Review: 13 Eerie

It’s a real “by the numbers” story.  It’s not horrible, but you can tell it follows the tried and true rule book of horror movie script writing.  Get a bunch of kids to an isolated area, separate them, let the monsters loose and so forth.  There’s not going to be any huge surprises or startling revelations.  Horror fans we’ll most likely be able to call out plot points before they even happen.  However, that being said, I really did enjoy the ending.  I could see it coming, but it didn’t make it any less funny.

At this point in a review I might tell you about the characters and what they bring to the story, but character depth is not 13 Eerie’s greatest strength.  In fact, most of the players in this story are your typical horror movie stereotypes.  There’s the older authority figure that doesn’t believe anything is wrong, the rebellious hot girl, the mousy shy characters, the comedic reliefs and so on.  By the end of the movie you’ll find yourself struggling to even remember the names of the characters.

Which is a real shame because there is some decent acting to be found in 13 Eerie.  For example Jesse Moss, who had a fantastic performance in Tucker and Dale Vs Evil, is sorely underutilized here.  I feel like this is the case for most of the other actors in this film as they all could have turned in a memorable performance had their characters been more developed.

The real stand out character in this film is the gore.  We’re not talking Hostel–levels of offensive gore, but rather good ol’ fashion 80′s violence.  You’re going to see things like exploding heads and people getting impaled by garden tools.  In that respect, this movie is a wink and a nod towards 80′s horror films.  There’s no nudity or over the top characters, but fans of that level of gore will be pleasantly surprised.  There are even a couple of action sequences involving a bus that seem rather impressive for a small production like this.

Which is one of the key things I took away from this film.  Though it’s a smaller movie working off of a weak script, they managed to wrangle out a pretty commendable horror film.  It’s clear that a lot of talented people were behind the camera on this one and though it was based on a pretty thin premise, they took it seriously and displayed a set of skills that’ll be interesting to watch grow in future projects.

Bottom Line:

13 Eerie is a fun and fast paced horror film that relies on good gore to keep the audience entertained.  If it had a stronger script, this would have been a well-rounded production.  Check it out if you can. It’s available now on DVD and VOD.

Director: Lowell Dean

Writer: Christian Piers Betely

Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Brendan Fehr, Nick Moran, Jesse Moss and Brendan Fletcher.