Review: Wreckage

Originally posted on www.thefancarpet.com

The name wreckage is pretty apt for this film considering that the vast majority of it was an absolute train wreck. The fact that the film was badly shot and looked as though it had been copied from an old VHS tape was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to flaws in this movie. The bad acting from the majority of the cast didn’t help it either.

The premise of this film sounds like any other slasher type film, four young adults end up in the middle of nowhere in an abandoned scrap yard, then something terrible happens and all the while there is an escaped killer from the local nut house on the run, its just all a bit convenient and obvious to say the least.

The film is only 85 minutes long therefore it is almost bearable; remember I said almost. The title sequence feels as though it takes up about half of this time as it just drags on showing the audience shots of a scrap yard, yes I get the idea that the film will take place on a scrap yard but I don’t need to be reminded of this constantly within the title sequence, a simple black background would have been much more effective.

Couple this with the fact that the film feels as though it begins three times, the first opening part I’m sure I’ve seen once before in a little horror film called Halloween, heard of it? Then on top of that there are three endings; the final one I worked out before the actual announcement on screen. This is because the film has followed the rules of the slasher film to a point where you can work out what will happen five minutes before, and that’s just not good now is it?

There are also a couple of things that don’t make sense, especially in regards to the escaped lunatic and the first person who gets killed, and lets not forget the nurse giving mouth to mouth to a dying man covered in blood who manages to keep her face completely clean, now that’s a skill.

To be fair to the film, if it had been shot better, with a better quality camera and maybe a different setting then it might have worked, because the couple of twists that the film throws in are good on a certain level, but just become predictable because of the way it is shot.

The one good thing I have to mention about this film is the angry police officer; he had a couple of funny one-liners that made the 85 minutes bearable.

I doubt this film is going to end up on any best lists at the end of the year or will ever be cited as a great piece of film work, to be honest I think it would be much more at home on the horror channel, and we all know what the films on that channel are like, don’t we?