The Scorned (2005)

Perfect cast and a good story

not horrible nor great

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Not sure whom this was aimed at (one tag line being "Watch your favorite reality stars ... DIE!". Was that for fans or haters of reality TV? Plus does anyone even remember those people after those shows are of the air? Like the 15 minutes of fame are over, who are you again? But it would be unfair to scrutinize all of them. Because some of them seem to actually be able to act.Not that there is much chance that they were going to show it in this movie, but I've seen worse. Story is pretty simple and you can see things coming a mile off. What is really interesting and might be a better story, is the making of the movie. Seems like a lot ruckus went down behind the scenes, which you only get a glimpse of in the making of section (second DVD). Looks like a reality TV crew was following the "real" crew around. For real! (the show has a promo on the DVD and is called "Kill reality") Seems like not everyone was happy about that ... watch the outtakes for that ... again the special features are almost more intriguing (in a car crash kind of way) than the movie itself

This was always going to be a terrible movie. No way around that. The only question was whether it would be just plain terrible or would it manage to reach previously uncharted heights (or depths) of awfulness. Not surprisingly considering the "talent" on display The Scorned does in fact go way, way beyond being simply terrible. This is one epically, monstrously, unimaginably terrible movie. The plot is stupid and makes very little sense. And the acting is uniformly pitiful. This has to be the worst cast assembled in movie history. For anyone who thought acting was easy let this movie serve as a rebuttal to that premise. These reality TV "stars" prove that acting is in fact hard work, especially when you have absolutely zero talent. And there is absolutely zero talent on display here. Not one performer comes across credibly, not a one. They're all so hideous that to single anyone out seems almost unfair. But the heck with being fair. Bob Guiney and Tonya Cooley should never be allowed to open their mouths in public again. This would be a great service to the human race. Their "acting" may be the most inept, pathetic endeavor in the history of humankind. They make the just routinely awful Jenna Lewis and Steven Hill look like Hepburn and Brando by comparison. A special mention also for Ethan Zohn who goes way too far in playing a bizarre, offbeat character. He needed to dial it down about a thousand notches or so. His character ends up being just the stupidest thing in a movie which is nothing but a huge, steaming pile of stupid. For all the "stars" of this movie their 15 minutes of fame is well and truly up. The tribe has spoken. It's time for you to go.

"The Scorned" is a watchable if overall pretty decent entry.**SPOILERS**Arriving at a secluded beach house, Kirsten, (Jenna Lewis) Oliver, (Steven Hill) Seth, (Reichen Lehmkuhl) D.Q, (Jon Dalton) Jennifer, (Tonya Cooley) and Trish, (Stacie Jones Upchurch) prepare for a weekend of partying and fun. As the group has a lot of history, they take a while to get used to the arrangements. When one of them suddenly dies in the house, the others get freaked out, and owner Matt, (Bob Guiney) wants them to let it go and get on with their weekend. As the weekend continues and more strange deaths occur nearby, they start to dig into the house's past and come across an incident in the past involving him, his fiancée Raina, (Trish Schneider) and her friend Nichola, (Trishelle Cannatella) that turned into an ugly accident. Using this with other information gathered from their search, they realize the true happenings in the house and rush to put an end to them once and for all.The Good News: This here wasn't all that bad, and had some pretty good points in it. This here does a pretty great job of staying watchable when it's not concentrating on the horror elements. That is a hard task, as most don't even get that, yet this here never really becomes slow or boring. This is a great task to accomplish and that gives the film a high sensibility. The film gets into it's best moments with it's death scenes, which are quite exhilarating and include some great action scenes. There's a really great meltdown from being sprayed with acid where two victims, sprayed at the same time, burn down to charred remains together, being impaled from the back with a spiked rod and having it rip their heart out, slashed across the throat with a fire-poker, thrown head-first down a staircase and having a throat ripped out, among more kills. It's a shame that most of those are verified by being shown what the after-affect looks like, but there's still enough blood and gore in here to really be impressed. That they're all involved in pretty big action scenes makes them even better. There's more to the scenes than just the violent death, and by doing so makes the scene seem even more fun. That all of them are like this is a great surprise. This one even features a few mildly decent shock scenes, including a brilliant one where the ghost appears in silhouette underneath sheets of fluffed bed-sheets, then disappears when it's fixed properly. That is a pretty chilling scene, and this one does have a few good similar scenes along the way. These here help to make the film slightly better than it should've been.The Bad News: This one wasn't terrible, but it did have some problems. The biggest one is that there's not a whole lot of action in the film. This one's real action scenes are essentially it's killing scenes, and without a super-huge body count, there's some really long stretches of nothing going on. It manages to still stay interesting, but it does have some time between that are quite short on things going on. This one really could've used a couple other good action scenes to really pump up the pace somewhat, as the only time anything happens is the murder scenes. Another flaw is the film's tired and clichéd plot. There's no counting how many of these are taken from other films out there, with almost no tweaking whatsoever, and then just dropped straight in and nothing is made of it. The fact that it plays out like every single revenge film out there doesn't do it any favors. The last big flaw is the obvious lack of anything done in the gore scenes. This one really concentrates on the after-affects for it's gore and there's just hardly any done with on-screen kills before going to the aftermath to get the gore shown. That could be a problem for some, as the kills are certainly graphic enough but this one to be mostly the way it is would be a flaw. These here hold the film back.The Final Verdict: This isn't a severely flawed film, but it does have enough good points to make it watchable or at least a guilty pleasure. Those who enjoy the gimmick behind the film or are just plain curious about it should give it a shot, while those who don't like it or think the flaws would be more overbearing would be advised to seek caution.Rated R: Graphic Language, Nudity, Violence and several sex scenes

OK, here's the plot. A lover's triangle/quarrel results in one dead woman. Her ghost comes back to extract revenge on the living. One by one she gets back at them. I couldn't "spoil" this movie because it's rotten anyway, not that I've given up anything here. The only sad part is that the movie didn't just line up all the actors and finish them off in the first two minutes of the movie, say with a large caliber machine-gun, then any hapless viewer would be spared the next 82 or 83 minutes of misery. We watch a bunch of former reality TV show stars try to act and find out they can't; not a one of them has an ounce of talent. Many of them seem to enjoy taking their clothes off, but a couple of them should have passed on this option. Whatever we see in this film doesn't compensate for the time wasted viewing it. The really big question is why this movie was made.