Crush the Skull (2015)

Best movie ever!

As Good As It Gets

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Crush the Skull starts out looking like a typical hostage in the basement slasher flick, but quickly turns into a black comedy that had me alternately laughing and then covering my eyes over and over.The writing is excellent, with just the right amount of surprises, twists, and turns, and the acting is spot-on. None of that Indie flick crappy acting in this one. The cast really plays off one another and the banter is awesome. Katie Savoy was my favorite, because I am a red blooded American male, but all of the characters were great.Also, the cinematography was very good. All in all an excellent Indie black comedy that is definitely worth the time investment. Check it out!

And I've seen A TON. Get through the first 3 minutes, and you'll be rewarded. A good amount of gore. Tim Chiou has some serious comedic timing. If you're into movies like You're Next, Club Dread, Basket Case or Death Proof, this flick is for you. If this movie would have had any kind of budget it all, it would have killed at the box office. Deserves a far higher score than what it's got right now. I don't know why I need 10 lines of text. 3 would have sufficed to get my point across. In fact, if you wouldn't require the 10 lines, you'd get a lot more motivated drunk reviews, much like the one I'm posting, at the moment. The shot before the end credits will make you squeal with delight.

When we went to Comic Con in Chicago we went to a couple of panels on Asians (or the lack of) in films, so this one really stood out to me since two of the main characters are Asian. And the other thing that stood out was that the main female was very intelligent, even though the guys refused to listen to her. Blair (Katie Savoy), said they should leave during the first heist, but her boyfriend didn't, which caused them trouble. Then in the house, she wanted them to all stay together and go upstairs to call for help, and of course that didn't happen. And there were a couple of other things she called out, but the others ignored her.I enjoyed the game of cat and mouse that the killer played with them in the house, and the various ways people got killed/maimed were pretty good. There was some humor thrown in to keep from suspense overload, which is always appreciated. They don't really touch on why the guy is killing people, but in a way that makes it even more scary. Some people are just psycho. Sometimes the acting seemed a little over the top, but they could have been trying to add a bit more comedy this way. If you're looking for something not too heavy on gore, and with a killer toying with his victims, I would say this is one to watch.

Director Viet Nyugen is clearly fascinated with the idea of criminals stumbling onto danger far worse than their own misdeeds. It's a trick Crush the Skull pulls twice in its first and second acts. No doubt it's a theme of Nyugen's two webshorts, 2010's Crush the Skull and 2013's Crush the Skull 2, which feature some of the same cast. But no matter how many times he does it, I'm not sold. Winner of the Nightfall award at the Los Angeles Film Festival, the film version of his wicked concept is a weird hybrid of webisode and TV sitcom. I don't know why this made it to the silver screen. It revels in its punchlines as jokes are punctuated with a Parks and Recreation style zoom. This wouldn't be too bad if the jokes were funny, but they're all obvious ones that would only work in absurd satire but this isn't whacky or sharp enough. Instead it uses all the clichés of horror without subverting them, thinking its melodrama is hilarious but it's just melodramatic. Unfortunately it's completely atmosphereless. There are a few unexpected moments I enjoyed, and it's not explicitly bad, it just falls flat. 5/10