Back of Box: A
group of high school students are sent to after-school Detention for unexplained reasons. There, the teenagers find themselves
abandoned and locked in the classroom after their detention teacher leaves, then mysteriously disappears. With
night slowly approaching, a thunder storm builds outside. The heavy rain and lightning cause a massive power failure
throwing the school into total darkness. Then, strange, haunting images of Ghosts begin to appear in the school.
The kids manage to break out of the classroom only to find that the old building has taken on a life of its own, keeping them
trapped inside. As they struggle to escape, the teenagers learn about the death of a student back in the 1970's.
Slowly, they unravel the history of this tragedy and that they are somehow connected to the student's macabre and untimely
death. They will also soon find out that they are being held responsible for this horrific event of the past, and
will pay for it with their lives!
Plot: A good
way to describe this film is A Nightmare on Elm Street meets The Breakfast Club...with a hint of Friday
the 13th. Personally, it's not a bad thing. In fact, I love all three of those films so the mixture
works for me. There are a few things that end up unresolved, but the twists kept me wildly entertained so
I tried my best to overlook those things.
Acting: R.I.P. David
Carradine. You know, for a film not really presenting anything new I give it a lot of credit here. Every
single character in this film is a complete stereotype but somehow manages to be absolutely mesmerizing. I'm not
going to name everyone (Because I seriously love every member of this film's cast), but I will tell you that my favorite
was the Goth, Sara (Zelda Williams).
Gore: Body Count (9)
A decent body count, but a complete lack of the red stuff. A sword impalement and a back stabbing rank as the top two
deaths in this film and they just didn't do it for me. There was a pretty legit (Mildly CGI) finger severing,
but it fell in with one of those unresolved moments and ultimately didn't help the body count or the film.
Suspense: I must admit,
this film was pretty creepy. This fact is made all the more enjoyable because none of those creeps were
induced by "jump scare" tactics. The creeps in this film are produced by subtle supernatural occurrences and
that equals major brownie points in my book. The suspense here greatly makes up for the gore factor.
Directing: The shots
were set up nicely and well done. I noticed that there were a lot of zoom tricks and I liked them (Oddly
enough). There was one slow, lurking zoom-in shot that got repeatedly used that was sort of hit or miss for me,
but other than that I really dug Hickox's style.
Tech: The soundtrack
was fun and fresh, although a touch loud every now and then. The sound worked. The loud was a little loud and
the audio lagged a little bit, but I've seen a lot worse. Near the beginning of the film the lighting was a little bright,
not washed out, just brighter than you would expect a horror film to be. However, when the action kicks in the shadows
start working overtime and we even get a little orange and blue action. The tech was definitely an overall pleasurable
experience.
Other: As I said above
the twists kept me wildly entertained. I like going into a film not knowing who the killer is, but when I get multiple
mystery killers I feel like a kid in a candy store. I also like the cover art, it's semi-unrelated to the actual film
(Because it's not a straight forward "teeny-bopper" slasher flick), but I like it anyway.
Final Word: Fans of new age B-movie, supernatural,
slasher fare should definitely dig this film. Again, if you're looking for gore, look elsewhere. However, if you're
looking for a few chills and a cast you don't want to off yourself, then you should definitely check this one out.
