Director: Robert Hall
Year: 2009
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Awaking in a strange casket, a young woman learns that she is being targeted by a psychotic killer in a deadly game where she must evade him and survive the night in order to escape, but unaware of the rules, everyone she runs to for help end up targeted by the madman.
Review:
This one was a rather fun and enjoyable slasher that manages to get a lot right with only a few small flaws. The best aspects here come from a great premise, as this comes off as entirely original due to the overall set-up of a woman waking up in a casket with no memory to find a serial killer is after her and everyone she comes into contact with, which is quite the impressive and unique effort. Besides being original, this set-up brings about a rather frantic slasher starting point so it's got plenty of action from lots of confrontations with the killer that are actually fun. The opening which sets up the rules of the game with some great stalking is fun enough, while the funeral home encounter that leads into the great escape into the foggy woods, the stalking of the couple in the car where he stalks them through the woods and the police station ambush with the fantastic stalking in the hallways make this one quite thrilling with plenty of enticing action-packed confrontations.
As well, there are two absolutely fantastic sequences here that make this one quite fun as the stalking in the killer's lair comes off incredibly well as the walk-through of the dirty, grimy location armed with torture devices, preparations for more games and the numerous coffins gives this a great location, the brawling with the drills among the coffins is quite fun and a few memorable suspense scenes thrown in gives this a wholly appropriate showcase sequence. There's also a fantastic finale in the convenience store using the text messages as a great set-up, the continuous black-out stalking being incredibly chilling while making good use of the surroundings in the brawls with some fine ingenuity in the final resolution against the killer to escape which comes off really well. With some fantastic kills resulting in some great gore and a fantastic, intimidating mask for the killer, these are all wrapped together into a fun time.
While there's a lot to like here, there are a few flaws here. The biggest here was a kill-less middle section filled with way too much stupidity displayed by everyone simply to stay in danger. This comes about either through continually trying to return to her car that the killer can control or going into the killer's laid alone, or by the fact that a lot of confrontations don't end with kills as it features him fiddling with his tapes instead of going after them which leaves a pretty long stretch with very few kills. The other problem here is the lack of motive mentioned throughout here, as her being targeted is a complete mystery beyond simply having a thing for hookers as targets but that doesn’t excuse why he continually lets her go after catching her, merely drugging her to escape once again. Still, these aren't really that detrimental to this one and it was a lot of fun.
Overview: ***.5/5
A solid and highly enjoyable slasher that does have a few minor mistakes here and there that hold it back, this is still far more enjoyable than expected and has a lot to like about it. Give this one a look if you’re a fan of modern genre slashers or of this style in general, while those that look for more than just brutal, over-the-top kills might want to heed caution with this one.
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