Monday, October 17, 2011

Crowbar: The Killings Of Wendell Graves

The Film:

Crowbar kicks off showing Wendell witnessing the violent murder of his parents. Wendell simply wanted to enjoy some candy with his father, unfortunately when he reaches his parents room he is greeted by the sounds of screams and a masked man wielding a crowbar. After the slaughter of his parents the masked man sets his sights on Wendell. Luckily he manages to get away, but the psychological damage has already set in and Wendell will never quite be the same again.

Flash forward 15 years. Alex and Veronica are a young couple starting their life together. Unfortunately they picked the wrong neighborhood to call their home. It may seem calm and peaceful, but little do they know Wendell lurks somewhere in the area and he has more than a couple screws loose. Slowly, things come to light and the plot thickens. Will Alex and Veronica be able to make it through this alive?

Crowbar is director Scott Phillip's first feature length film. He does a good job at directing here. There isn't anything here that will really have your jaw dropping, but he did a solid job without a doubt. His effort here is enough for me to keep a lookout for any of his future projects. Potential is shown here and it wouldn't be too crazy to imagine his name being attached to a great film in the near future.

Not long after the opening sequence is over Crowbar gains a strange quirkiness. This quirkiness isn't present throughout but when it does come up it works. A good example of this would be during the scene were the old man is warning Alex about the house. Moments like this, whether intentional or not, tend to keep the movie moving along at a nice pace. The gore is the film is minimal. That being said it does have a fairly high body count and when the gore does make an appearance is looks fairly realistic.

The acting is decent in some cases and horrible in others. The main characters performances are passable but many of the supporting characters were very far from believable. This kind of adds to the quirkiness that was previously mentioned though, which, in many cases doesn't seem to be intentional. I could care less about what happened to the majority of the characters in the movie but to be honest anymore character development would have only hurt the film. Crowbar knows what the audience wants and it caters to them. The film has a throwback vibe going for it, tracing back to some of the golden era slasher flicks of the 70's and 80's.

Overall Crowbar isn't a bad effort. It doesn't necessarily shoot for the stars, but in the end it falls slightly above the average. Hardcore fans of slasher films and low budget cinema should give this one a watch if they have some extra time on their hands. You aren't going to find anything new in the contents of Crowbar but the entertainment value is there and there is definitely small fun to be had with this. Rent it.

DVD Contents:
Looks and sounds good.

Special Features: 
Trailer 
Behind the Scenes

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