Nobody Gets Out Alive (2013)

Powerful

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This so called horror movie as to be one of the worst movies of the last decade, absolutely dreadful from start to finish, the only good point is that you only have to, if you can, put up for it for 70 odd minutes, everything about this film is done very badly the acting, the plot as been done a thousand times before and much better, the so called special effects, my 13 year old daughter could do much better, I have noticed that the special effects creator as written a revue, and she is that bad her grammar sucks just like her so called special effects, she is sorry to say but have to be honest stupid, she even put her real name to the 10 star revue, what a plonker . for your own good stay well clear of this turkey

I swear that I will not watch anymore low budget horror but I always get sucked in. The thing that sucked me in on this one was that it proclaimed to be an homage to the slasher flicks of 70's and 80's. An homage? Hardly. It is cookie cutter amateur shlock that tries to literally copy Friday the 13th. Rumour has it that Victor Miller (screenwriter of Friday the 13th) gave his blessing and advice on this script and if that is true, Miller must have been drugged or drunk when he read it. The script is atrocious. Most of the time I wondered if there was even a script at all and if the characters didn't just try to make their own "cool" "slang" dialogue because it was so incredibly bad. The characters sounded awkward filling in every other word with the "F" word like they were struggling to make sense of the script. The back story on the killer is so insanely stupid and to top it all off near the end of the film he gets a sappy soliloquy that makes no sense and breaks the entire feel of the movie. Now, I will say this that the latter half of the film...when the killer is stalking and eliminating the victims (thank goodness) actually was better than the first half. And I will also say that the special effects for an incredibly low budget, very poor movie were actually very well done. The killing scenes were far better than the movie itself and one particularly disturbing scene of a nail being hammered into someones skull was impressive. At this point I will do what another reviewer did and call out Lauren Palmer who did the special effects for shamelessly reviewing her own movie and her own work and giving it a 10/10 on IMDb. Seriously...very very poor taste. And that's unfortunate Ms. Palmer because your work was the ONLY redeemable part of this crapfest.The acting was truly atrocious. The main cast was bad but the supporting cast was even worse. And why in the HELL did Clint Howard get involved in this and why even more does he get a listing on the cover of the movie. Clint Howard doesn't sell movies and if that's your star power...you REALLY are in trouble. The man has a 30 second role, and two lines and is completely pointless. I also have to give a dishonourable mention to Diane Bakos and Luis Pacheco who play "Jenn's parents." I sincerely think they must be friends of the cast or parents of one of the cast because both of them were excruciatingly awful on screen. Jen Dance, who gets the most back story and is supposed to be our "scream queen" is so wooden and broody and while she shows the most emotion, it isn't good. Shaun Paul Costello is so awful...I can't even explain. He is the number one perpetrator of spewing pointless obscenities and dialogue that is torture to listen to. Nikki Bell plays the slutty girl who sleeps with her guy and then gets killed. She can't even do that right because she is awful and beyond cookie cutter. It was like they said to her...okay you're the slutty girl, now go. They even make reference to her as being exactly that and then feel they need to explain her purpose. No one else is worth mentioning because they are that bad. But the rest of the cast is spared from being truly awful because they barely have a pulse on screen. Brian Gallagher might be the only one who actually seems to have any talent at all but the script is so bad that it gives him nothing to work with and his serial killer is so mundane and pointless.Big shocker here...Jason Christopher in his first feature film writes and directs the movie. He clearly enjoys horror movies and thought he could do it just as well by copying Friday the 13th. He is a terrible writer, and a barely mediocre director. I say mediocre because some of the kill scenes and chase scenes were actually decently done but only barely. This was literally like watching little kids "play" Friday the 13th in their front lawns. I don't understand it because I know for a fact that there are really good amateur writers out there and they should be given the right to create their stuff because it has to be better than this crap. Low budget imitation crap with good special effects as weird as that sounds. This one is a total miss. 3/10

As I was sitting through this "flick", as Jason Christopher likes to call it, I couldn't help but notice something: this movie is bad. I have seen my fair share of bad horror movies, and this is right up there with the worst of them.In the horror genre, there is a line that a movie can cross over where bad becomes funny, and when this happens the movie becomes somewhat enjoyable. Unfortunately for Jason Christopher, his flick sits just behind this line, causing it to be completely unwatchable. Everything from acting to camera work to lighting was terrible. Multiple shots, excuse me, most shots, in this movie were either under or over exposed, making it hard to see what was going on. The score was almost non- existent, but when it was, it hardly fit the mood of the scene. It seems that Mr. Christopher spent the majority of the budget on Clint Howard's paycheck, which was a complete waste of a role. The screenplay itself was horrible, so I can't blame Jason Christopher for making a bad flick. But actually, he is to blame because he wrote it. With characters that are completely generic, a killer that wears size 7 boots (very intimidating), and dialogue that doesn't make any sense, do yourself a favor and spend your night looking at a wall, it will be more enjoyable.

If there's one thing I can't stand it's when I watch a movie, hate it, and then view the "making of" featurette and gain respect and a different perspective on it. That's how I felt after watching the special features for "Nobody Gets Out Alive." Can a bad film be saved by the pure motivations and sincerity of the filmmakers? I say no, but you can definitely feel for them and try to give them credit where credit is due.It's the same set-up we always get with any of the countless "Friday the 13th" or "Sleepaway Camp" movies we've all seen over the years. A group of young adults head out into the woods for a weekend of camping, partying, revelry, and debauchery. You know, "What happens in the woods stays in the woods." Unfortunately, that's all too true thanks to a killer who takes his tragic loss out on any and everyone who dares enter his territory."Nobody Gets Out Alive" is an hour and seventeen minutes long. That's exactly one hour too long in my opinion. There's absolutely nothing original about this movie. Sure, the killing scenes are a bit more graphic than what we get with the standard "Scream" or "I Know What You Did Last Summer" fare. I'll admit that I did find a couple of them painful to watch. However, it doesn't make up for the tedious retread we suffer through here.Producer Deven Lobascio and writer / director / producer Jason Christopher set out to make an homage to the movies they grew up watching, and if you look at it strictly from that point of view, they were successful. It mimics everything from those movies. We've got the crazy killer; the sexually promiscuous couple who both die horrific deaths; the handicapped kid who you feel sorry for when he gets axed; and the virgin who survives at the end. The carnage never really ends, does it?One of the elements about slasher films that I love is the mystery of who the killer is. Movies like "Scream," "Urban Legend," "Prom Night," and even the newer "Sorority Row" come to mind. I probably would've given "Nobody Gets Out Alive" another star if the filmmakers kept this element a surprise here. Instead, they reveal who the killer is about 30 minutes into the film. To add insult to injury, it's exactly who you would think it is. I would warn this is a spoiler, but it isn't considering how the movie was made.In the usual fashion of these types of indie horror films, we get a five-minute cameo from a familiar face in the genre. This time we get Clint Howard playing a doctor at the beginning of the movie before disappearing completely.As it stands, "Nobody Gets Out Alive" is an hour and seventeen minutes of your life you'll never get back. You would've been better served re- watching any of the great slashers you were introduced to in your youth. All we get here is a carbon copy of everything done before that will leave you wanting the real deal.