By Geno McGahee
Ok…if you are looking for an original horror movie, then this one is not for you. We have a film here that is heavily influenced by The House of 1000 Corpses, Halloween, and Funhouse, but it is not without its charm. We begin at a theme park featuring a “Dark Ride,” which is one of those carts that travel through a building as scary things jump out at the passengers. Twin girls take this ride and are butchered by a madman wielding a hatchet and wearing a small mask. The park is shut down and this crazy hatchet man is put away into a nuthouse, never to be heard from again…or so we think…
Bill (Patrick Renna) is a nerdy type guy and I think that is in large part due to the time that he spent hanging out with Paulie Shore when he filmed “Son in Law.” He was the kid in Son in Law! Wow, does time fly! So, we have Bill and his group of friends on a trip to New Orleans, but Bill discovers a flyer that the park is opening up their doors again and that it would be a great idea to go there first. They reluctantly agree.
Cathy (Jamie Lynn Discala) is along for the ride trying to see if she can either rekindle the love with her ex-boyfriend, Steve (David Clayton Rogers), or if she can put some closure on the relationship. Her friend, Liz (Jennifer Tidsdale) is also coming a long, but she isn’t going to give Bill any play. I would not be surprised if she said “Go screw Paulie Shore,” at some time in the movie…a line that I obviously missed. There are two other passengers, Jim (Alex Solowitz), a dopey musician and the hitchhiker that they picked up.
The hitcher, Jen (Andrea Bogart), who is dressed remarkably like the character, Baby, in House of 1000 Corpses, and acts much like her when she first enters the van, is a strange addition to this movie, and is really just put in there to add another to the death count…and get her head severed while performing oral sex on somebody. What a way to go! The writer must have read my grandmother’s obituary.
Now this group decides to spend the night in the “Dark Ride,” which is still not officially open. While the group sits around, we learn more of the legend and that the madman has a sibling, which means that one of the passengers isn’t what they seem. Now since we have a group of teenagers or supposed teenagers (Some look in their late 20s for sure), the madman has to escape the mental institution, and he in fact does, and has returned home, and does not take kindly to visitors.
The pace of this movie is pretty slow, but it is interesting, but like I said, this is far from original. I like the fact that they did a throwback slasher film and the effort that they put forth, but they just seemed to use the formula but didn’t really understand it. I was also disappointed because an amusement park is the perfect setting for a horror film and they didn’t use it. They only used that one ride, but I understand that they may not have had the budget to do what would have been best for the film.
In the end, this movie fails, but it is still worth a watch. If you are a slasher fan, you will enjoy this, but don’t look for anything new here.
Scared Stiff Rating: 6.5/10. An average slasher flick borrowing ideas from several other movies.
