So this is some kind of slasher flick right? Well actually no. It's more of a home invasion flick meets a rape revenge flick without the revenge.
I'm only writing this review because there are some clever ideas here which get lost due to meaningless scenes irrelevant to the plot. The story should have spent much more time building clues to the reveal.
The plot: Linda Blair and her best friend travel to a small town for a relaxing weekend with Blair's parents. Why do we spend 20 minutes getting to know Blair and her friend as they travel? NO REASON at all! In fact Blair and her friend are not even the heroines. Their characters are simply more victims.
Blair's parents are actually developed more as characters! Mr. Blair is a life long want to be gore FX man. He's never actually worked in Hollywood, he just does it as a hobby. He's spent his whole life playing elaborate pranks on his wife and daughter. As I said, Mr. and Mrs. Blair are developed more as characters than Blair herself.
That night a gang of stereotypical 80s hair metal punks invades the Blair home under in inexplicable theory that the Blair family is rich. They're not. Mr. and Mrs. Blair are beaten to death with random household objects. That's right, the robbers aren't even armed with switch blades.
The murders are being observed by a deformed man. (the first we've seen of him) Is he friend or foe? Well since he does begin attacking the gang he must be OK.
The mutant's sudden appearance leads to a clumsy chase into the woods with the gang chasing Blair into the snow while at the same time fleeing the mutant.
"We need to split up." says the gang's leader, and we can see where this is going. This way the one unarmed man can kill the four of them rather than the four of them simply standing together. The deformed man isn't some giant hulking mass. He's just some deformed guy unable to speak.
By daylight a unit of rangers arrives on the scene. Why? No one's called the police, there hasn't been a gun shot and no one's gone missing yet.
The police shoot and killed the deformed man, despite the fact he's unarmed and hasn't shown any signs of violence in front of them, over the objections of a civilian.
Blair is left in a coma and the surviving gang leader and his girlfriend blame the Blair family murders on the mutant.
What about Blair's friend? What about her? I rewatched this part three times. She just disappears from the film altogether at the house! Presumably she was also murdered?
At the police station they're unable to charge the gang since the sheriff explains, "In a court of law you still need evidence." So their fingerprints all over the house and one the murder weapons isn't enough?
The sheriff also questions the civilian whom turns out to be Uncle Blair. Who's never been introduced. "Why didn't you want us to shoot that man?" Maybe because he was an innocent unarmed man!!!
Immediately after the gang's release Uncle Blair kidnaps them and brings them back to the house, which hasn't been sealed off as a crime scene!!!! There isn't even police tape!!! Instead Uncle Blair reveals himself as a plastic surgeon who's set up an operating room (in the middle of a crime scene).
SPOILER WARNING! The big reveal is that Uncle Blair himself is deformed. His brother used his FX talents to made him a mask to pass as normal. The mutant was his retarded and deformed son. "I didn't have the heart to put him away. So my brother and his wife agreed to hide him for me." So locking his son away from the world and hiding him as a shameful secret was more loving than simply having him live in a home for the retarded? Thanks dad!
Predictably Uncle Blair uses his plastic surgery skills to deform the gang and then locks them away in the same space inside the house where his retarded son was imprisoned. What about getting revenge on the cops whom actually murdered his son in cold blood?
But there's a problem in the projection both. That's right, the film brakes the fourth wall because Frankenstein's monster and the wolfman didn't like the way the movie portrayed them. Yeah... that's the ending.
So as I said, there are some interesting elements here like the deformed plastic surgeon getting revenge by deforming the gang but it all gets lost.
Why do we spend 20 minutes focusing on Blair's character if she's just going to be another victim? Why do they do a great job building up Mr. and Mrs. Blair's characters only to quickly kill them off? And Uncle Blair is a Johnny come lately.
I'm only writing this review because there are some clever ideas here which get lost due to meaningless scenes irrelevant to the plot. The story should have spent much more time building clues to the reveal.
The plot: Linda Blair and her best friend travel to a small town for a relaxing weekend with Blair's parents. Why do we spend 20 minutes getting to know Blair and her friend as they travel? NO REASON at all! In fact Blair and her friend are not even the heroines. Their characters are simply more victims.
Blair's parents are actually developed more as characters! Mr. Blair is a life long want to be gore FX man. He's never actually worked in Hollywood, he just does it as a hobby. He's spent his whole life playing elaborate pranks on his wife and daughter. As I said, Mr. and Mrs. Blair are developed more as characters than Blair herself.
That night a gang of stereotypical 80s hair metal punks invades the Blair home under in inexplicable theory that the Blair family is rich. They're not. Mr. and Mrs. Blair are beaten to death with random household objects. That's right, the robbers aren't even armed with switch blades.
The murders are being observed by a deformed man. (the first we've seen of him) Is he friend or foe? Well since he does begin attacking the gang he must be OK.
The mutant's sudden appearance leads to a clumsy chase into the woods with the gang chasing Blair into the snow while at the same time fleeing the mutant.
"We need to split up." says the gang's leader, and we can see where this is going. This way the one unarmed man can kill the four of them rather than the four of them simply standing together. The deformed man isn't some giant hulking mass. He's just some deformed guy unable to speak.
By daylight a unit of rangers arrives on the scene. Why? No one's called the police, there hasn't been a gun shot and no one's gone missing yet.
The police shoot and killed the deformed man, despite the fact he's unarmed and hasn't shown any signs of violence in front of them, over the objections of a civilian.
Blair is left in a coma and the surviving gang leader and his girlfriend blame the Blair family murders on the mutant.
What about Blair's friend? What about her? I rewatched this part three times. She just disappears from the film altogether at the house! Presumably she was also murdered?
At the police station they're unable to charge the gang since the sheriff explains, "In a court of law you still need evidence." So their fingerprints all over the house and one the murder weapons isn't enough?
The sheriff also questions the civilian whom turns out to be Uncle Blair. Who's never been introduced. "Why didn't you want us to shoot that man?" Maybe because he was an innocent unarmed man!!!
Immediately after the gang's release Uncle Blair kidnaps them and brings them back to the house, which hasn't been sealed off as a crime scene!!!! There isn't even police tape!!! Instead Uncle Blair reveals himself as a plastic surgeon who's set up an operating room (in the middle of a crime scene).
SPOILER WARNING! The big reveal is that Uncle Blair himself is deformed. His brother used his FX talents to made him a mask to pass as normal. The mutant was his retarded and deformed son. "I didn't have the heart to put him away. So my brother and his wife agreed to hide him for me." So locking his son away from the world and hiding him as a shameful secret was more loving than simply having him live in a home for the retarded? Thanks dad!
Predictably Uncle Blair uses his plastic surgery skills to deform the gang and then locks them away in the same space inside the house where his retarded son was imprisoned. What about getting revenge on the cops whom actually murdered his son in cold blood?
But there's a problem in the projection both. That's right, the film brakes the fourth wall because Frankenstein's monster and the wolfman didn't like the way the movie portrayed them. Yeah... that's the ending.
So as I said, there are some interesting elements here like the deformed plastic surgeon getting revenge by deforming the gang but it all gets lost.
Why do we spend 20 minutes focusing on Blair's character if she's just going to be another victim? Why do they do a great job building up Mr. and Mrs. Blair's characters only to quickly kill them off? And Uncle Blair is a Johnny come lately.