Overall: C
Acting: C
Writing: C
Story: C
Technical
aspects: C
Effects: C+
Directed by:
Ryan Little
Starring:
Corri English
Sandra McCoy
Michael J. Pagan
Corey Sevier
Alice Greczyn
Eliot Benjamin
The best way to describe this movie
is probably just “average.” It’s a pretty basic curses-killing-teens-type
movie. We start off in Africa, where a woman is apparently intending to make a
purchase from an archaeological dig. They arrive, her guide discovers that
everyone has been killed, she grabs
the Mysterious Evil Statue they unearthed, and in the interest of getting out,
the guide says she can keep it.
Then back in America, we see a
security guard doing a patrol of “The House of Fears”, a haunted house
attraction. His dog companion freaks out about something, and they go to
investigate. Of course, it’s the Mysterious Evil Statue, which proceeds to
cause the dog to attack him.
Meanwhile, six high school kids are
at a party dealing with some stock teenage drama. Hailey (Sandra McCoy) is
angry that her father has remarried and hates her new stepsister Samantha
(Corri English,) and is interested in Carter (Corey Sevier) who only has an
on-and-off relationship with her, and… oh man, it is so hard to care much about
any of these people and their stock teenage drama… But okay, Carter’s friend
Zane (Eliot Benjamin) is into a girl named Candice (Alice Greczyn) and intends
to invite her to the haunted house where he works. But she only wants to go
with her boyfriend Devon (Michael J. Pagan.) (Can’t keep all the characters
straight? That’s okay, most of the audience can’t either!)
Well, the six of them sneak into
“House of Fears” where Zane works, and start their way through the “nine fears”
that the house is supposedly built around – things like ghosts, death, spiders,
the dark, etc. I’ll admit that the house itself looks pretty cool – it’s a
haunted house I’d probably enjoy going through in real life.
But of course, because it’s a
horror movie, the Mysterious Evil Statue exerts its power to literally bring
individual’s worst fears to life, and starts killing off the teens one by one,
as they’re forced to go progressively deeper into the house in hopes of escape.
It’s really hard to say anything
about the movie except that it is just so painfully average. It isn’t bad, but
it’s not especially good either. The acting is nothing special, but it’s all
right. The story itself is basic, and it works to the extent that it has to. It’s
a silly premise for sure, but doesn't require much more suspension of disbelief than half the
horror films out there. The setting is nice enough, and
like I said above, I can see this haunted house being fun to go through. But
watching other people go through it? Eh, not as exciting, even if we do get to
watch them die.
The effects are pretty good; again not spectacular, but
not relying solely on CGI. That’s what pushes the effects category into C+
territory for me - I have pretty low tolerance for bad computer
generated effects, but I love seeing more “traditional” effects with props and
makeup and the like.
It’s lacking in the sexuality and gore that a lot of teen
scream type movies have, which may be either a deterrent or a draw depending on
your position.
I can say that this could be a fun
movie to watch around Halloween or with a group of friends, but it certainly
isn’t particularly stand-out.
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