Rating: C-
Dir: Declan O’Brien
Star: Camilla Arfwedson, Doug Bradley, Simon Ginty, Roxanne McKee
After the pleasant surprise which was the fourth installment, this was disappointing. Instead of the rural inbreds being the main threat, they have now moved back to be with their father Maynard (Bradley), who keeps them in check, and monitors their cannibalistic and murderous activities. This film coincides with the Mountain Man Festival, a music event that draws a large number of young people from all across the country – or, as the cannibals call it, “a buffet.” After a failed attack on one group, Maynard ends up in jail, under the local sheriff (Arfwedson), but safe in the knowledge that his family will come and get him out.
Alongside him is one of the kids, as the result of a stash of drugs they had, so his friends keeping popping in, with the rest of the town (and all the other cops) apparently off at the festival. That leaves it wide open for a cannibal assault – and they demonstrate a surprising awareness of technology, being able to take out the mobile phone service and disable the power station. Ok, I wasn’t exactly expecting logic or coherence, but this was still pretty disappointing, coming off as a slasher version of Assault on Precinct 13. without any significant suspense or elements of interest to be found in the characters or proceedings.
Bradley chews the scenery with a wobbly American accents from inside his cell, and that’s about all you’ve got to tide you over between the kills. Admittedly, some of those are pretty impressive – the combine harvester on a football pitch was a particular favourite – but even compared to other “death porn” franchises (hello, the Final Destination series), the victims are flimsy. In lieu of that, O’Brien seems to have jacked up the nudity quotient to compensate: if I was one-third my age, I’d probably be a lot more impressed. It’s just fortunate this was seen the same week as the really bad Nine Lives: probably makes this seem a lot better in comparison.
[Random aside. Was scoping out some reviews around the ‘Net, and noticed that in the comments on these, exactly the same sentence kept cropping up: “I heard about this movie from a coworker at DISH who recommended it for Halloween. It seemed appropriate so I added it to my Blockbuster @Home queue, and it came in the mail today.” This would seem like random comment spam by Fox Home Video, except that the rest of the comment – apparently all by “Chris Baron”, or a similar name – does vary wildly in tone. In one place, for instance, he says: “This movie is so bad that I think that the straight to DVD release was too good for it.” But then, elsewhere, he says, “You can tell that Dcclan O’Brien is a true fan of the slasher genre, and I think that his earnest devotion to the genre is what makes this film work.” Chris Baron needs to make his fucking mind up, I think, when spamming comments.]