*SPOILERS* This comment is probably the first and last one I will ever write on IMDb, but I felt the need to battle back against the grassroots conspiracy that is attempting to make this movie sound good. Simply put, this movie is terrible. The two gushing reviews on IMDb are obvious plants. It is not merely a matter of differing opinions, because there exists no realistic subjective perspective from which this film could be described as "a true Midwestern masterpiece." I wanted to enjoy this film. The DVD box spewed enticing praise like, "a thinking man's horror film" and "beautiful and frightening." There is nothing remotely frightening or thought provoking about this movie, and it left me feeling intentionally deceived. The acting is literally the worst I have ever seen. By the third scene, I found myself craving the performance quality of Sci-Fi originals or Oreo commercials with Eli Manning.
I found it impossible to sympathize with the slouching, whiny, androgynous main character, despite his tragic circumstances. His techniques for portraying a tortured soul mostly consisted of twisting his mouth around and staring downwards. During one of the cutting scenes, I was desperately hoping that the razor would be used to shave that disgusting strip of face-pubes trying to crawl off of his neck onto his face. That patch of facial hair was easily the most disconcerting part of this horror masterwork.
The rest of the characters are basically run-of-the-mill Goths with nasal congestion or speech impediments. Somehow, after meeting him for mere hours, one of them falls deeply in love with our round-shouldered hero, despite the fact that he has absolutely zero redeeming qualities. And then, after 88 agonizingly boring minutes of being mild-mannered and welcoming, the rest of the Goths inexplicably turn into murderous psychopaths, just to facilitate the shocking ending. It felt like someone decided to build a movie around a plot twist, but forgot to include a plot.
All in all, this movie really was awful. I wouldn't have felt the need to write anything about it, though, if I wasn't reading overtly ridiculous things like, "style carries subtle nuances of Kubrick, Polanski and Lynch." It is disrespectful to the audience to so deliberately exaggerate, especially when the comments are written in an elitist tone that suggests anyone who disagrees is a simpleton with a short attention span and poor taste in cinema. It causes everyone involved in the project to lose a lot of credibility, but I guess the movie did that too.
6.5/100
I found it impossible to sympathize with the slouching, whiny, androgynous main character, despite his tragic circumstances. His techniques for portraying a tortured soul mostly consisted of twisting his mouth around and staring downwards. During one of the cutting scenes, I was desperately hoping that the razor would be used to shave that disgusting strip of face-pubes trying to crawl off of his neck onto his face. That patch of facial hair was easily the most disconcerting part of this horror masterwork.
The rest of the characters are basically run-of-the-mill Goths with nasal congestion or speech impediments. Somehow, after meeting him for mere hours, one of them falls deeply in love with our round-shouldered hero, despite the fact that he has absolutely zero redeeming qualities. And then, after 88 agonizingly boring minutes of being mild-mannered and welcoming, the rest of the Goths inexplicably turn into murderous psychopaths, just to facilitate the shocking ending. It felt like someone decided to build a movie around a plot twist, but forgot to include a plot.
All in all, this movie really was awful. I wouldn't have felt the need to write anything about it, though, if I wasn't reading overtly ridiculous things like, "style carries subtle nuances of Kubrick, Polanski and Lynch." It is disrespectful to the audience to so deliberately exaggerate, especially when the comments are written in an elitist tone that suggests anyone who disagrees is a simpleton with a short attention span and poor taste in cinema. It causes everyone involved in the project to lose a lot of credibility, but I guess the movie did that too.
6.5/100