FrightWorld

USA 2006
produced by
David R. Williams, Debra Ann Lorenzo, Emil J. Novak (executive), Ronald Doherty (executive), Jason Anderson (executive), David Gray (executive) for Red Scream Films, Buffalo Nickel Productions, Eerie Productions, David Gray Effects
directed by David R. Williams, Mike Bohatch (co)
starring Andrew Roth, Kamillia Kataxenna Kova, Gary Marzolf, Dina Cataldi, Tiffany Pulvino, Javier Marquez, Cody Matthew Blymire, Jess Weber, Wynne Wharff, Crystal Gonzales, Mark W. Chauppette, Michael O'Hear, Don Gervasi, Michael Ciesla, Timothy Francis Dugan, Zachery Francis Dugan, Stephanie Hooley, Crystaline Miller
written by David R. Williams, music by Mike Bohatch/Nightmare Kinetics, Any Questions?, special effects makeup by David Gray

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Years ago, Verden Fell (Gary Marzolf) was the most feared serialkiller of the region, as he was ruthless as shit, seemed to have almost superhuman strength, and he felt no pain making him appear invulnerable. And when the FBI close in on him, he sets up death traps for the agents, and takes many an agent down before finally breathing his last, riddled by a few too many bullets.

Now, college kid Jack (Andrew Roth) has bought FrightWorld (rather the decorations and props locked away in a warehouse), a long forgotten horror themed amusement park, probably for a symbolic sum. Admittedly, all the frights in FrightWorld are pretty middle-of-the-road, the real attraction is that it's only a stonethrow away from where Verden Fell had his showdown ...

Now to celebrate his acquisition, Jack has invited his friends to the warehouse  for a little bit of fun - which of course means they'll drink till they drop and all end up having sex eventually (hey, they're college kids). Now the thing about Jack's tough-as-nails girlfriend Kat (Kamillia Kataxenna Kova) is that she's a virgin, and while she willingly lets herself be deflowered by Jack that night, her virginal blood brings Verden Fell back into the land of the living ... and that's hardly a good thing.

Verden starts out by possessing a few of Jack's friends to make them kill one another ... and when the others find the corpses, they start to panic, and the fact that they suddenly find themselves locked in with no way to get out. Of course they now do what people in precarious situations tend to do best - to panic, which includes blaming, even fighting one another and doing everything but to work together as a team. They even tie up Jack, the only one who really knows his way around the warehouse, just because it's his fault they're all here. In other words, they make it way too easy for Verden Fell to pick them out one by one and kill them.

Ultimately, Kat is the last left standing, as she's better equipped for this kind of stuff due to a traumatic experience earlier in her life. But there is a very unhealthy link between her experiences and Verden Fell ...

FrightWorld is a film that somehow falls into separate blocks of varying quality: The first part, in which the police raids Verden Fell's house and he is ultimately killed is pretty great and gruesome in a perfidious sort of way ... but then the film loses steam with our heroes entering the building, and for quite a bit, we are treated to nothing more than clichés about partying college kids, none of them particularly interesting (but at least the girls are cute). It's only when Verden Fell returns from the dead that the movie gets interesting again, and even the characters gain depth, as their panicky and ultimately wrong reactions to the situation at hand add an uncomfortable realism to the situation, plus there's the occasional spot of gruesomeness you wouldn't want to miss.

In all, probably not the best low budget slasher of its era, but fans of the genre will certainly be entertained, plus the whole thing's a whole lot less predictable than other films of its ilk.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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