MAY 12, 2011
GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
The account of Savage County kind of baffles me.I say that it was a web series, but the film itself doesn`t make that kind of "broken up" feel to it that you`d expect from a film that was originally a lot of 10 minute segments.And it apparently involved some form of "You Need It!
type contest, but were there other movie/web series it was competing against?Was there another crappy horror movie left in the dust because it didn`t make enough votes from the lunkheads that watch MTV?
At any rate, it premiered on MTV2 (remember when that was the one that actually aired videos?Is there an MTV3 now or something?), but this DVD edition is unrated with the bloodshed that they couldn`t show on TV (there`s also an f-bomb or two, but I don`t acknowledge what MTV`s rules are for such things; it premiered at 11pm), making it - theoretically - the best way to watch the movie.But there`s not actually a salutary way to see this movie, because it`s pretty lousy.In fact I`d argue it was probably better on MTV, because then you`d get commercials to go up the monotony, and the want of any real gore would be more understandable.
The game is a boring blend of Wrong Turn/Texas Chain Saw style "backwoods types kill our heroes who were poking around where they shouldn`t" plotting with a minor blend of I Know What You Did Last Summer, albeit nowhere near as consistent as that movie (yes, I am saying that comparatively, IKWYDLS was more consistent than this - should leave you an estimate of how stupid it is).In that movie, they killed a guy on accident but the driver was drunk and they all had things to lose (scholarships and the like), so the cover-up in an act of panic made some sense.Here, they knock a redneck over the brain with a digger in ego defense, as he is attempting to take them.I believe the cops would understand, right?Well, they all just run out and resolve not to say anything, a plan that lasts about 2 hours.Then they determine to say the cops anyway, which makes their situation worsened because - surprise! - the sheriff is in cahoots with the rednecks.Only person who has never seen one of these movies before wouldn`t see that coming!
...is something I might say if one of the rednecks doesn`t say in the first scene, when the obligatory opening scene victim pleads for her lifetime and says "I won`t tell the cops", "The cops already know!".So not but is this "twist" never yet given a risk to surprise anyone, but the picture also kills what could have been the only interesting thing around the movie - maybe these guys were just law abiding backwoods folk and are just taking out the kids in revenge for what they `dun` to their kin. But since they`re killing random teens right from the start, the whole "revenge" concept is pointless; they would get killed our heroes just for existence in the area.
It`s also yet another horror film in which our main group seemingly has no actual stake in hanging out.Apparently to make certain they catered to all possible MTV demographics, we get an almost laughably generic group of stereotypes: the jock, the AV nerd, the punk, the goth, the prom queen, the cheerleader, and the valedictorian.If this is Breakfast Club and they`re forced to hang out because of detention, fine - but they all but need a road trip together, strung together by the loosest possible excuses (the jock needs the AV nerd`s help to cut a video, and said AV nerd is buying pot from the punk, who is dating the cheerleader and is foster brother to the goth. etc). Needless to say, most of them don`t really like any of the others, and spend most of the movie bickering and jeering one another.I truly don`t see the want to make such a stereotypical group (an oft-mocked selection at that); I use Halloween all the meter so let`s go with Friday the thirteenth to offer an example.Now, while they all had their little differences, they weren`t really pigeonholed; it`s not like Brenda was "the brain" (she was the one who wanted pot! or Jack was "the jock" - I`d argue he was nearly as lots of a set back funny guy as Ned, the requisite nerd who unlike most "nerd" characters (including the ones in the later F13 movies) wasn`t depicted as a despicable, virgin whiner who no one else liked.They were believable as friends - why is it seemingly so hard for modern horror filmmakers to do the like form of thing with THEIR characters?As hateful and vexation as the girls were in Five Across The Eyes, at least it made sense that they were all together.
If I can leave it some credit, they don`t have anyone besides the last girl too obvious as a survivor or victim, and it wasn`t easy to peg the place in which they died either.Final Girl`s boyfriend bought it much sooner than I would have guessed, and the peasant girl almost looked like she`d survive the whole thing, only to meet the movie`s most interesting death near the end.The rednecks (who seem to be smarter than our heroes, actually) have a big vat of zen that they use to resolve the corpse of their victims and therefore determine their chances of getting caught, and naturally, one of them ends up winning a tub in it himself for some poetic justice (or any the dumbed down MTV version of poetical justice is).So that was tolerant of obvious, but then with his last bit of spirit he reaches up and pulls Goth Talk into the vat with him, which is equally hilarious and nasty.
The real ending is a total slap in the case though (uh, spoilers, I guess - you really shouldn`t care though), as not alone does the guy who killed the redneck and therefore more or less set off the whole range of events (again, there is naught to show that the rednecks wouldn`t have simply killed them anyway) not get his just desserts, but Final Girl just leaves him behind!He`s a bit hurt and tells her to go on, and she does, saying "I`ll send assistance for you!", but so she is found lying by the face of the route the following morning and picked up by an ambulance.She doesn`t mention the guy at all as the ambulance takes off, and so the film just ends.No final scare, no answer to the jock`s fate, and surely no return for all the web media nonsense that kept getting clunkily inserted in the narrative (the jock`s girlfriend has a web series of some sort).
But really, none of this matters, because the image simply doesn`t make sense from the land up.You can`t do one of these Wrong Turn/Hostel type movies with the basic cable restrictions.Even in this "unrated" form, it`s clearly designed for a "TV MA" audience, not a real R rating, so while certainly more vivid than you see on 24 or whatever, the deaths still are laughably tame compared to the movies it`s ripping off.And the generic story has just been done to death, resulting in a wholly suspense-free affair where still the most minute aspects of the narrative have been done elsewhere, and better (did I note the heroine is also pregnant?).
In a way it reminds me of the games that fall out when a new game system launches (called "launch titles").The Xbox 360 for example; when it launched in 2005, most of the games that were available were just franchise titles with prettier graphics (i.e. a new Name of Duty, new Madden, etc), and none of the games really had lots of a permanent impression. The cause is, the game developers hadn`t yet completed the total potential of the new hardware, and were mostly just trying to have eye-catching, "easy-sell" type stuff to get folks on board with a new system.And thus, I could almost forgive this movie for being so shitty if it was the beginning one they had done, because they were new to the filmmaking game and hadn`t quite figured out what they were doing.But alas, there is My Super Psycho Sweet 16, which came on a twelvemonth before this thing.Now, Sweet 16 is not a perfect film, but it was a lot better than I expected, and delivered a pretty decent slasher movie that also delivered what an MTV audience "demanded" (i.e. pretty, vapid characters, a disposable soundtrack, etc) - a good blend for both fanbases, in other words.So if they were able to get it more or less right the 1st time around, there`s no apology for putting together something so damn lousy on their followup.
The only extra on the disk is the trailer.For that I thank them.
What say you?
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