ROT: Reunion of Terror (2009, Review)

Published on February 22, 2010 by Greg B. · No Comments

Cast: Christian Anderson, Alvie Baker, Monique Barajas, Hallie Bird

Shock-o-Rama / NTSC Region 1 / Unrated / 1.78:1 Widescreen / 5.0 Surround & 2.0 Stereo / 82 minutes / PURCHASE

Extras: Making of R.O.T. mini-documentary / Music of R.O.T. mini-documentary / Post-Production mini-documentary / ANGELS OF REBELLION Music Video / DYING LIGHT Music Video / FAKING THE DEATH WISH Music Video / Two Deleted Scenes

The American slasher flick is dead. It has been buried before by many fans and critics since its heyday in the ’70s and ’80s. Many point to over-saturation of the market and others point to Wes Craven’s satirical Scream (1996) as the culprit. I believe it to be lack of originality. Every indie filmmaker making a slasher since the 1980s seems to think that it’s okay to use the exact same plot, characters, plot devices and dialogue of the original classics without one bit of a twist, turn or detour to set themselves apart. “Let’s just put out a horror movie with a little blood and tits and no artistic effort whatsoever and these dumb fucking horror fans will eat it up!” Come on guys, give us a little credit. Do something – ANYTHING – original with your movie. It can be done, just look at what the French are doing with their homages to the American slasher (High Tension, Inside, etc.). Is it totally original? Nope, but they put their artistic touches on them and *BOOM*, unsettling, scary horror movies.

The short unoriginal plot synopsis; group of friends from high school get together at a remote cabin for a reunion and get picked off by mysterious killer. Slightly longer unoriginal plot synopsis; in the first scene we see a shadowed figure cutting out pictures from a yearbook and pinning them to a cork-board. Next, a couple of random camping lesbians get murdered outside of a cabin in the woods after making sweet sapphic love in their tent. Cut to a couple sitting in a restaurant talking about how they were invited by their mutual friend for a weekend in the woods to hang out and get reacquainted. A few more friends show up – one with a chick he picked up hitchhiking – and they head off to their cabin in the forest. There they meet a creepy, lecherous Game Warden who tells them that he will be watching them. The rest is the friends getting picked off by the mysterious, shadowy figure from the opening of the movie. Big dumb reveal. The End. (NOTE: You fill in the blanks with any sexual situations, “characterization”, mysterious/obvious killer and unimaginative kills of any slasher since Friday the 13th.)

Please don’t think I’m taking a big shit on this movie because it is completely devoid of merit. It is MOSTLY devoid of merit. Plot, character and dialogue wise it does not stray from the formula explained above. There didn’t need to be a writer for this movie, the “story” could have just as easily been shot by any douche-nozzle with a Handy-cam and friends who work for a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It actually made me angry to watch it. I just don’t understand the point of making such a cookie-cutter piece of crap. Anyway, there are a couple of high points (think about the old saying “reaching up to touch bottom”) like the plethora of hot chicks running around half dressed and the naked lesbos making out and a really brutal death-by-blunt-trauma-to-the-head-on-a-tree-trunk. The film was also technically pretty good. The direction, make-up effects and even the acting wasn’t horrible. Director Michael Hoffman, Jr. made the most of his small budget and made those aspects work.

Shock-o-Rama Cinema also made the most of the release of ROT by putting together a nice looking and sounding DVD with a pretty impressive package of extras. I’m not going to blow smoke up anyone’s ass and tell you to check this out but I will say that if you are a die-hard slasher fan and have to see them all, rent it. And this is a plea to all indie and mainstream horror filmmakers; please, no more of this trite bullshit. You make me sad. In fact, I am boycotting any and all American slasher films from now on until someone can put an original spin on it. Fuck it, I wash my hands of the whole sub-genre. You know, it’s a real shame when I have to write an almost total blasting of a movie, but sometimes, ya just gotta. Greg B., OUT!

Tweet This Post

Readers Comments (0)

Cinesploitation's Favorite Companies

Cinesploitation's Favorite Sites