Frightworld

Frighteningly bad in just about every way possible (1 of 3 Found this Helpful)   June 24, 2008
If you've spent years yearning to see a woman masturbate to the images of spooky 3-D clowns while sitting in a pool of her own urine, then, brother, Frightworld is your perverted dream come true. For the rest of us, Frightworld is - at best - 103 minutes of pure cinematic torture. It's a pity because the film does have a unique hook - it was filmed in Buffalo at Eerie Production's Frightworld, "a dark ride amusement featuring five different haunted houses, live costumed actors and state of the art special lighting and sound effects." Having access to one of the country's most popular haunted attractions obviously helped the filmmakers out budget-wise, but I don't think the scares of "Frightworld the Amusement" transfer over very well to film. I found the abundance of visual effects (flashing sequences of images, strobing lights, etc.) more annoying than anything else, but at least now I better understand why the film was shot in this manner. Speaking of annoyances, there's the loud heavy metal soundtrack that, on a number of occasions, drowned out some of the film's dialogue. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, as said dialogue is so bad that I couldn't help but wince at some of the characters' lines, especially early on when the cast apparently set out to break the Guinness world record for the most lame sexual innuendoes crammed into a single scene. What about the gore, you ask? There's definitely plenty of blood and gore to go around, I'll grant you that, but I didn't find it exceedingly realistic (especially when it came in the form of extended minutes of flashing images).

After a bloody introduction to Verden Fell (Gary Marzolf), a serial killer of 29 victims cut down in the prime of his murderous life, we join Jack (Andrew Roth) and a group of his exceedingly non-conformist friends in the warehouse holding all of the goodies from the famed Frightworld amusement park of yesteryear (which just so happens to be the location where Verden Fell died). Jack is set to reopen the place in a couple of weeks, and we are among the first to endure his grand tour of the environs. Of course, these crazy kids can't go too long without stopping to get drunk, smoke the biggest doobies on the planet, and - of course - pair off in couples to fornicate. By this point, you're halfway through this overly long movie and - if you're like me - seriously considering pulling all of your hair out, downing a bottle of drain cleaner, and running stark naked out into the night in the grips of utter madness.

Finally, and not a moment too soon, the killing begins, and the movie actually becomes almost watchable. I found a number of the murders somewhat confusing, though. When I clearly see X kill Y, I can't help but be confused when the body, when discovered, ends up being that of X rather than Y. On top of that, I know there's some sort of soul transference thing going on, but that's just one of many aspects of this film that doesn't work very well at all, in my opinion.

It's difficult to figure out which is worse: the script or the acting - but I'll go with the acting. With characters saddled with such names as Albino, Acid Poptart, Sick Boy, and Susie Creamcheese, you don't expect Oscar caliber acting, but Gary Marzolf is the only actor in the entire cast who just might be able to act his way out of a dark room with a flashlight. I have to believe that Creamcheese girl is either a heroin addict or else she is physically unable to open her mouth when speaking, as you can't understand a word she slurs. The director only adds to the film's problems with some of the worst transitions from one scene to another I've ever seen. I feel sort of bad for laying into this movie so viciously, as I appreciate writer/director David R. Williams' attempt to give the world another wonderfully gory horror movie, but the sad truth is that Frightworld just isn't very good in any way, shape, or form.

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Enough Blood and Gore to Satisfy Any Splatter Fan. (1 of 2 Found this Helpful)   April 21, 2008
FrightWorld (RedScream Films) has plenty of blood and gore to satisfy any splatter fan. There is more blood and gore in the first ten minutes of this movie than most movies have in their entire running time. There are a few boobs and thongs, but there could have been more skin. The film quality throughout was much better than the average no-budget film. The lighting was impressive in the intro and added a lot to the artistic look. There were plenty of cool shots. Some of the dialog audio was muffled and difficult to understand for a short time after the opening credits, but it got clearer as the film went on. Even though it probably had a smaller budget, Fright World was as good as a lot of cable B-movies that I've seen.


The basic story is about a group of people who are mostly Goths previewing a haunted house inside a warehouse while a psycho killer who may have magical powers is brutally murdering them one by one. The acting is surprisingly good. The directing isn't bad. The dialog isn't very impressive, but hey, it's a splatter movie. If you want Shakespeare, you're on the wrong website!

My two biggest problems with the movie were the stylistic shift about twenty minutes into the film and the film's length. Imagine someone deciding to make a DVD of techno and goth music videos. About twenty minutes into the project, they realize that they don't have enough videos to fill a DVD, so they decided to fill the rest of the space with a splatter movie. Watching that DVD would probably be a lot like watching FrightWorld. Artistically, there are a lot of very cool visuals during the first twenty minutes, but then there is a major style shift that makes the movie feel fragmented. The stylish, gory, blood-soaked and artistic introduction sequence gives the back-story...sort of. This intro, the opening credits that follow, and even the lettering are presented like a music video in the style of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Tool or Rob Zombie. The music, which was ok, sounded heavily influenced by the same bands. Then about twenty minutes into the movie, you have a whole set of new characters and the entire style changes from that of a music video to your standard dark B-movie. Neither style is bad, but the shift from one to the other makes you feel like you changed the channel. After the change, you have another ten minutes or so of build up before anything happens. Then the movie really picks up and settles into a solid story for a while; chainsaws, blood, gore, boobs, screaming, running, etc. Unfortunately, the final scene drags out for about ten minutes of dialog. Although the does tie things together with the beginning, it felt like too much talking. You've already seen just about everyone die and the climax is over. I think if the filmmakers had an outside editor, they probably could have cut a good size chunk out of the movie and it would have flowed a lot better.

Overall, FrightWorld was a pretty good movie. If you're looking for blood and gore, you'll find plenty of it here.

Gore-o-meter rating: 5 out of 5 (Plenty of gore!)

Skin-o-meter: 2 out of 5 (Some boobs and thongs, but there could have been more skin)

Review from http://www.filmapocalypse.com/01frightworld.html

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