Berkshire County (2014)

Powerful

The acting in this movie is really good.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

If you're looking for an action and gory movie in which the main character fight back with cool and tactical action (like You're Next or I Spit on Your Grave), this is definitely not the one for you. This is a thriller movie with mild touch on the action and goriness. The main character is not quite a fighter, I think she is just lucky. The hide and seek scenes are quite exciting, but too bad, it lingers for too long. For those of you who pay extra attention on the lines and the acting, this movie would be a waste of your time. But somehow the twist at the end (watch out, there are several twists!) prevent me to rate this movie below five. With this ending, it definitely opens for a sequel, for which I request: please upgrade the quality.I'd say, watch this movie only if you run out of full-action movies.

What Berkshire County offers is a film which goes against the tropes of the genre while also embracing them. Sure it obviously borrows from seminal slasher flicks (as most do), but it gives us a fresh go at it. The film's central theme is about standing up for oneself. Kylie is essentially a victim of sexual assault who cannot find support at home and she's become the joke of the week at school. When she babysits on Halloween night and masked killers invade the house, we see Kylie undergo significant changes as she learns many life lessons through the experience, such as discovering the will to live, not merely survive, and the will to stand up for herself against those who threaten her. Berkshire County is one of the only slasher films I've seen where the deaths are perfunctory. While I won't say who dies, it doesn't really matter who dies, because the only purpose several characters have in the movie is to die because people need to die in a slasher flick, right?Instead of running around scared, Kylie does things most characters in these roles don't do; when two killers have her pinned upstairs, she distracts them and quietly climbs down a balcony, instead of hiding in a closet. That fact that Kylie rarely is physically involved with the killers is a testament to the unique approach this film took by making it a cat and mouse game that is tense and well made, and this film, from the sets, to the costumes and masks, to the camera-work and lighting, is a very well-made movie by director Aubrey Cummings, something it seems people who reviewed this film can't appreciate. The ending twist or cliffhanger or whatever you wish to call it is unfortunate sequel bait, but it's so common these days you'd have to be an idiot to let a minute and a bit of film taint everything that came before it. In the end, Berkshire County is a rare slasher film that doesn't glorify brutal violence, rewards intelligence, has something to say, and features a relatable, female lead who's given the chance to grow.

Pretty well done for an indie production, the film looks good, has some creepy set pieces (I don't know if I ever want to eat "the other white meat" again, and the main actress turns in a believable performance. There are a few moments when you want to yell at the screen "DON'T GO THERE!" or "CALL FOR BACKUP AND TAKE YOUR GUN OUT!" but that's the fun with genre pictures such as this. Reminded me a lot of the slasher film classics I grew up on. That said there's a brain behind the thrills, the script has fun playing with the archetypes of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, as well as turning the Three Little Pigs story on it's head (in this one the pigs are not the ones you're rooting for!) and you find yourself invested in the main character persevering. By the time she starts fighting back you're ready for some ass-kicking, the gorier the better, and Tormented does not disappoint. The ending is pretty over the top and made me laugh, but then again Michael Meyers and Jason Voorhees pretty much were superhuman killing demons so it all makes for a fun experience reminiscent of those types of films. Worth checking out if you enjoy horror and a strong female character!

Mixed emotions about this flick. Why, because the story is so strange. let me explain. It starts of with the main lead Kylie (Alysa King) being abused by a guy. She has to give him a blow job which she finally does but is being filmed. Of course , being underaged, the whole school is laughing with her and she's being bullied about it by her friends naturally. Going home her mother tells her that the thing she performed will follow her for her entire life. It's halloween night and she going to babysit. Yes, you do read it correct, from the school we do move over to the babysitting without ever returning to what happened at the party. So it's in fact two stories being used in one flick.The babysitting does take a while until the door bell goes and things go awry. From there on it turns from mediocre into a home-invasion flick. A bit of cat and mouse and a bit of stabbing with a twist towards the end.Was it that bad, not at all, a bit strange with the first 15 minutes but from then on it slowly moves into a real horror.Gore 1/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5