Savage County (TV 2010)
Directed by David Harris
[this review is from The Jaded Viewer 2 DVD Giveaway Winner Kim K. She suffered through these awful flicks like a real soldier and for that I'm giving her a honorary jaded viewer gold star of awesomeness]
I was warned - these movies won’t be making any "best of" lists. Watching them was a test of will. I have a short attention span. I'm rating them not by spinkicks, but by how many failed attempts it took me to actually sit down with the movie long enough to watch until the end.
"Savage County"
David Harris is a first time director & this was a low budget, direct-to-video production. I have a soft spot for new artists trying to get an edge in, even if I’m not a fan; and judging by their Facebook page, he does have a following, which he is clearly catering toward. If you’re an 11-15 year old who is new to the horror genre & enjoyed the web series this was a spin-off from - you could potentially love this movie. It is the training bra of horror.
The plot follows a group of high school students about to graduate as they road trip out into the countryside one last time. When a prank goes wrong, the kids accidentally kill the eldest of a family of creepy homicidal hillbillies. Creepy hillbillies get pissed. Storyline marches forward into a watered down version of some of the most familiar (and successful) horror themes we know and love. (See: Deliverance, Texas Chainsaw, Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, House of 1000 Corpses etc etc)
‘Recycled’ doesn’t necessarily resign a movie to a fate of suckage. When you’re playing to human fear, there are only so many threads to explore. Filmmakers in the genre build on and borrow from each other almost as a rule. But you’d better add something original to make it stick in people’s heads if you’re going that route. The fact that one of the hillbillies vaguely resembles Willie Nelson is not enough for me
As for the kids, we’ve got a small group of token everything out in this cornfield. The jocks, the cheerleader, the “good girl”, the punky loner, the nerd, the black kid. All of these stereotypes hung out together in your school too, right? There is one particularly useless girl back at base, whose sole job seems to be talking into a webcam and cueing awful music. The movie keeps awkwardly cutting back to her and it was precisely these moments that made me wonder if I needed to take another break.
The plot unfolds. Kids freak out after the accidental murder. Split up. Make one stupid decision after another. Cops get involved. Oops - cops are sided with the hillbillies. Hillbillies torture and pick off kids. The script remains one dimensional, and ends predictably while still leaving loose ends (I fear a sequel’s in the works); yet for a tween slasher-flick, it delivers what is expected and is certainly not the worst ever made. Though it did leave me feeling mildly lobotomized.
I rate this movie: 3 failed attempts.
Check out the trailer. I doubt you'll last :30 secs before you stop watching.
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Savage County (Review)
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Savage (Review)
Savage
Savage (2009)
Directed by Jordan Blum
Savage is my 2nd movie I've watched from Fearmaker Studios. The first being Dismal which was to say the least, dismally bad. So when they threw in a creature feature into their lineup, I couldn't resist. I had to check out this SyFy knockoff. But then I realized who was in it!
The evil sensei from Karate Kid!
Alice from Nightmare on Elm Street 5!
A hot girl!
A Bigfoot with superpowers!
How could I resist watching this doozy of a film?
Savage makes a SyFy original movie look like a Hollywood blockbuster. It's not only that the characters are boring, the plot is laughable or Bigfoot is clearly taking HGH. It's that the movie is filled with scenes of people talking about a plot and subplots I didn't care about. I believe it was something about some forest fire, shady real estate deals, an armed robbery and a pregnant woman.
All I cared about was seeing a vicious Bigfoot killing and eating campers. And even that sucked.
A blazing fire rips its way through Bear Valley National Park. As the firefighters try to contain it, the animals are being forced out of their habitat including a beast that was better left undiscovered.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
You're getting a 5 question Q&A review. Deal with it.
1.) I heard Bigfoot knows muy thai and uses a revolver in this film. Is that true?
That would have made an interesting movie but he doesn't. He does seem to kill a lot of people, from firefighters, cops, criminals, scientists and a rogue hunter. He's the serial killer of missing link creatures.
2.) So does Bigfoot fly and have X-ray vision?
I wouldn't be surprised if he did. He's got super strength, can climb trees like a goddamn squirrel, be stealthy like a goddamn ninja and can get on a roof of a house in less than 5 seconds. He also likes tossing corpses through windows (something I enjoy as well)
3.) I heard this movie is about deforestation and how man has raped the natural world by building more highways and displacing animals from their habitats. So are there boobies in this?
Boobies are like vodka. I could get drunk on em. But the movie did introduce me to Anna Enger, a stunning beauty whose performance in this was quite good. She played the most lovable murderer I've seen in a while.
4.) You described the special effects in Dismal as: "The CGI fire and explosion look so fake, it's like they put a lighter in front of the camera." Are the CGI effects as bad in Savage?
The gore effects are pretty standard. Nothing a 3rd grader couldn't do with a couple of ketchup packets. There is an explosion in the end. They have to stop putting explosions in their films.
5.) Is there a wildly, ambiguous ending that foreshadows a sequel that will never see the light of day?
Yuppers. It seems we haven't seen the last of this ninja, steroid abusing Bigfoot.
Savage is just another horror cash in on the Sasquatch films. The thing about SyFy original movies is they've accepted the fact their creature features are cheesy and B-movie. One has to understand what they get into when they make a "When Animals Attack" type horror flick. If only they pitted muy thai Bigfoot vs a Shark with telekinesis powers. That would have been awesome.
Nude-ipedia
Negative Zero
Gore-ipedia
Your standard bloody blood
Animal trauma
WTF moment
Bigfoot's face closeup look like a mask from a 99 cents store
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Savage is being distributed via MTI Home Video. Watch at our own risk.
The Vitals
Rating:
Check out the trailer below.
