamish, though.
helpful•01
- jhausler3
- Apr 22, 2022
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $20,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 35 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39:1
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