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Room 33 (2009)

Abandoned facilities such as mental institutions are an often used location in horror films.  It wasn't much different with the recent "What Movie Wednesday" winner, "Room 33".

When their vehicle runs out of gas, a female roller derby team, and the couple they offered a ride to are forced to take shelter for the night in an abandoned mental institution.  They soon meet Roxy- a scared teenager with a mysterious connection to the facility... and the killer that is now stalking them from the shadows...

The premise, while not what one could call "original" these days is still one that promises potential.  The actual story used, however is pretty shallow and amounts to tedious repetition of characters being scared, concerned for Roxy, being bitchy and being killed.  There is very little in the way of emotionally engaging moments... or scares even.  The opportunities to explore the reasons for what was happening were wasted- rather than clear things up, they only confused things more.

"Room 33" isn't helped by the rather banal and shallow characters.  We've seen them all before:
  • The Pretty Boy
  • The Nice College Girl
  • The Slut
  • The Bitch
  • The Hot Foreign Girl
  • The Scared Girl
  • The Chubby Tech Guy
  • The Scared Black Guy
This movie does very little with them in terms of real character development.  Of the characters, the ONLY ones I liked were Nelson (the black guy), and Stewart (the tech guy).  I liked Nelson, especially, because he was pretty much the only one of them that seemed to realise they were in a horror movie.  But as much as I liked Nelson, I really didn`t feel anything when he died.  The worst character was Sarah- the "bitch" character.  She was just not likable at all in any way.  She was just a bitch.  She insulted everyone, gave a blow job to the "pretty boy" who her team mate was interested in... AFTER caving in the aforementioned team mate's head with a bat.  Tries to use the blow job to cause a rift between the "pretty boy" and the "college girl" (and is pissed when it doesn't work), threatens to kill the "scared girl" multiple times- and even vows to kill her again as revenge for her team mate's head being caved in.  Not one redeemable quality in that skag.  Not even the scene whowing off her fishnet clad butt was enough to make me go, "Oh, she's not so bad."  I wanted her to die in the most horrible, grisly, messy fashion possible.

The acting wasn`t great- in fact, I was at times wishing that it was the actors dying and not the characters.

There are a couple of decent pieces of camera work- but nothing that really hasn`t been seen before and stands out as a "OMG!  That's so cool!" piece of work.  In fact, I was not only disappointed, but I was quite pissed at the lack of grue in the kills.  First off, you don't SEE anything happen due to a fast cut away.  When you see the body, there's a bit of blood, and gooey tissue- but not enough to satisfy most horror fans.  This especially angered me because I was so looking forward to see the character of Sarah die.  But, when her time comes... there's just a quick shot of the killer's fingers in her eyes, and then she's on the floor.  Given the character's attitude throughout the movie, I felt cheated by that pay off.  It was a fucking cheap thing to do.

I do not recommend this "What Movie Wednesday" winner for watching.  At all.  Avoid it.  If I had a category worse than The Ugly, "Room 33" would be in it.

Special Shout Out:

I'd like to thank everyone who voted in this week's "What Movie Wednesday"- especially those that voted for "Room 33":

Leona Biron-Coulter
Tanya Marie
Ricky Russell
Jason Wiggins
Shiro Seirei Kitsuna

The next "What Movie Wednesday" will be 07 March 2013.

Join me Thursday nights on Twitter @camethebasement at 10:00 pm (PST) when I tweet along to their radio show!

ALSO, join me Friday nights @camethebasement at 7:00 pm (PST) when I tweet along to a non-horror movies!

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  1. MANMarch 1, 2013 at 12:09 PM

    Check out our small zombie horror flick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWz8LsmvoLg
    Open Source Zombie

    ReplyDelete

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