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i wasn't sure i wanted to watch this film when i did...monster squad seemed a little to 80's comedy and it was the only other film i had sitting around. so i actually read some reviews of the film. they ranged from "worst excuse for a student film" to "genius new horror movie" and you can bet your popcorn neither is true, but there was very little reviews that took a midground view. so what was i to think....stick it in and watch...i was curious if nothing else.
a st louis made film...interesting to me at least...but also may mean its basement quality filming. and straight from the start theres clear evidence of that. the sound throughout the film is bad. audible enough most of the time and when its not its nothing vastly important. but really the sound could have used a lot of work. the filming effects which equal every trick in the box of film possible over and over again....in the end it works for this film although its clearly masking some of the finer points of filmmaking.
acting is not all bad but almost entirely poor. many scenes lack the emotional aspect to the words being spoken...obviously not many retakes done here. but for a B film its far from annoying, just not good.
the story starts out with a long long long long overdubbed prologue scene of a voice speaking to a woman that just committed suicide, although to its credit it spells out the purpose of the rest of the film without being to confusing or overly heavy handed. and without that scene a lot of the movie would've made no sense or would have had to been added as dialog that would've weighed the script down and delivered by these actors would've doomed this film entirely. so it serves its purpose.
theres nothing terribly new here as far as the concept goes. 6 people are brought to a dimension to be tortured for their souls by its single "wizard" inhabitant. demons and angels want the wizard dead and so they use the suicide woman to infiltrate the arrival of new victims. she's given a vague mission to get the wizard to remember he was once human so they can get through the "ice from the sun" that surrounds his planet/dimension.
so some torture ensues (mostly of the live your fear sort) and its pretty good all in all. not scary but fairly gory. and for a no budget film fairly convincing most the time.
the end result is a film that kept me interested throughout, is of course not perfect but remains above par and unique throughout, uses a lot of film tricks which seem to make the movie at time more like a music video (like the long title sequence), and ultimately doesn't make any fatal errors. i wish there was more budget, better actors, and less "tricks" but in the end these guys should be proud of this effort.
ps i have no idea why almost everyone in this movie is dressed like they stepped out of the early 80's....it was filmed in the late 90's (nearly 2000). what was that about?
6/10
