Director: Mark Polonia
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Years after a tragic accident, a theme park owner decides to reopen a beloved attraction with the help of workers on a work-release program to get it back into operational state, but the more they stay there come to believe the creatures are alive and hunting them one by one.
Review:
This was a fairly fun and likable genre effort. Among the better elements present in this one is the wholly charming old-school style setup involving how the group is brought into contact with the creations. Under the guise of a prison work-release program helping to prepare for the new season, bringing the attraction to life, the prisoners come together to help pick up discarded items and litter, reorganize trash, and set up more decorations around the facility. It works rather well at bringing them together to interact with the owner and his creations. Fueled rather nicely by the history of the location and what happened there from the news reports or other rumors that come about involving the accidental deaths, attraction malfunctions, and other incidents, the idea of what’s going on at the location has a fun, worthwhile starting place for the later encounters.
Once it’s been established that there’s something off about the mechanical beings in the park and what really happened years ago, this one generates some decent enough encounters and confrontations. The opening recreation of the incident at the park involving the reporter wandering through the crime scene, videotaping everything that comes across the creatures, and mistaking them for props before the final blow sets up a great starting point, much like the later scene of the escaping convict who comes across them in the middle of their plans. The big confrontation in the finale, where they finally get to battle against the animatronic creations stalking around the compound, with a series of encounters where each of the animatronic robots attacks the survivors, which leads to some intriguing scenes involving the fight to get away. It’s all cheesy and low-budget, but still remains fun enough to be enjoyable and gives this some likable factors.
There are some issues here that bring it down. The main drawback to the film is the rather slack and lethargic pacing that spends more time discussing the group hanging out around the old attraction or complaining about their luck being stuck in the situation than anything else. With the lack of genuine encounters kept until the finale, far more of what’s going on here is spent on the human interactions setting up their personal conflicts with each other, rather than featuring the monsters hunting them down, which can leave this one feeling dry and dull for long sections of the running time. With so much of their operations a mystery, from how they came to life, why they’re attacking the group, or even viable methods of fighting back against them, resorting to dumb luck, it leaves them a bit mysterious as to how it all comes together to suit the whims of the scene in question. All combined with the obvious cheap production and feel of everything, these all hold the film down overall.
Overview: **.5/5
A solid enough if somewhat underwhelming indie effort, this one has enough going for it to be somewhat watchable, although the slew of issues here does have a big impact, lowering it overall. Those with an appreciation for this type of genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will want to give it a shot, while most others out there should avoid this one.
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