Cub (2015)

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I'm surprised at how low the score is, this film deserves to be in the six's. We are at a point where horror movies are just a waste of time. No real scares or thrills. The only pleasure I get from contemporary horror is making fun how bad they are. Needless to say, Modern American Horror is in a huge rut right now. Which is why I found this film refreshing, and think that American cinema needs to take some notes. This film is by no means perfect, but it is at least entertaining. I found it to have some good acting, decent writing, and it builds tension and suspense very well. In most horror films today, I find myself not caring about any of the characters. They are so wooden and bland that when they die I'm neither cheering or grieving for them. This film actually gives me characters that I both hate and care for. You got characters that make you angry, and characters that you can relate to. As far as filmmakers making horror movies like Paranormal Activity and Ouija...where the hell is that in your films. But I won't bash those films anymore in this review. I liked this film. I didn't love it, but I respect it. It caught my interest, made me invested, gave me moments that had me on the edge of the seat. Overall, it's pretty good. Not a film you must see, but a film that will do its job and entertain you for an hour and a half.

This is a perfect example of a child horror movie - yes, I guess that is the genre this movie can be put in, according to my friend.On the other hand, I simply believe that this movie has no plot, no likable characters, and most of the killing is pointless - at one moment, over 70% of the cast dies instantaneously, and there is no point in trying to find out what happens to the children that survived. As one commenter mentioned, this movie can be summed up in a single sentence - do not leave your children in the care of unprofessional people who are only trying to get laid - they will die a horrible, horrible death.Yes, this is my first review - only because it has wasted 2 hours of my not-so-precious time, yet it would have been a better idea to watch Twilight - at least it had a beginning, a story in the middle, and an end.

Though I'm a lover of psychological horror, bloody slash-'em-ups really aren't my thing. Had Welp/Cub come from an established US or British stable I probably wouldn't have bothered with it, but its being a debut from a Flemish-Belgian director intrigued me.Cinematically, it's an accomplished piece that belies Jonas Govaerts' inexperience. His actual screenplay I found less impressive: it's cliché-ridden (horror in the woods; the unhappy boy who gets bullied; the damsel in distress; the sadistic youth-leader...) and much of the "horror" element is unexplained. We just have to take it as read that there's a feral boy resident in a treehouse and that the woods contain elaborate booby-traps despite being virtually unvisited. It's all a bit silly, really, and for a film that takes itself seriously it doesn't ride well.Nevertheless, I enjoyed it more that I expected, despite its managing to be too gory for my taste yet not particularly scary. Maurice Luijten, in his first full-length feature, shows considerable promise as the troubled and unpopular cub scout while the adult cast do a good job with some rather unlikely characterisation.I must say, though, that a few of the scenes (SPOILER ALERT) pushed the boundaries of taste and decency for me. I'm certainly no advocate of censorship and of course I *know* it's all make-believe, so I'm not saying that films of this genre shouldn't have depictions of dogs being battered to death, young boys being brutally assaulted by those in a position of trust or vehicles ploughing into tents full of kids. I just think that where such scenes are included then they should have a damn good raison d'etre and in this instance I didn't feel that they were justified. The quality of the storyline simply didn't reach the threshold to render it forgivable. Shock value alone is not a good-enough excuse to play on an audience's emotions like that.When I first saw the ending I took it for a grace-saving plot-twist of Shyamalan proportions: WOW! Kai never existed! He was a metaphor for Sam's psychopathy after all! On closer analysis, though, I don't think that this is what we are meant to deduce (although it would have been an excellent ending if it were). In fact I don't know what to make of the ending any more; I like ambiguous conclusions but this one just ended up feeling unresolved and unsatisfactory for me.Still, a film worth watching for the cinematography and special effects if you like that sort of thing, and several names to watch out for in European cinema in years to come.

To begin this review , I must say that taking into consideration that this was the director's feature film debut , he did extremely well. The direction was the best thing about this film. Now , the issue of this film comes from it's script.It lacked focus. The story is simple enough : 12 year Sam goes camping , he his bullied by the other scouts and even by one of the scoutmaster (And his evil dog!) . When Sam tries to warn everybody that he saw a character from an Urban legend , Kai (an animal/boy who eats people) he his laughed at so Sam ends up developing a rather strange and disturbing relationship with Kai that would turn this Camping trip into a living nightmare! So the story is fairly straightforward as you can see but the issue is the writers felt necessary to add small layers/subplot to it that makes it more complex then it should. I can go on to much details or I will spoil the films.Let just say that the director gave Sam a mysterious background that raises a lot of questions but none of them are answered by the end of the film. For me ,personally, Cub is very good up to it's last 10 minutes.Great atmosphere, great direction,great acting by it's lead actor but the above issue I have with the film gives us an ending that leaves things to the viewers imagination. Your personal enjoyment of that film will come to this at the end : If you like to have a clear ending to your film , I am afraid you will be disappointed by Cub but if you are the type of person that loves a film to end in an ambiguous sort of way I believe you would find much to like in that film. Outside of this , Cub do a lot of things right. So if you are up for a very dark little film that has a very strong and shocking yet confusing ending you could do much worse then this trip to the wood. I give Cub a 6 out of 10