I don't think I've ever felt so inclined to leave a bad review of a horror movie. I'm very passionate about the genre and in most cases, if a movie is "panned" by critics I usually find that I myself enjoy it, such is the ridiculous bias against the genre by mainstream outlets, so I pay zero attention to the reviews left by others. In this case the movie was panned by critics and by myself to boot, I'm sad to say.
The plot in itself was good and definitely something that under different circumstances could have made for a terrific movie. It was nothing original but it was a simple idea that could have been very effective. However, the acting and to a lesser extent the script completely undermined the premise and made for a very poor movie.
My main gripe is the performance of "Eli" which was nothing less than appalling. Featuring him in the opening scene set the tone for the rest of the movie and made me question the movie very early on. The rest of the cast's performances ranged from poor-acceptable, but I strongly believe that with another portrayal of Eli the film could have too been deemed acceptable. However, such was the portrayal of the main character the movie could not be any better than poor. Without coming across as unnecessarily cruel it was possibly the worst performance that I think I've ever seen and single-handedly sabotaged the film. The responsibility has to fall on the director/producer, whoever that may be, who in addition to leaving in a few less than convincing lines/scenes did not re-cast such an important character.
The camera work was easy on the eye and the budget was capable of backing a good movie, and you would think that with a good idea for a movie there is only a slim chance that it could go wrong. It proved to be the case though as it did go wrong and made for a disappointing 90 minutes.
I wouldn't recommend this to a horror fan unless you are struggling for new movies in the genre to watch. It's not eye-rollingly, mind- numbingly bad by any means but it was definitely disappointing.
