(re)Search my Trash

<body> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="800" cellpadding="0" height="100%"> <tr> <td width="100" rowspan="3" background="../stylepix/square.gif" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="3"></td> <td width="592" height="1%" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="3"></td> <td width="100" rowspan="3" background="../stylepix/squareright.gif" valign="top">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top" height="99%">    <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="205" align="right"> <tr> <td width="100%"> <p align="right"><img border="0" src="../stills/hazmat-poster2.jpg" width="200" height="268"></p> </td> </tr> </table> <p><i>Scare Antics</i> is one of these crappy TV-shows where innocent people are scared shitless (and way beyond what's in good taste) just to entertain the audiences. It's also fighting for survival in an overly crowded market, which means while producer/host David (Todd Bruno) cuts corners wherever he can (including cast-and-crew safety) to keep the budgets down, the pranks are getting more and more outrageous and dangerous.<p>This time around, the <i>Scare Antics</i> team has teamed up with a trio of teens (Gema Calero, Reggie Peters, Daniela Larez), who want to lure their sort-of friend, weirdo Jacob (Norbert Velez) into an abandoned and supposedly haunted chemical plant ... where in a macabre twist, Jacob's father has died in a decade or so ago.<p>The <i>Scare Antics</i> crew sets up its cruel but lame prank, and while David still thinks they are onto something good, his co-producer and sort-of girlfriend Brenda (Aniela McGuinness) already has a weird feeling about it, in equal parts fueled by guilt and safety concerns.<p>Of course, the prank backfires: Jacob finds a biohazard suite like the one his father died in and puts it on, which puts him in a different state of mind, he finds an axe, and when the <i>Scare Antics</i>-monster actor attacks him in a similar suit, Jacob simply hacks him to pieces - and when he finds out the whole thing was a set-up by his friends, he kills them as well, only Melanie (Gema Calero) somehow manages to escape and make it to the <i>Scare Antics</i> crew - which far from saves her, because they have locked themselves inside an office at the center of the plant with only one exit, they're unarmed, without communication to the outside, not even an idea of the lay-out of the place. On the other side of the office door though, Jacob is waiting, and he has been here so often as a child he knows the plant like the back of his hand. And he's armed - and very very very angry at pretty much everyone hiding in the office. Oh, and he definitely doesn't shy back from murder ...<p> <p>At heart this might be a slasher movie (as above synopsis probably suggests), but it works way better than most out there because it gives the central plot a solid and complex backstory for a change (a genre-anomaly in itself) without ever losing sight of its main plot, its central characters are actually fleshed-out rather than just getting (clearly visible) numbers to tell everybody when they're going to go to the slaughter, and amidst all this, the direction is incredibly tight with a view of how to build up and keep tension and when to insert its (few but effective) gore effects. Oh, and the whole thing makes effective use of its limited sets, too, using the limitations to its advantage.<p>Recommended, actually!<p>  <p>  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top" height="1%">  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> currentyear = "2013"; </SCRIPT> <SCRIPT language="JavaScript" src="../scripts/endcredits.js"></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> dosworsdonn(); </SCRIPT> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </body>