Dir. Tony Giglio, US, 2007, 100 mins
Cast: Josh Randall, Brianna Brown, Beth Broderick
Review by Carol Allen
Your heart may well
sink at the thought of yet another "young people being kidnapped by wierdo
hillbillies in West Virginia" movie. But while no masterpiece,
this is better than most, in that it has a bit more originality
in the storyline than you usually get.
Randall and Brown play young city couple
Mike and Sheryl on a supposedly peaceful and healthy camping
weekend in the West Virginia mountains.Their first night
is marred when a group of local young redneck hooligans threaten
them, when they discover the couple making out in the woods.
So when next morning Mike discovers that Sheryl is missing,
he thinks they must be behind her disappearance. But beware,
young man, that gentle God fearing woman Ida (Broderick),
who gave you directions earlier on. Did you notice her disapproval,
when she noticed Sheryl wasn't wearing a wedding ring? And
she may be binding your wounds now, but wait till you find
out what's in the cellar. Without wanting to spoil it for
you, it involves some very weird preserves, a man with a
horribly disfigured face, a creepy distortion of Christian
teaching and a bizarre plot to give a childless couple the
baby they desperately crave.
The plastically good looking Mike
and Sheryl are a bit of a pain, particularly Mike, who
is irritatingly rude and tactless, which mitigates against
our sympathy for him. But the film lays on some good moments
to make you jump out of your skin, as in the first appearance
of Ida's disfigured brother, the red herrings are well
laid in terms of the young hooligans and Broderick as the
sweetly gentle and very scary Ida is very good indeed.
She was apparently in the television hit "Lost".
Did anyone spot her? The film's also horribly violent, sadistic
and somewhat sickening at times in the scenes, where Mike
and Sheryl are being tortured and the climax is real over
the top blood and gore - but that's the sort of film it is
and that's what its audience expects. And for what it is,
it's slickly and briskly directed by Giglio.
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