The Snare

BUT I cannot with good faith give this film a high ranking based on the techniques that that filthy monster C.A Cooper did to the poor talent. It is all in the trivia section. He basically scared one of the actors half to death w/ spiders yet screamed louder than my 3 year old when someone said he had one on his back. The only stars given are for the good acting on behalf of the cast. But then again, when the director forces you to basically live like the captives that their roles call for, how can you really fake it?

Three young people-- congenitally uncomfortable Forward, her best friend Warren, and Warren's crude boyfriend Paton-- enjoy a secret and illicit holiday on the top floor of an unused resort. Their first morning, the elevator stops working (as well as the emergency stairs' door). Then, the nightmares start.

The Snare actually starts off strong (and in the closing camera-work, Cooper finally shows what he could have accomplished had he put his back into it.) But this film, which is primarily about 3 people's boredom, is itself just as boring.

The characters throw their hands up helplessly very early in the film-- despite having access to much that they could use to try to escape, from fire, to water, to heavy toilets. This film could have chronicled their descent into helplessness, echoed in the transformation of his set, but Cooper's characters are helpless from the beginning, and his movie is static because of it. Forward's initial discomfort is believable, and suggests the potential for transformation-- but no, she never moves past her unease, and Cooper never gives her the opportunity to deviate from the single expression she wears throughout the film.

What about the supernatural element? The creep value? The earliest scenes are good, but The Snare runs out of steam fast, quickly settling into a junior high level of creep, down to the hackneyed phrases carved on the walls, down to the junior high notebook art.

The first thirty minutes of The Snare aren't bad. But the last sixty aren't only bad, they're unchanging. And it's such a shame, because in that first thirty minutes lies the potential for a great film. I'd recommend passing on The Snare.

What got me interested in watching this movie was the trailer, which turned out to be very misleading. It made it look as if it was going to be a bit of a creepy jumper horror, however it was quite the opposite. Scenes that were meant to be creepy were boring, and there was one scene that makes you jump throughout and it wasn't anything terrifying. Any movie producers that feel the need to mislead viewers with the trailer must know that their product is garbage.

Good notes would be the acting, as always with most British movies it is spot on, and the way it is shot is pretty good especially that end scene of the apartment they were trapped in. However that does not justify the unbalanced way the plot plays out, and how it drags without anything interesting happening.

So much potential not reached.

Taking a trip into the wilderness, a group of friends on a retreat to a remote seaside lodge find themselves alone and stranded inside a cursed apartment complex by a malevolent entity that holds a powerful spell over them and forces them into desperate means to get away.

For the most part, this one was a decent if unspectacular effort. Like most modern British horror films, the film is really undone by the languid and wholly uninviting pacing that just really drags this one out far longer than it really should be. The first half of this one is a prime example as this one just goes through such a sullen and drowsy tone that just starts this one off on a downbeat feel showing them at every stop along the way, taking their time getting set-up in the building and their initial interactions together makes this one feel quite challenging. That it takes a while for them to realize they're trapped and for the horror to kick in makes this one feel like so many of the recent British efforts which utilize the same factors, taking far longer to get its main point across since it spends far too long on the plodding build-up rather than anything else. That there's not a whole lot of intensity or energy to the proceedings as everyone tends to offer up no urgency in their actions really completes the picture for this one in how dull and drab it really sets itself up as being, and with the whole build-up taking so long this one does have some problems to work through. There's also the rather troubling issue here with this one really leaving a lot of elements open to speculation, really not letting it's burning mysteries get explored in any shape or form as so much of this one goes unexplored or unanswered throughout here. From the source of the visions showing the mysterious children playing in the woods, the scenes of her watching her memories from her abused childhood or the whole point of luring them to the complex in the first point, there's a lot on offer here that doesn't make much sense and it really lets a lot of questions go unanswered. These here hold it back somewhat even though there are some rather engaging elements within it. One of the film's better features is the fact that this one really manages to evoke a creepy and somewhat unsettling atmosphere with the way it builds itself up along the way. Once we get the impact realized that they're stranded and isolated together, this one offers up some great ideas of their plight together as the fear and paranoia they experience is manifested in their behavior as well as the increasingly strange and mysterious visions. Those are where this one really picks up, going from the quick flashes of people wandering down by the sea to the full-bore visions showing the happenings of the strange cult and how they end up altering her version of reality that really brings up quite a lot of nice freak-outs here to go along with that burgeoning paranoia. That all leads into the fine finale that brings about quite a shocking conclusion to it all as the revelation given here is quite a striking and shocking conclusion that wraps it all together quite nicely offering some decent blood and gore along the way. It's certainly good enough, but it's just too flawed to be higher.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Brief Nudity, a sex scene, Rape, drug use and close-up shots of dead animals.

Start with this, English in not my mother language. My apo's for spelling mistakes... How's your Dutch btw? :-)

The general opinion doesn't seem to agree with me. 3.4 vs 9??? Well, I've read the user reviews already here. And Shining, well (only applies to movie not book) always has been a little overrated to me. But I can see the parallels that were drawn. Alice in Wonderland? The woman is slowly descending into madness. If that's a reference to Alice in Wonderland I can see one in every movie. Just take it for what it is pls.

I just think it does not have the aspiration to be like that movie (Shining). At least not intentionally. I just watched it for what is was, and these are my personal conclusions:

It's a slow burner. You have to like that kind of movie. I know that put's off a lot of people. It relies heavy on it's creepy atmosphere. You have to invest in the movie to get really into it. The acting of the lead actress is outstanding. Her mental descent and physical transformation are really impressive. For me seldom seen in low budget movies. (The original Martyrs comes to mind as another exception) It is very scary. Not only by atmosphere but also by jump scares. It is visually stunning in it's simplicity, because it does not have that "Hollywood film" over it and yet it's able to grab you by the neck. It looks "European real (for lack of better words) It's also somewhat gory. Depends on what you are used to I guess. But there are definitely some stomach-turning moments. It is also erotically charged in a sick kinda way. First seduction and innocent flirting, then animal instincts taking over. And damn it is so creepy!!!

Watch this movie if you like slow burnin' horror movies. If you have a short attention span, go watch ghostbusters (n.o.) You have to like the genre, if not, that's the only condition I can think to let this one slip.

And for the love of god. For once they showed a boob. Just because it happened to be there... on a chest... of most women...