XII (2011)

Wonderful Movie

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

A lot of fun.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The folks of Blandsville, Blandizona are going missing for some reason (they were on a jury that put away some nutcase). This guy be skinning off'n the faces of these folks for some reason. It takes an awfully long time for people to figure out what's going on.Luckily, on sabbatical after recording 'Chunga's Revenge' with Frank Zappa, Flo and Eddi arrive in town and have brought along Knight Rider 2000 to help solve the case! The film really takes off here, thankfully.You might fall asleep during that bit though, and upon missing it, find the film to be a dull affair with a load of human drama (what was all that crap with the boyfriend about? That led nowhere). You don't even see much in the way of slashing. Way to botch the job, losers.Except that bit where Flo and Eddi turn up in the killer's house and distract him with a rousing version of Sharleena.I'm cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying (over this dull movie)

A 'just married' couple are driving through Las Vegas accompanied by a musical soundtrack that sounds as if it has been lifted straight from Hawaii Five-O. Everything is going well until the groom has his head blown away by a passing driver.A similar shock happens later on. FBI Agent Naughton has all the hallmarks of a sharp-dressed hero. Before long, he is smeared along a sun-kissed highway by the same manic driver.The storyline involves disfigured criminal Leonard Karlsson (Jeremy Fitzgerald), convicted of child molestation. He breaks out in a clumsily shot pre-credits sequence and starts a killing spree against the 12 jurors who convicted him. To hide his deformity, he takes to wearing the faces of his victims. Apart from this, we are never invited to learn much about Karlsson; he immediately becomes the standard slasher/killer whose victims are dispatched in a less than bloody way.The characters are sketchily written. None of them are particularly obnoxious (a common complaint) but neither are they particularly interesting or easy to care about. Deputy Kent, who emerges as the unlikely hero, is probably the most likable of them all – before he too is dispatched, leaving two young girls Vicki (Mercedes McNab) and Claire (Emily Hardy) to sort things out.As a whole, 'XII' is competent, perfunctory and contains some gory moments, particularly towards the end. If we knew a little more about the main villain, he would have been more effective – as it is, he is simply another 'bogeyman.' My favourite aspect of this is the element of surprise; many of the deaths were truly shocking because the characters seemed the least likely to be despatched.

Well, where shall I start with this one? It starts off OK with one guy getting his head blown off driving along the interstate. His new 'wife' then cops for it, but you don't see it - you only hear about it a bit later. The 'baddie' then sets about bumping off the rest of the jurors that convicted him of 'kiddie-fiddling'. When in prison, the inmates sorted him and his face out good style for bring a 'nonce', so he isn't too happy when released. He gets through 11 of the jury who all happen to be living in some poxy little town where it seems nobody lives(?). You don't get to see much gore until the last 15 minutes when he is taking the faces of some of his victims. Unfortunately, the last jury member; some bimbo waitress beats this tough guy up, runs away, gets caught, beats him up again, gets away again, gets caught again and then manages to get away again and finally shoots him. The End! The bit that I'm most annoyed about is that the description on the CD box said the film contained: Strong Sex, Gore and Sexual Violence. What a load of crock - There is some gore but not an ounce of sex, nudity, kissing , sexual banter - Zilch! This is clearly a case of false advertising and I'll be contacting my lawyer tomorrow!

The movie is about a criminal who escapes from prison and targets those who were jury members who found the killer guilty. It's... it should be along the lines of a slasher movie although I'm not sure the final product really qualifies as one.Minor spoilers: Nobody is exactly safe. People seemingly important are offed surprisingly quickly. Unfortunately in trying to achieve this unpredictable feel the movie seemingly lost something. I'm not sure exactly, but whatever it was it would've saved the movie.Whatever the writers were going for never really works, for reasons I can't quite explain. The movie certainly is far less exciting than a film like "Twelve" could have been though.