The Roost (2005)

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Getting stranded on the way to a party, a group of friends seeking shelter at a seemingly abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere finds a dangerous colony of bats turning people into zombies and tries to fend off the creature to get away.This here is one of the most surprising fun times around. One of the brightest spots here is the fact that it mixes two distinct and separate genres, the creature feature and the zombie genres, which is ingenious, creative and has one of the most plausible excuses possible for unleashing them. That also allows the film to keep up the suspense towards the end, since it could've easily stopped to induce the plot and lost momentum, while the acknowledgment of zombies running around is perfect at derailing that. That also helps the film's overwhelming suspense, which is quite out-of-the- ordinary. The barnyard setting is nearly perfect, being a creepy location with plenty of fantastic locations for creepy happenings and is paid off in grand style here with this settling holding plenty of fun action scenes. The early attacks here are great wit the flaping wings behind the doors and low screeching being quite fun while letting the darkness and great size of the barn serve really well during the early walk-throughs. It's big suspense scene is the one inside following the first attack as the footsteps above them add to their confusion finding their friend and the sudden appearance of the dead body and his resulting disappearance which is so finely handled that the cliché attack by the zombie at the end still gets the jump, due to how well the rest of the scene is built up. The attacks in general are plain fun, from the scene up in the hay loft or inside the greenhouse also works as the numerous bats flying around and swarming victims are all full of great scenes. There's some fun to be had from the zombies here are pretty good, distorted enough to be recognizable and mixed with various bleeding wounds, gnarled features and the usual zombie characteristics gives them a lot to like. Along with the nice gore here, it is an altogether fun film that doesn't have a whole lot of flaws. The film's biggest issues here are the opening and closing segments with the horror film host as they serve little purpose but to pad out the time. It's also hard to get into the film's pacing when a sizable portion of the time is taken up with these scenes, and the entire purpose with doing this seems to be entirely confusing as airing the film as such is entirely confusing. It also works with the long wait to introduce the bats to create a slow first-half as it's still pretty creepy, but there isn't a whole lot of action. It does get better in the second half, but the slowness is hard to get into. These here hold this back, but it's still quite fun.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

In my opinion, this movie is getting a really bad rap from a lot of your viewers. Perhaps, it is because this film reminded me of the old "Fright Night" television show that appeared in Louisville, Kentucky area on Saturday nights at 7p.m. That particular show always opened with a scene of an old local Victorian style mansion embedded in a sea of fog with a short introduction by a character called the "Fearmonger" played by a local celebrity named Charlie Kissenger as he introduced one of the old 1940 Universal Horror Classics. This film seemed to try to spoof that wonderful bygone era. The actual film that followed the introduction, "The Roost" reminded me a lot like the grainy amateur style filming of the "Blair Witch Project". The fact that a group of people on their way to a wedding are attacked by a coven of vampire bats, and that once they are bitten begin to act like a bunch of zombies seem to be an entertaining spoof that served as a low budget bridge to times gone by. I for one enjoyed this film, and recommend it to anyone who like a good horror film.

I don't quite agree with Fangoria, that this film is an astonishing achievement of modern horror and that it is a horror gem. However, I will say that this film is an average horror movie. I thought it was going to be miserably horrible and a waste of an hour and 20 minutes, but it wasn't I enjoyed it. The basic premise is about a group of teenagers who get stranded at an abandoned farm where a vicious clan of vampire bats inhabit. The problem is that, when bit by one of these bats, the host turns into a zombie craving blood. I was very pleased in which this film was played off, the scares were very moderate with some pretty goon moments, but the technical aspects of this film were the real amazing part of it. The acting was moderate. Though, despite it's basic sense, I enjoyed watching film.I want to first comment on the style that his movie was bases around. The style is that of a "Svengoolie Show," where a host greets and then introduced to the main feature, in this case, it's The Roost. However, as much I as I loved the introduction the whole lead up to the pre-show and presentations dragged on two much and started to bore me. Though, I did enjoy the Grindhouse feel that this movie presents, it involves intermission from the host, scratch marks, some cigarette burns and at one point the host rewinds the tape. I enjoyed I because it makes you feel like your watching it either on TV or during some outdoor horror fest. Accompanying the Grindhouse feel, the ending, not of the actual feature The Roost but the ending of the whole movie, is a surprise ending in itself.The acting of this movie was average, with an average balance of both good and bad acting; however, I think that there was a slightly greater amount of good acting. There were great performances by Karl Jacob, Vanessa Horneff and Sean Reid, and you can't forget Tom Noonan as The Horror Host, whose performance as The Ripper in Last Action Hero was amazing. The actors and actresses seemed really dedicated to the role but there were points, mostly near the end of the movie, their performances started to dim down a bit. They seem dedicated, but they sometimes they don't really put that much effort into it. But I will comment on the good acting, when the actors and actresses did a good job of acting, they were very believable as real people with some very real emotions.The scares were also very moderate in this film. Granted, some of the bat attacks, zombie attacks and creepy sounds were scary, I still have yet to be really scared by bats. I wasn't even a fan of the movie Bats. However, I think the only real effective horror was the zombie scenes and maybe on bat scene and that scene only had a chilling sound effect to it. There were some great "jump-out" scares as well as creature scares, but for the most part I wasn't really a fan of its overall scare-factor. Though, I will give them credit for being original in connecting vampire bats with zombies.Now, for my favorite part of the whole movie, the technical aspects of this film were amazing, something that I don't see that much in independent movies. What I particularly enjoyed was the lighting; it had the feel of a Creepshow movie, with high contrast colors and some strong primary colors. It gave me the sense of being trapped in darkness and enhances the stylization of this film. I could compare the contrast to Sin City as they both have some really great shadow effects. Creepshow-wise, they utilize strong reds, yellows and natural lighting, mostly demonstrated through the beginning car scene and while in the barn. The cinematography was very well thought of, as it used some great ending shots and establishing shots as well as some okay transitional shots. The mostly focus with the scenery and the darkness of the movie. The editing was choppy, though I enjoyed it because it fit with all the other technicalities, and as a result of all of these aspects coming together, you get and unintentional devotion and tribute to comic book style film-making and art.Overall, this film was very average in the way that most independent movies are; the acting was okay but for the most part there were some good performances, the movies storyline was unique but it was unique for using recycled material into something worth watching and scares were somewhat predictable, aside from some creepy sound effects. However, as far as indie films go, the technical portions of this film were amazing. I would recommend this film for horror fans, as well as those who enjoy Bat movie, but not for zombie lovers. There weren't that many zombie parts. If you enjoy indie movies, this is a movie that you must rent, but if you want something to really scare you; you may want to pass it up on the video rack. As for me, I thought it was a fun movie and I enjoyed watching it, I enjoy indie films whether they are bad or good.

I don't know about the rest of you, but once I edited out the framing device, which really ruins the movie (did Ti have to do this for added "commercial" value?), that is, all the black and white inserts, like we're supposed to know we're watching a late show movie, The Roost is truly scary, in no small part thanks to the editing, the use of light and darkness (a bow to the cinematographer), and the best use of space of any genre movie of recent vintage. The ending, of course, stinks. Wish I could have been surprised, but you see this one coming, better to have left him, a la The Sopranos ending, alone on the bridge in the dark, the moon red, the bats gone, everything blocked. I confess that I had to stop watching this one several times because it is so unnerving, especially if you don't know what to expect (and this one caught me cold). What this film needs is a director's cut, and it will be a cult classic, period.