Anytime you see on a horror movie poster or in the movie trailer that it's based on a true story, beware as you might as well drop your expectations at that very moment. As I browsed Tubi for a movie to watch I gotta admit that this movie poster caught my attention. Decent looking protagonist, check. Creepy looking house, check. Massacre in the name, check. I figure with the movie just clocking in under 1 1/2 hours I had nothing to lose.
How many movies have you watched (or at least heard of) where a camping trip in the woods goes awry? That's what Redwood Massacre is. A group of campers are out to party on the 20th anniversary of some gruesome murders at the scene of where it all happened. Or so the legends goes. Slowly but surely the campers start to go missing as they become the prey of a serial killer wearing a scarecrow mask.
I heard someone else refer to this as a Scottish ripoff of Friday the 13th...which I can see. Going into this movie I had no idea it was Scottish, but as soon as you meet the cast you realize it. While I give the movie a thumbs up for being different, the delivery of said actors and actresses falls flat.
In the opening scene of the movie you are introduced to the killer and lots of blood. You have no idea who this is, who he is killing or why he is killing. It's only until 20 (?) minutes into the movie before we get the backstory and this comes after meeting the main cast. The cast included your normal horror movie tropes...the boyfriend, his new girlfriend (who no one else likes), the trashy girl and the "final" girl.
Sitting around a campfire the new girlfriend expands on the legend of the Redwood murders to her fellow campers. This story is also told with cut away flashback scenes. The story goes a farmer started hearing voices and goes mad, killing his wife, daughter and son (who is never shown), but when the authorities arrive the son's grave is empty.
There were a few redeeming qualities I found in this movie.
1) The set was pretty creepy. The house that was used had a cool exterior architecture, was old and run down and the grounds were large and overgrown.
2) I thought the scarecrow mask was done well. The sewing across the eye holes and mouth made the mask look more scary than cheesy.
3) The actor that plays the killer is huge and intimidating looking. His mannerisms, the way he moved were great. At times he really did remind me of Jason Vorhees of Friday the 13th fame. His brooding size, his head quickly turning to look at the camera and his jerky movements were all spot on.
However that is about the only positive things I have to say as the negatives far out weight the positives. For starters, let's address the blood. Notice I didn't say gore because I didn't think this movie was all that gory. Well maybe one scene in the flashback story. The amount of blood used in this movie is up there, but I didn't find that to be a good thing. Now granted I've never taken an axe to a fellow human being, but the amount of blood you see flying through the air during a kill is crazy. So. much. blood. While it looked pretty authentic, it just seemed over the top. This is especially noticeable when the killer punches a few of his victims and you see buckets of blood flowing. Seriously?
The other issue that got on my last nerve was the sound made whenever the killer would pick up a bladed weapon. Whomever was in charge of the sound was having too much fun running blades against each other to create that metallic sound. It didn't matter if the killer was drawing his blade, swinging his weapon or inserting it into a victim, the same sound was used. Argh, I can't tell you how much that bugged me! I just couldn't get past it.
Of all of the movies I've streamed thus far in celebration of Halloween, this was by far the worst. What I thought was going to at least be a decent movie was just ruined by the lack of scares, flat acting, the amount of blood used and of course the over the top metallic sound used. I did see that a sequel is being made and is set to be released sometime in 2020. Why? I have no idea.
In the opening scene of the movie you are introduced to the killer and lots of blood. You have no idea who this is, who he is killing or why he is killing. It's only until 20 (?) minutes into the movie before we get the backstory and this comes after meeting the main cast. The cast included your normal horror movie tropes...the boyfriend, his new girlfriend (who no one else likes), the trashy girl and the "final" girl.
Sitting around a campfire the new girlfriend expands on the legend of the Redwood murders to her fellow campers. This story is also told with cut away flashback scenes. The story goes a farmer started hearing voices and goes mad, killing his wife, daughter and son (who is never shown), but when the authorities arrive the son's grave is empty.
There were a few redeeming qualities I found in this movie.
1) The set was pretty creepy. The house that was used had a cool exterior architecture, was old and run down and the grounds were large and overgrown.
2) I thought the scarecrow mask was done well. The sewing across the eye holes and mouth made the mask look more scary than cheesy.
3) The actor that plays the killer is huge and intimidating looking. His mannerisms, the way he moved were great. At times he really did remind me of Jason Vorhees of Friday the 13th fame. His brooding size, his head quickly turning to look at the camera and his jerky movements were all spot on.
However that is about the only positive things I have to say as the negatives far out weight the positives. For starters, let's address the blood. Notice I didn't say gore because I didn't think this movie was all that gory. Well maybe one scene in the flashback story. The amount of blood used in this movie is up there, but I didn't find that to be a good thing. Now granted I've never taken an axe to a fellow human being, but the amount of blood you see flying through the air during a kill is crazy. So. much. blood. While it looked pretty authentic, it just seemed over the top. This is especially noticeable when the killer punches a few of his victims and you see buckets of blood flowing. Seriously?
The other issue that got on my last nerve was the sound made whenever the killer would pick up a bladed weapon. Whomever was in charge of the sound was having too much fun running blades against each other to create that metallic sound. It didn't matter if the killer was drawing his blade, swinging his weapon or inserting it into a victim, the same sound was used. Argh, I can't tell you how much that bugged me! I just couldn't get past it.
Of all of the movies I've streamed thus far in celebration of Halloween, this was by far the worst. What I thought was going to at least be a decent movie was just ruined by the lack of scares, flat acting, the amount of blood used and of course the over the top metallic sound used. I did see that a sequel is being made and is set to be released sometime in 2020. Why? I have no idea.
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