Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror anthology film from 2013. That movie is "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)".
Now, from what little information I looked up about this movie, it's suppose to be an anthology film where 8 different directors, who were known for making low budget B movies while being shot on video, come together to make 8 short films in that exact style. Essentially, this movie's trying to harken back to how a lot of low budget horror movies looked like back during the 80's. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, that sounds like a really awesome premise. Now admittedly, I don't know exactly what films the directors of these short movies have made, so I'm gonna go into this one basically 100% blind, since I don't have any knowledge of these guys work beforehand.
I'm hoping for this movie to be really good. Because I really like the concept of this anthology, where it tries to be a love letter to those 80's low budget horror movies. I don't know if this movie is gonna live up to that premise, however, but that's what I'm here to find out. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this thing is any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)".
10 minutes later
So wait a second here. This serial killer's wife has found a bunch of ID cards filled with women, all whom that he has raped and killed, mind you, along with photos of his, uh, "work", let's say. And she's also been following and watching him do his dirty deeds for who know's how long at this point. If you've been following where he's been going to, wouldn't it make to sense to bring a camera of sorts to film this sort of thing going on? I'd imagine, being that she's the wife of this fucking psycho killer that she would actually think about bringing a camera and making sure she's got the whole thing on tape. But hey, maybe that's just me, personally. If I was married to someone who was killing and raping people as a hobby, I would probably bring something to film my evidence. But again, that's just me.
5 minutes later
Wait, is that a fake penis she has on her crotch? I think it is...jeez, this first story's *really* taken a fucking turn. One in which I was kinda sorta expecting, to be honest. But still, definitely kinda fucked up.
9 minutes later
The fuck...? O...K...what the fuck is that thing?! I have no idea what I'm looking at, guys, this creature, this uh...thing, just...oh, and, apparently, that's the end of that story. No, guys, seriously, that was the whole segment. I still want to know what the fuck that thing was, but on the other hand, I still don't believe that I would be able to properly describe it to you guys. I'll just leave it at that for now.
6 minutes later
All right, guys, this is sort of new. I've never seen someone be so entranced by a video tape called "Bloodgasm", to where he's more focused on that, despite the fact that his girlfriend is wanting to fuck him. The strange is, he's actually doing that while *still* watching the video. I guess, you could say, that Tim certainly has his priorities straight...kinda.
7 minutes later
OK, you know what? That twist at the end there was actually kinda funny. A little fucked up, but really funny towards the end. So, that's definitely a positive.
12 minutes later
Thank fuck that segment is finally done with. It wasn't funny, nor was it interesting either. It was just really kinda shit.
10 minutes later
Wow, guys, I didn't think it was actually possible, but that segment was somehow even stupider and worse than the previous one. At least the previous one had something resembling a story. This one didn't. I'm hoping the other 3 stories are better than the two I've just seen. Cause this thing's sorta going downhill at the moment.
11 minutes later
OK, that story was definitely an improvement over the other two. It wasn't great, but it's certainly far better than the prior two segments. So at least there's that.
6 minutes later
OK, I have a question here. So the lady of this husband, who's also pregnant with their child, kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and is now showing him to her that she's tied up in the garage. How long has she been keeping this girl in the garage without her screaming for help? I guess, maybe, she might've kept her quiet with chloroform or something, but still. The fact that she's kept his ex-girlfriend in the garage in this state is just all sorts of messed up. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Well, what to say about this one? I, guys, am pleasantly surprised by this film. Part of me thought it was going to suck. I say this, partially because, I have went into a lot of movies, both for this series and on my own time, where a film has a really interesting premise, but most of the time, they wind up being complete shit for various reasons. And part of me thought that this movie was going to fall into the same trap as a lot of those other movies did. But in actuality, I ended up really kinda enjoying this movie. Now mind you, the movie's not great, but it actually exceeded my previous expectations because, as I said, I thought it was going to completely suck. Well, I'm thankful that I was actually wrong in this case. This movie is rather decent.
So now, let's actually talk about the movie itself here. Let's first go over the writing. Now being that this is an anthology film we're talking about here, I have to start off by talking about the weakest segment of this anthology, Now I'm thankful I actually got the segment names for this anthology on my camera phone because they don't reveal any of the names until the ending credits for each short film. And the weakest segment, by far, has to go to "Genre Bending". I'm gonna summarize the entire plot for this story to you guys right here. Some guy stalks a girl, the guy ends up getting caught by her and leaves. He gets killed by some black dude who, I think, is suppose to be his actual girlfriend, not totally sure. And he tries to rape her, which in turn gets her to rape him, and...that's it. The segment is done with and it made no fucking sense at all. And this was suppose to be the comedy segment of the bunch, mind you. And I'm gonna tell you right now, guys, there is no comedy to be found here. Unless if you, somehow, find someone repeating the word "rape" or "raping" many times, there is nothing funny to be found here. This segment borders on plotless and you could've replaced it with *any* other short story and you would've not missed a thing. This segment really fucking sucked.
The other segment that also falls short is called "Gang Them Style". Now conceptually speaking, this segment is suppose to be parodying dumb 80's cheese ball action flicks. If I had to be more specific, I would say this thing is parodying "Escape From New York" because the main character is obviously a knock off of Snake Plissken. Which, admittedly, "Escape From New York" isn't necessarily a dumb 80's action film, though I'm kinda including it because of how it's being presented here. Now the reason why I say this one is suppose to be parodying those dumb 80's cheese ball action flicks is because of stuff like the dialogue sounding corny as hell, plus the music is definitely rather synth heavy. Which is something that quite a bit of 80's films had back then. But still, the point is, this movie is suppose to be like those kind of movies, and it falters for two different reasons.
One, for an anthology movie that's suppose to be like those 80's SOV films, this feels less like that and more, well, like an 80's action flick like "Escape From New York". And that has more to do with the camerawork than anything else, however, I'll get into all that later when I talk about the technical stuff. Now this could've been forgivable if the segment itself was actually interesting. And unfortunately, it's not. Why? Because the segment involves zombies, and I'm really fucking tired of zombies because there's only so much you can do with them that's interesting before you start to run out of ideas. And this segment really just goes down the route of it being somewhat of a generic zombie film. Now since this segment is also a parody, you would think that they would try something funny with it. And while they certainly try that, nothing about it is really all that funny. The comedy was weak and the whole thing just kinda dragged itself out, despite this segment being about 12 minutes long or so. So yeah, unfortunately, this segment is the second weakest of this anthology.
The seventh segment, which is called "Thicker Than Water", probably would've worked better as a full-length feature film rather than a short film. I say this, because the plot involves this guy's wife kidnapping his ex-girlfriend. And the reason why she kidnaps and tortures her is because she doesn't want anyone getting involved with their relationship. That, plus the fact that his current wife is pregnant. So that's another layer that's added on to something that could've been expanded into a feature length film. Now I'm not gonna say that this segment sucked or anything, it's actually halfway decent. But my problem with it is that because it's so short, there's not enough here to where you could do more with it. Like, have the wife secretly look up her husband's call history to see if there's someone in his life who he might've talked to or hung out with at one point and kidnap them. That way so she can make sure who she is and then kidnap them shortly afterwards, which would lead into our torture segments. I think all of that, if done properly, would work better as a remake for a full-length feature film rather than narrow it down to around 10 minutes or so.
So, beyond the problems that some of the segments have with it's writing, along with a couple of minor issues, most of everything else works out pretty well for the rest of the segments. And the best part about each segment is that it each has it's own tone. There's a couple of serious ones, there's comedy segments, and there are also a couple that are very exploitive. And even though I kinda railed on a couple of the comedy segments here, the one that I'm going to give praise to the most is the third segment, which is called "The Tape". That was the one where our main character is watching the same video tape called "Bloodgasm" on repeat. That one, to me, was the best segment, mainly because it was actually really funny, especially towards the end. I won't spoil it, but I will say that it is genuinely funny. So, we got one good comedy segment. The others I sorta like are "The Request", which is about a radio DJ who ends up killing his girlfriend on their anniversary, only for her to come back to get her revenge. I won't spoil how exactly, but it was also pretty decent. The first two segments, while ridiculously short, do get straight to the point and are also decent for the short time they had to work with.
Now the main framing device involves 3 of our main characters trying to film a low budget SOV horror movie of their own. Granted, this is probably one of the weaker framing devices because none of the scenes involving these characters transitions into the next story that fits into what they're talking about. But still, at least they try to keep their own scenes consistent, even if the transition into the segments are kinda weak. Overall, guys, the writing here is mostly pretty decent. It does have a couple of bad segments, but just about every other story is actually pretty decent for what it is.
The acting here, however, is definitely terrible. Now to be fair, since the segments in these short films were made for next to nothing, I'm going to assume that a lot of the casting for these short films consisted of the filmmakers friends and family members. Granted, I don't know how truly accurate that is, but I'm going to assume that this is their first time being in this kind of movie, so I can't really harp on the acting as I normally would when it comes to people who have never acted a day in their lives. And also, I gotta imagine that, despite possibly not ever being in a movie before, they had a blast in playing the roles for each of their own segments. So, this is one of those cases where I'm not going to harp on the terrible acting. I could, but I'm not going to here. So, acting is going to get a pass from me.
Special effects are definitely a mixed bag here. On one hand, since these movies were, again, made for next to nothing, you really can only do so much with the kind budget your working with. Also, since this anthology is suppose to be a love letter to those horror movies from the 80's, there is also almost no CG involved here. The only exception I can think of is during the fourth segment, "Gang Them Style", where our Plissken knockoff is suppose to be firing his gun at the zombies. Beyond that, though, every other effect is done practically. The blood effects in particular are definitely the ones that will show up the most. And it's here where most of the blood effects will range on being a mixed bag, because in some cases like the first, seventh, and last segments will feature someone gushing with a *lot* of blood, and those scenes look pretty good, if a bit samey. Then there's also the one case in "Thicker Than Water", where a character dies and the blood that drips out of their mouth looks ridiculously fake. So it's something that you just have to take for what it's worth here. I will say, though, at least the effects are pretty good for the most part. Makeup effects are also decent, too. So there is that.
Camerawork in most of these segments is done really well. Most of these segments give off the vibe that you're a watching something that was filmed on video rather than using professional camera equipment that you would see in most modern big budget movies. The one segment, however, "Gang Them Style", feels like something out of an 80's action film than anything else. It didn't really give off the illusion that you were watching something that was shot on video. It may look like it was filmed on a low budget, but not something that looked like it was shot on video. Though I can't really be too sure of that. I would probably have to watch the behind the scenes on this DVD to see how it was filmed. But speaking of which, the camerawork in most of these segments does gives off the low quality vibe that you would experience with an SOV film. Which is great to see.
Lighting here is pretty good for all of the segments. Sound-mixing is actually really good too, with the one slight exception in the last segment, where our main characters are talking in an abandoned town and the sound of the wind is picking up in the background, which kinda drowns out their dialogue a bit. However, I will say that, unlike another SOV movie I covered a long time ago, which was "Garden Tool Massacre", which also had some of the worst sound-mixing I've heard in a long time, the sound-mixing here is competent throughout most of the short films in this anthology. So I can definitely say that as a positive. Music here is OK. None of it is really gonna stick out at you in terms of being memorable. Though I can't say it's awful either. It's just...OK, really. Nothing much else to say about it.
So, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)"? Yes, I actually can. If you're somebody who's into low budget horror movies such as this, especially ones where it feels like something that was shot on video for next to nothing, go check it out. You are most definitely gonna find a lot of enjoyment out of this. If you're somebody who's not into this sort of thing, however, then there's obviously no way I can recommend it to you at all. As for myself, once again, I'm pleasantly surprised by how this movie turned out. I thought, in the back of my mind, that it was going to suck. And it doesn't. Granted, there are about two, maybe 3, segments here that aren't exactly great, but there's still enough here to where I can say that the positives outweigh the negatives. So yeah, I'm definitely going to be holding onto my copy of this movie. It really is surprisingly decent. Now...I'm gonna go watch another horror movie. Specifically one where it was shot on video. And the one movie I can think of that meets those standards is "Redneck Zombies". I'm gonna go and watch that one next because I do really like that movie and I sorta want to continue this trend of watching a low budget SOV movie. So that's what I'm gonna go do next once I get done with this review.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment