I only know of this movie because I know the guy who owned the video store seen in the film. He showed me his copy of the film and... wow. Probably the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. Or at the very least in the top 5. I feel like my biggest issue with this film is the astonishingly short runtime. I have a hard time even calling this a "movie". While it is true that there is no set minimum runtime, movies generally are 90 minutes (an hour and a half) long. This movie only lasts for 70 minutes. And that is counting several minutes of trailers at the beginning and ending of the film, as well as an intro and outro from a sort-of Elvira parody called "Grindhouse Ghoulia". This runtime also includes end credits that move slower than any other end credits I have ever seen in my life. It was clear to me that the director, Dustin Ferguson, attempted to drag this turkey out as long as possible so it would feel more like an actual movie. If you ignore the trailers and snail's pace end credits the movie is only about 60 minutes long. The pacing of the film is also incredibly boring and the story is thin at best. Here is the major scenes of the film and roughly how long they last:
**SPOILERS**
The opening shows two characters at a fair for 5 minutes. At this point, Jennifer is kidnapped. After Jennifer's boyfriend hangs up a bunch of fliers to find her and we get a brief introduction to our characters, the two male leads go to the video store for 5 minutes. The two female leads then go to the grocery store for another 5 minutes, and the four leads party for like 7 minutes (while listening to the dumbest song ever and playing with a barrel of monkeys). The four leads watch a shockumentary (all reused footage from other shockumentaries) for 11 minutes. After seeing Jennifer die on the tape, our heroine (I guess), Sky, has a dream/nightmare for 5 minutes. Then after a pointless call to her mom, Sky goes on a walk for another 5 minutes. The two male leads return the movie and ask if it's a snuff film. Big surprise, they don't get an answer. But a shady customer tells them to meet him at the bar for the truth. After this, Jennifer's boyfriend kills himself. Our 4 leads go to the bar for like 5 minutes, where they get drugged. Then they wake up in the basement and get killed in a snuff film. We see a couple guys renting the sequel, "Shockumentary II". The end! Roll the incredibly slow credits.
This film was barely an hour long but I felt like I was watching it for days. The characters were unlikable, had no traits at all, really. I didn't care about any of them at all. There were a couple of scenes that were shot and scored kind of interestingly (Sky's nightmare and walk scene), but even those scenes were too long and ultimately pointless. Everything else was painful to watch. Do not recommend. Giving one star for the video store in the film and the two scenes that showed potential. I also found out that apparently the repetitive song and the video store scene from this movie were later copy-pasted into other Dustin Ferguson films. Nice to see that he's making Bruno Mattei-esque rip offs of his own movies.
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