Reviews

I read a lot of reviews here before watching this film, but did anyway. One should heed the bad reviews as you won't get the time spent watching back.

The good reviews said to expect an art film. There are two kinds of art. Good and bad. This is bad art. It reinforces old perceptions without adding different perspective. Good art gives new perception, or new perspective on old perceptions.

Some of the film was okay. Decent suspense at times combined with truly creepy villains, but it gets lost in a sea of badness.

Pretty standard fare with sadistic abductors brutalizing and humiliating the victims, escape attempts, the "games" the villains wish to play (choose the method by which the chosen victim dies, etc.), nothing really to write home about. No real surprises there.

Then, we get to the end. The rewind sequence, the talking-to-the-audience-through-the-camera schtick (DONE TO DEATH!!!!), and the cycle begins anew at the neighbor's house. It all played out like Z-grade exploitation. Watts and Roth's talents are wasted in this film, but I understand they have bills to pay, too.

If you want a slightly more enjoyable and watchable indictment of media violence and celebrity, watch Natural Born Killers or SFW. Neither are great films, but at least they did not try to be "artsy".

I was hopeful when I read the description on Netflix. Haunted hospital or asylum just creeps me out. Too bad the premise has never been done well. This film is no exception. There has to be one that is better than The Sickhouse, Session 9, the remake of House on Haunted Hill, the Attic Expeditions, etc. because they all sucked for myriad reasons. At least "Haunted" had some actually scary moments, not just psychological mishmash and gruesome imagery.

It was too jumpy. Right in the middle of the tension-filled hall-stalk or door-open, the scene cuts and jumps to a map for a few moments and then back to the scene, where nothing happens.

The plague doctor ghost villain was certainly scary in appearance, and his plague-victim ghost minions as well, but more back story was needed to set the mood and really explain things. They were just there and a freaky cult was mentioned. They should have gone more into it. That was actually intriguing and had major scare potential. Instead we get the same stalking villain-and-minions, teenage chavs getting offed (well, that was pretty good) in bizarre ways, and an undeveloped connection between several plague doctor cult killers.

Of course, it had the obligatory sole-survivor-as-reborn-villain-for-sequel setup, too, which just pisses me off. DONE TO DEATH.

I felt insulted by this movie (I hesitate to use the term "film" here). Not only as a movie lover, but as a biker as well.

Far too many clichés. They are all there, too. The RUB (Rich Urban Biker), the hard-drinking tattooed bad-ass, the wannabe bad-ass. Nowhere in sight is the ordinary blue-collar Harley rider such as myself. It even had the obligatory tasteless gay cop jokes.

Plus, the appearance of the cycle-whores from OCC, playing their usual roles, themselves-as-themselves. Please. Haven't we had enough of these two? They have their own show already!

As well, there was the old "trickles of gas from the bad guys' bikes blows up their bar" routine, which, aside from being chemically and mechanically (given the nature of Harley's fuel valves) impossible, has just been done to death. The huge explosion in the action-comedy just seems like a last-ditch effort to save a sinking ship.

Let it go, please. Bikers don't need a worse reputation from movies such as this. Do yourself a favor and rent Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town.