Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3.0 out of 5 stars
CLICHED SLASHER WITH A SLOW BUILD UP, 27 Sep 2007
Going away for Halloween weekend, Mike Hawthorne, (Gordon Currie) and his friends Peg, (Stacy Grant) Chris, (Myc Agnew) Jennifer, (Emmanuelle Vaugier) Lisa Ann, (Kelly Benson) and Ned, (Brendon Beiser) arrive at his grandmother Mams, (Betsy Palmer) farm. When Mitch Maldive, (Phillip Rhys) and Trish, (Rachel Hayward) show up afterwards, he reveals to his friends that he wants them to participate in a ceremony that will eliminate their fears. This makes them all skeptical, and the doll used in the ceremony, Morty, is too much for Mike to deal with. When they start the game, they start to die mysteriously, and upon discovering the culprit, are forced to deal with their deepest fears to make it out alive.
The Good News: There isn't a whole lot of good things here, and the few good moments there are here belong mostly to the dummy, Morty. He still looks downright creepy, as the wooden body looks harder with a more menacing tone to it. From the first time we see it, there's an uncanny look to him, where we know that it's going to wreck some considerable damage when it comes to life simply by it's appearance. A lot of suspense is wrung out of him, and is undoubtedly the best feature of the movie. The other part that was pretty nice to see was the final confrontation, as it's finally revealed who's been doing the killing and it's an all-out war to stop him. That allows for some brilliant set-pieces, such as the one person afraid of making a decision ending up being tied to a burning car with an ax and forced to escape before the car escapes. It's a marvelously ironic scene and it's handled in the most appropriate way. The chases are pretty fun to see, and it manages to play out the traditional slasher film style, enabling some really fun scenes. With a fiery climax that really sends it out on a high, these are the few good parts of the movie.
The Bad News: With such few good things about it, there's some things really wrong with this one. One of the biggest is that it just simply goes nowhere for the first forty-five minutes, which is way too long a time to simply stand around and talk. That's what's mostly in the first half of the movie, simply nothing but talking. It's an incredibly excruciating time when nothing happens, and there's the constant threat of something happening but it's all for naught. That most of the time it's spent with people blathering on about their personal lives and not about what's important to the plot, there is indeed a large amount of time simply looking around waiting for the characters to do something interesting. The fact that Morty has been changed into a wise-cracking killer isn't all that good of a move, leaving him to be simply laughed at. He's physically imposing, but that the aura of mystery is removed, he's left a clichéd killer. That he doesn't really do all that much in the way of damage to the characters is also strange, as just about every kill is off-screen. That really lowers the film there, losing blood and gore from the film that's already slow and boring. It's a terrible offense and really doesn't bode well for the film. There's a couple other little factors at work against the film, but these here are the most damaging.
The Final Verdict: While not at all a really bad film, it just suffers from being too slow before it gets going. It's still a half-way decent, but it's nowhere near the top, or even the middle ground of these kinds of movies, and is really only recommended to slasher purists or fans of the first one.
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