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54%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #9,742
...out of 20,736 movies
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Three high-school girls on a weekend getaway impulsively take a menacing trespasser captive when he shows up at their remote mountain cabin. Fueled by desperation and alcohol, they endure a long, terrifying night with their captive.
--IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: April 24, 2007
Stop me if you've heard this one before. A trio of girls head up into the Colorado mountains for a weekend getaway consisting of beer, pot, and a couple of scary stories. Surrounded by woods and wilderness, the girls hole up in a cabin and discuss how a couple of girls were savagely murdered just a few miles away from this very spot. Then, nightfall rolls around, and... well, this sounds an awful lot like the setup for a classic eighties slasher flick, doesn't it? That's how this movie begins, but a slasher flick this is not: and that is not a bad thing.
Indeed, the movie picks up with these three girls - the shy, brainy Ruth (Jeanette Brox), the down-to-earth Deb (Megan Henning), and the rebellious, punk-rawk Kate (Ali Humiston) - having themselves a good time in the middle of nowhere. When night rolls around and they're all just a little buzzed from a combination of beer and marijuana, a grizzled man (James Morrison) finds his way up to their porch and attempts to break in. After making a veiled threat ("there's no phones up here") and claiming that he's merely a drifter who has been living in this cabin since nobody has been around, the girls decide to tie him up while they contact the police. The problem? This man was correct in saying that there's no phones here and the car is dead. Not wanting to let him out of their sight due to the fact that he'd come back to kill them if he really was a serial killer, they decide to keep him tied up overnight and figure out what to do in the morning... but will their paranoia and bickering cost them?
The big question throughout the movie revolves around this man and his true motivations for snooping around the cabin: is he telling the truth in saying that he's just a drifter looking for a warm place to sleep, or is he the same guy that murdered those girls a couple of years ago and showing up in an attempt to find himself some new victims? There's evidence to be found supporting both possibilities, but the real story here is the girls and how they handle the situation. Here we have three girls, fresh out of high school and with little experience handling this sort of thing aside from having watched a bunch of horror movies, forced into a situation in which someone could very easily wind up dead. How they handle the situation is actually quite realistic, and the aftermath and consequences of said decision will stick with you for some time.
One thing I should point out about this film is that it's not a fast-paced slasher film, nor is it a spine-tingling thriller featuring crazed killers and scared teenagers. Most of the film takes place inside this cabin and the story is told by way of the four involved parties talking and trying to decide what to do next. This is contrary to the marketing material, and although I'm sure some people will be disappointed due to the false advertising, I was actually much more impressed with the final product that I would have been had it lived up to its claims. I expected Friday the 13th mixed with a touch of Hard Candy; what I got was something along the lines of a modern-day version of Lord of the Flies. Would the former have been acceptable? Sure - after all, I bought into the film with those expectations, so to say that I wouldn't have liked it would be rather silly. However, the unexpected storyline shift turned out to be a whole lot better than it would have been had it stuck to its slasher roots, in my humble opinion.
The actresses playing these parts turn an excellent idea for a film into a must-see event. These three young ladies are destined for big things in the years to come if this film was any indication, as each one of them turned in a damned fine performance. I keep harping on the fact that this film is all about realism, and each of them nailed that mindset to perfection; never does one feel like they're watching a scream queen, a to-be-killed bimbo, or a movie starlet. Each one comes across as a typical American teenager, full of hopes and dreams but little idea as to how they're actually going to achieve them. When thrust into a bad situation, each one reacts exactly as one would expect a teen girl to react, and the end result is one hell of a film.
Well worth the rental or even a purchase, but only if you're a fan of dialogue-based stories that don't rely on guys in hockey masks and huge kitchen knives. Personally, I think realistic settings featuring real people are much more engrossing than traditional horror settings, and this one is about as real as they come. 10/10.
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