Skeleton Crew (2009)
Back in the early 1970s, at a mental institution near the Russian border, a crazed doctor, Dr. Anderson assumed the persona of "the Auteur," and began murdering his patients while filming the atrocities. Thirty years later, an American film crew has arrived at the hospital to shoot a horror film based on those awful events. The director, Steven, is determined to make the film as realistic as possible, a goal that doesn't seem too far-fetched when his Finnish sound men discover a hidden room in the hospital basement. There, perfectly preserved, are the original snuff films shot by "the Auteur". As Steven's obsession grows, his cast and crew begin to fear for his sanity. But this is only the beginning, because when Steven discovers actual camera used by "the Auteur", he assumes the role of the murderous doctor and the real slaughter begins.
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Simply Perfect
A different way of telling a story
The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Found this very cheap at a convention so I was alert to see a really bad movie due the price. Luckily this wasn't that bad after all even as many people are tearing this down to the ground. I liked it but you must take it with a smile. Is it a real horror, yes and no. A crew is out at an abandoned asylum to shoot a horror flick. But what they found in the basement are some films with snuff on it. The director is addicted to those flicks and when the shootings doesn't go that good after all he slowly changes into a mad director wanting to make a snuff. And when he finds an 8 mm camera he decides to kill his crew while shooting and making his own snuff.I admit, it takes a while before things go wrong but the snuffs being watched is creepy and does show the horror. It's when the director goes out to kill that the real horror and gore comes in. It's a low budget flick and it shows here and there but overall when you don't take it all to serious it's a rather mediocre horror flick. One to see while necking a brewskie with your friends, and you will all have your smiles but if you think to take this serious then you will hate it.Gore 2/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 2,5/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 1/5
It's funny. As I was watching the opening of SKELETON CREW, I thought I might be in for a treat, a sort of psycho killer thriller set in a weird decaying mental institution whose staff had long gone off the deep end. Almost 30 minutes(!)in, we find that what has been presented to us, regarding a poor woman's ordeal after a car crash leaves her in an asylum while her boyfriend is supposedly being patched up, hunted by the hospital's crew, is simply footage for a low budget horror film . We are introduced to a Finnish film crew, tired and forlorn because they haven't been paid, the director fancying himself an auteur while his producer, back in LA, has no intention of spending any money on their film. Then, the director, Steven(Steve Porter)becomes obsessed with snuff film stock found by members of his crew, and we soon discover that spirits of the deranged hospital staff who committed torturous atrocities to patients back in the 70s before the hospital was closed and searched by police are haunting the halls. Steven, who begins to hunt and kill his actors and crew, using methods perfected by the ghouls who once operated the now dilapidated hospital fallen to ruin, could very well be controlled by the evil spirit of the former director of the asylum, "The Auteur"(what the hospital director called himself when filming his torture of patients in the basement of the building). The hunted will need to somehow evade their pursuer, but any avenue of escape seems remote since their van's engine, of course, doesn't crank and phones have no signal. Meanwhile, The Auteur is able to capture and butcher each crew member one at a time when separate from the pack.Kind of a "poutpori" of various subgenres. It's a slasher movie. It's a torture movie. It's a satire on low budget filmmaking. It's got ghosts and a madman on the loose doing their bidding. It incorporates the idea of existence of snuff movies. It's a black comedy whose humor is geared towards the slasher genre and it's many clichés. It pokes fun at the "film within the film" structure. The mental hospital is an extremely notable asset as is the excellent special gore effects highlighting some pretty unpleasant ultra violence including the use of a number of weapons including a chainsaw, set lights(which burns one poor fellow alive), bats with spikes(a homage to ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, perhaps?), power drill(an actor has no idea that Steven has substituted a real one for a prop!), and hammers(which pummel victims strapped to chairs by leather straps). The make-up effects(such grisly delights such as the bodies of live victims with limbs removed, the aforementioned burn victim whose skin chars before our eyes, gun shot wound in the back of a victim's skull)and camera work, not to mention the snuff reels, are first-rate. It's the unevenness of the bonkers plot which doesn't quite gel. SKELETON CREW is very tongue-in-cheek and should make for an easy double feature with a HOSTEL or SAW movie. I liked this a bit more than others who found it unwatchable; could be I was in the right mood for it. I wouldn't necessarily say SKELETON CREW is a success but it's dark heart is in the right place. That's a wrap.
Utterly dreadful. A pitiful slasher with no redeeming qualities. Drags on and on like a train wreck in slow motion and the acting is not camp, it's just plain bad. What is so unforgivable about this movie is that with all the ingredients: a derelict asylum and a lunatic movie director making snuff movies on the fly, its difficult to see how the makers could fail to make at least a halfway decent horror film. This one misses the mark by a mile. Spurious sex scenes and tiresome adolescent remarks about mainstream slashers such as Saw and Hostel weigh this plodding mess down even more. Only good as a cure for insomnia.
So, yet another meta film about how predictable horror movies are... that never itself strays from every single horror trope it can find.what annoyed me most about this film was one particular thing... there is this undercurrent of sex going through the whole thing... even a couple sex scenes. One character even notes that she "went lez" even though she is "straight as an arrow". The problem, however, is that despite all the ass-shots both male and female they are careful not to do a single topless shot, which is not in itself a problem... as long as it doesn't look like you were trying to not quite show anyone topless. Horrible editing and scripting on this point.