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43%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #18,952
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Taking quite a few pages from Halloween and a paragraph or two from Friday The 13th, The Spook Movie takes place on a tiny Georgia island where we discover that there has been a breach in security at the local asylum. Numerous inmates have escaped, but the one that we're going to focus on here is Quentin Rodriques, aka The Spook. Our good pal Spook, as it turns out, grew up as a loner child who couldn't swim very well, and one summer day, he just so happened to get pushed into the lake by a couple of bullies. He didn't drown and return to don the hockey mask, however: no, he got bit on the face by a water moccasin, which led to his face becoming massively deformed. Needless to say, this did nothing to help his outcast status. He would eventually go on a murderous rampage throughout the town, which led to his incarceration at the mental asylum for fifteen years, and all was good in this sleepy little town... until he escaped and headed for that lake, the only home that he has ever known.
--Submitted
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Review by Chad
Added: February 23, 2010
David Daze is one of those guys who wastes no time in pumping out movie after movie, and unlike some of his peers, he's not content to stick to any one genre: thus far, I have seen his take on the martial arts film as well as the tried and true crime thriller. This is saying nothing about the numerous films that he has in production, films that range from horror to sci-fi to western to family fare. Tonight's film, however, finds Daze taking a stab at one of my personal favorite genres: the blood and boobs slasher made famous by eighties fare such as... well, we'll get to that.
Taking quite a few pages from Halloween and a paragraph or two from Friday The 13th, The Spook Movie takes place on a tiny Georgia island where we discover that there has been a breach in security at the local asylum. Numerous inmates have escaped, but the one that we're going to focus on here is Quentin Rodriques, aka The Spook (Warren Hogan). Our good pal Spook, as it turns out, grew up as a loner child who couldn't swim very well, and one summer day, he just so happened to get pushed into the lake by a couple of bullies. He didn't drown and return to don the hockey mask, however: no, he got bit on the face by a water moccasin, which led to his face becoming massively deformed. Needless to say, this did nothing to help his outcast status. He would eventually go on a murderous rampage throughout the town, which led to his incarceration at the mental asylum for fifteen years, and all was good in this sleepy little town... until he escaped and headed for that lake, the only home that he has ever known.
Oh, did I mention that a group of teens are having a weekend getaway at a house right by this little lake? Did I also forget to mention that the authorities are staking out the surrounding land in case Quentin decides to show up? Do I really need to point out that lots of horny and drunk teens plus a handful of bumbling cops combined with a savage serial killer equals lots of mindless violence?
If you missed the subtle references to the classics, a quick scan of the credits will clue you in to the fact that the filmmakers were trying to give the nod to every horror icon imaginable. We have Micheal Mayers, Jason Vohees, Freddy Kriger, and Norman Blates just to name a few (don't blame me, that is how those names are spelled in the credits). With the exception of the scene in which we are introduced to Michael ("Hi, I'm Micheal Mayers." "Nice to meet you, Micheal Mayers. How's it going, Micheal Mayers? So you own this place, Micheal Mayers?"), it never gets too blatant throughout the film: the names are there and the plot sounds a little familiar, but it's not another case of the filmmakers trying to beat you over the head with their "witty" references.
One positive thing that I can say about the film is that there are a lot of kills to be seen. As a slasher fan, this was a very good thing, and while some of the kills are rather bland (a snapped neck coupled with a sound effect of a branch being broken in half), some of them were quite good. I was particularly fond of the kill involving a machete through the back of the skull, out the mouth, and into a tree, and let's not forget the Johnny Cage uppercut that literally knocks a man's head off of his shoulders. The "blood" end of the spectrum is handled quite nicely, and the "babes" side is represented as well... sort of, anyway. Sleaze fans may be disappointed to see that there is no actual nudity here, but there's something like five women in the cast who spend the entire movie in skimpy bikinis. Not quite the lesbian shower scenes that the eighties gave us, but it's something.
Now, on to the negative. There are some glaring issues with the editing, with some scenes feeling like they're missing half of the conversation. For example, one scene finds a jogger stopping to talk with the sheriff. It starts out with casual chit-chat: "How are you doing", "How's the weather", that sort of thing. A quick cut occurs, and then the jogger is wishing the sheriff good luck in his quest to find the killer. Wait, what? I know there's a killer on the prowl and one of those characters knew there was a killer out there, but the jogger? That came out of nowhere, and trust me when I say that I'm not nitpicking one scene here: this sort of thing happens time and time again.
There are also some issues with the pacing of the film. This is an odd example of this common complaint, as the pacing starts out peachy. We get introduced to the characters, we see a few random scrubs get killed to keep it interesting, and all is how it should be in a slasher film. Then, the film slows down to a crawl with scene after scene that could have been trimmed down or cut entirely. I get it: they're by the lake, they're having a party, the girls look good in their bikinis. Can we get on with the action, or at least develop some sort of storyline to keep things moving? This is where the odd part comes in. At eighty minutes into the running time, it seems that the filmmakers realized that they were running out of time, and thus, they tried to kill off the remaining characters and show the finale as quickly as possible. Seriously, half the cast dies, there's the obligatory final showdown, and the killer himself is defeated all within the course of about ten minutes. Then, after the final blow is dealt to the killer, we're into the credits before the man's body even had a chance to hit the ground. Cutting down on the fluff and beefing up these final scenes would have worked wonders for the overall product.
I'm going to go with an average grade for this one. On the one hand, it's a cheesy slasher that doesn't try to be a smart horror film, and as mentioned earlier in the review, I love those kinds of movies. On the other hand, this is far from a classic in that category of films, and by no means is it something that you should push towards the top of your to-see list. It's not a must-see perfect film, and it's not a horrible one either... it's somewhere right in the middle. 4.5/10.
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