Plague Town (2009)
Sub-Genre- Creepy Kids/Survival
In Attendance- Me
Cast Members of Note- Josslyn Decrosta, Erica Rhodes, Lindsay Goranson and James Warke.
What's it About?- When a Podunk mom gives birth to some sort of mongoloid hell-baby, the town Priest decides he should shoot the baby, because it's "just not right." Their small English town is apparently cursed you see, every child born to them being some sort of creepy mutoid abomination, but still, Priests are not supposed to shoot babies! Then again, if the baby grows up to look like this, I think I'd let a nun shoot it if I had to:
14 years later -and this is where I get confused- an American family and their Irish guide get off of a bus, walk across some fields for a few minutes, and then decide that they're lost... even though they just got off of a bus back over the hill? I know the British Isles are a sprawling nation, but really, backtracking works no matter where you are in the world. And for that matter, did you forget the bus schedule, or just not bother to check your watch to make sure you wouldn't miss the last one of the day?
The barrage of nonsense continues when the wandering family of a-holes finds a car by the side of the road and decide to sit in it and see what happens. What happens is this; The Irish decides to "Go for help", the snotty bitch daughter follows after, and when the remaining three hear gunshots and odd mewling's coming from the fog up ahead, the dad leaves his wife-to-be and schizo daughter alone in the car to "see what that is."
I wont spoil what happens from here on out, other than to say that stupid people shouldn't be allowed to travel, let alone explore the deep countryside of old world foreign countries; not and expect to live, they shouldn't.
The Good- There are a lot of genuinely creepy and unsettling moments in this movie. The grotesque children were fantastic, especially Rosemary; something about her just makes me wanna hide in my closet. The atmosphere, when creepy, was really creepy; it's a shame that it took nearly half of the running time for the good stuff to really kick into gear.
The other good thing about this movie was the amount of violence and gore, and the way it was thrown right in our faces; the acts of brutality that Plague Town gave us were awe inspiring indeed. Some of the violence/kill scenes were really tough to watch, especially the hub cap scene; man that shit seemed to go on forever, and was just downright nasty. Good stuff.
The Bad- The acting was pretty poor on the whole, and the pacing was S...L...O...W... for the first 40 minutes or so. The story dragged until they finally reached the cursed town, and for all of the "family drama" setup, didn't make me care one bit about the characters. In fact, they way they all behaved made me want all of them but the step mom to die painfully. The last act of the movie got considerably better on both the acting and pacing fronts, but the journey there kinda sucked.
The Downright Horrendous- Another movie filled with annoying characters doing stupid things. I mean, if you just watched someone be bludgeoned to death with a hubcap by a band of mutant kids, would you run off and keep as quiet as you could in hoped of survival, or would you make loud noises and scream "Dad!" at the top of your lungs while you were running for your life? I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point.
The Gory- The kills and the gore are the best parts of this movie, and they definitely deliver
the goods. It's a good mix of graphic and sadistically disturbing; the hub cap, the decapitation, the butcher knife, and "the hanging" are all f'd up and crazy graphic!
The Naked- Nope... another total waste of two young cuties.
Best Line- "Don't worry, she's a good girl. And she's of that age." Eew.
What did we learn?- Apparently, children are nothing more than a plague. Also, all common sense goes out the window when people are put into terrifying situations.
Rating- C+ (6.5/10)- This movie was certainly flawed, very flawed in some ways, but I was able to forgive the bad stuff because I liked the gore and creepy atmosphere so much. Plague Town is very "70's exploitation flick" in its delivery; a slow, plodding buildup followed by an insanely nasty and blood filled climax... If that's your thing, you'll love this movie. I liked it, and urge you to check it out on DVD when you can.
Final Thoughts- Yum.
