Chain Reaction (2006)
A prison bus with over a dozen criminals on board has an accident and rams another car, in which Dr. Douglas Madsen was on his way home. Most of the prisoners die. Four of them survive, one of them severely injured. After having killed all the guards, they head for the woods. They take Dr. Douglas Madsen hostage. Suddenly a huge house appears in the middle of the woods. The leader of the group, Arthur, emphasizes that he will kill Douglas and every single member of the "family" if his wounded brother would die. Meanwhile some members of the family show strange behavior, and very soon mayhem breaks loose.
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Too much of everything
the audience applauded
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
On my TV, the film begins with two criminals getting out of a bus with pink jumpsuits, not the traditional orange.This is a gore flick which should appeal to the young, over 10 and less than 25. Got to love gore. There is little true acting. I feel like yelling "Road trip!" Carnage in the forest. Typical plot. The movie is very unpredictable. However, if you are a blood and gore fan, this movie is for you. The movie could have been 15 minutes shorter, which might have helped it. The movie has lackluster plot, contains lackluster actors, lackluster acting, and is just a highly predictable, minimally entertaining movie. But you gotta love it for what it is -- just late night entertainment.
Well... I don't think I need to say much more about this movie, given that it is an Ittenbach creation... however, seeing that I need to post 10 lines in comments, I have to say that this is probably one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen (and I have seen a few). The acting... well, where has it gone? It's just not there. People are running around like they don't even know the camera is rolling, and the plot does not make it better. The more you see of this movie, the more you actually want to kill the persons acting in it. Especially the guy playing Arthur Palmer. He is most likely the worst actor I have ever seen, and probably the most annoying too. Yes, Jürgen Prochnow has a small role in this movie... but compared to other films he has made, his acting is poor and lifeless. I can only assume this has something to do with the movie in total, and that he may have lost a bet to the instructor... don't know, and frankly, don't care. Movies like these should not be allowed on TV... period. This will be the last movie from Ittenbach for me I'll ever see. Enough is enough...Yes, I hated this movie.....
Some movies are hard to enjoy, no matter how much we try to overlook the flaws. I simply couldn't concentrate on the dialogues, which is already a big shame, considering that we're in the 21st century and movies in this day and age are not silent anymore. I know most of the cast members were German and they were speaking in a foreign language, but frankly, I don't think that is the audience's fault. So why should we pay for the consequences and put up with these extremely irritating thick accents?, I'll never know. American actor Christopher Kriesa, performing Dr. Douglas Madsen, was perhaps the only decent or at least mildly tolerable character. The others were simply pitiful, especially because of that fictional and laughable form of an antique English dialect, spoken by this group of weirdos who live in a cottage in the middle of the woods. Perhaps this so-called ancient form of English was just a way to cover the fact that the actors weren't English speakers, but the results turn out to be pretty bad anyway. Concerning the plot, I don't know if it is too weak or not, maybe it is, but that is not nearly as blameworthy as the fact that the same story happens twice. Hard to believe as it is, it's real. The exact same story occurs twice in each half of the movie, only with different characters, except for Dr. Douglas Madsen who appears both times. It seems like the writers were desperately trying to fill one hour and a half and they run out of ideas when they finished the first half of the script. It's somewhat hilarious, come to think of it. It's like watching a new horror movie and then the quick remake or something of that sort.I hate being harsh with my reviews, because regardless of how much I can like or dislike a film, there's always a noble effort coming from a director, the cast members and everyone involved in a movie. Perhaps "Chain Reaction" can be appreciated for its little things like the unpretentious moments of plain gore that avoid the cheap CGI for latex and Korn Flakes. Frankly, I didn't enjoy the movie very much, but I'm sure gore worshipers are going to find it bearable on the whole.
HOUSE OF BLOOD appears to be a slightly higher budget and more "mainstream" film from director Olaf (PREMUTOS, BURNING MOON, GARDEN OF LOVE, etc...) Ittenbach. Again, we have a relatively entertaining, but poorly acted, poorly scripted, poorly executed splatter film.A group of convicts escape from their prison transport bus when a freak accident causes the bus to crash. The cons kill the cops on the bus and kidnap a doctor who was also involved in the crash. The group wanders into the woods and finds a cabin inhabited by a family of weirdos who turn out to be some sort or vampires. The vampires kill all of the cons but the doctor escapes. The doctor ends up heading to jail because the cops don't believe his story. During the doctor's transport, the same sort of accident happens, starting the whole ball rolling again...Honestly, the concept was OK the first go-round, but got real dull the second time. HOUSE OF BLOOD isn't the worst thing I've seen, and it does have a few splattery moments - but sitting through the pathetic acting and retarded storyline is pretty tedious. Worth a look if you're a big Ittenbach fan, or if you dig cheezy low-budget horror - otherwise, pass on this one...5/10