The Helpers (2013)

I love this movie so much

Great Film overall

The acting in this movie is really good.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The film opens with a story about 23 orphans being killed in a fire. The rest of film is us figuring out what this had to do with the rest of the film with flashbacks to "10,000 Maniacs" and "House of a 1,000 Corpses." Seven young adults taken a back road into Vegas, a too common horror film set up, and find themselves stranded at a friendly bar and motel. Then the clever killings start, 1 person at a time in a slow methodical manner. I give them a plus for that.Dallas Lovato played the role perfected by Sherie Moon Zombie. She did a fair job, but they didn't let her go. There were a few good characters, but the rest, especially Claire (Kristen Quintrall) were mostly cardboard. The on screen horror chemistry and mood wasn't there. When Claire was attempting to hide, her continuous whimpering was more annoying than anything. Kill her, let's move on I kept thinking to myself.Once the film did tie together to that orphan thing..."Really? That's it?"They also had trouble with the title. The first title (used in UK) was "The Helpers" which actually related to the film, even though it lacks any horror factor. The US title, "No Vacancy" is a better horror title (We don't get a picture of little fuzzy chipmunks trying to help people) but it doesn't relate to the film other than the fact it has a motel in it, which BTW always had a vacancy. With "Motel Hell" already taken, the pickings are slim.Some attempt at dark humor like "House of a !,000 Corpses." If you need a slasher film fix, you could do worse.Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (Rachel Sterling- Juggy dancer on "The Man Show")

This film was the typical horror- someone's car breaks down and then they search for help- a motel where everyone was overly-friendly. The torture scenes were not only disturbing but it was obvious what would happen,and that nearly all of them would end up killed. i thought the whole film turned out to be quite predictable. The acting was bad, however towards the end it started to get interesting, when you find out why they want to kill all the kids- for revenge on Claire's father. Overall i think it was a let down and a bit too predictable. The torture scenes were quite scary, the type where you have to cover your eyes or look away. Unfortunately, it wasn't the type of film that would leave you frightened.

This film starts off pretty basic and then gets ridiculous as most movies of this genre do. I am a fan of movies of this genre if they can do it correctly. The reason I say correctly, is that the victims need to be smart and the antagonists need to be that much smarter to pull something like this off. It starts off alright but then it goes to your basic protagonists acting stupid and you not caring about them at all. A few times I was actually cheering for them to be killed. The acting and effects were fine for a low budget film such as this, but the writing was terrible. They really couldn't do much to make this unique, but they could have made it more watchable.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but really, do we need another film about people being murdered in various "inventive" ways? What value does a movie such as this add to our society? "The Helpers" is another of the "Saw" type of film, where people are victimised, traumatised and eventually killed. While clearly there is a place for many different types of movies to appeal to different people, I feel this type of film simply panders to twisted individuals who get off on seeing others suffer. If that sounds like your kind of movie, then go ahead and watch, otherwise I would suggest as a MUCH better alternative, "In Cold Blood [1967]", a well acted and gripping tale, which while shocking in its own right, is not gratuitous.