11/11/11
Directed by Kiff Scholl (Scream of the Bikini)
Stars:David Bertolami, Jon Briddell and Hayden Byerly
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason

The Lowdown: Just when I commend The Asylum for a decent movie, then they go back to their old ways.

The Asylum are some sneaky bastards. I know a lot of people give them shit for their “mockbusters”, but every once in awhile they do come out with a hidden gem like 8213: Gacy House. They specialize in capitalizing on similar named movies to their bigger budget counterparts, i.e. Transmorphers, and I think they may have brilliantly done their best job for marketing with this movie. For those who don’t know there is another movie called 11-11-11 by Saw IV and Mother’s Day director Darren Lynn Bousman coming out next week. Get the difference? They use a “/” instead of a “-” in the title. Awesome. Give someone a raise.

Now the quality of the movie is a different story. I actually think the general concept of the story was decent but the execution not so much. The movie starts with a pretty cool murder suicide at a party. Soon after, the Vales, a family of a mother, father and 10 yr old son thats about to turn 11 on, surprise, surprise – 11/11/11, move into the house once occupied by a professor at the local University. The neighbors are a kooky cast of characters such as a couple that’s always jogging, a crazy lady next door looking for her cat, and a eerie, too friendly couple that live across the street. The son who is a near mute is obviously the key to a bigger puzzle that leads to a climatic finale of apocalyptic proportions.

The story while not being the most original, still was decent enough to keep you guessing and interested throughout the movie. The problem I had were some of the performances and the lack of unique nuances in the script. The kid, Nat Vales, came across as just a normal every kid, despite the efforts of having him do a few evil things, he always seemed like he was “acting” and not in character. The father (David Bertolami) was really the main character of the story and he was solid throughout even if some of the other minor characters weren’t that great. There were also moments of the movie that I would classify as quirky, such as the rock to the head scene but those were far and few between.

For every decent scene there were some also some really cheesy scenes. When the most interesting character, this lady who eventually becomes the nanny, attacks another nanny interviewee to take her out of the running, it’s one of the worst filmed and choreographed scenes in a horror movie. It comes across as a super comedic scene from a bad Wayans brother movie. Also there is a smoking van where the evil towns cult/people meet to discuss their plans, that’s also unintentionally comedic.

I did like the close knit feel of the neighborhood in the movie even though it doesn’t make that much sense considering  the magnitude of events that’s destined to occur. That may be the end of my positives. The movie had some bad cgi kills, a lame shovel to the neck moment, and a very understated obvious finale. Considering their demographic of people that usually get these movies, I’m sure it will be enough to satisfy, but for hardcore horror fans (most likely you the reader), there are just way too many faults and missed opportunities. Skip this and wait for the other November 11th, 2011 movie which I’m sure will be much better.

Rating: 5/10