Filth To Ashes, Flesh To Dust
Directed by Paul Morrell
Writer: Derrick Bishop
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason
Available for preorder from Midnight Releasing

The Lowdown: I didn’t know Abc After School Special’s were producing indie horror flicks!?!

I just got through watching this movie and my head is still spinning on where I should start ripping this a new one. I’ve become a pretty big indie horror fan and I can forgive a lot of stuff like acting and problems with the script, but this movie just drove me bat shit crazy.

The movie starts off with a serial killer named Purge, that’s going to torture and kill two women that he has tied up. One of them manages to escape and runs into a couple that had stopped to take a piss break. The serial killer confronts the trio and manages to kill the girlfriend Shelley, before being subdued by Eric and the crack head who had just escaped named Caitlin. It’s one year later and a group of six friends, including Eric’s little brother Juan, head to Purge’s lair, on one adventurous night. Purge, somehow is still living there, and is ready to claim more victims. Eric along with Caitlin, find out where the kids are headed, they leave to rescue them and get revenge for that evening one year earlier.

The script is a fucking mess and doesn’t make a lot of sense. If Purge was killed a year earlier how did he come back? Why the hell wouldn’t the police condemn or even tear down his lair? If he is supernatural how was he defeated at the end? Why didn’t he show any signs of being supernatural besides one scene? How did Caitlin happen to reappear on the exact date that Juan and his friends went to visit Purge’s hideout? As you can see there are way too many questions that needed to be answered.

Let’s even say you don’t give a shit about any of the questions I just brought up. The movie is still severely flawed. The groan inducing cheesy characters and dialogue had me balling my fist up. One chick was racist, talking about hanging with the “monkey” and the “taco boy.” She’s a bitch who is racist, who cares? Let’s see her cut up and punished, but no they had to make an anti-racist, anti-poor message that came across generic as hell. I can’t totally blame the dialogue. Maybe in better actors hands it could have been slightly better. Maybe.

Almost everything about the movie annoyed me. When Eric was first shown a year later, to show that he had changed from the death of his girlfriend, they had him with a crazy haircut and he was actually drinking motor oil mixed with vodka! Juan and Caitlin both saw him and didn’t even mention it. It was almost portrayed that’s what a normal depressed person does.

I won’t totally dump on the movie cuz I did enjoy some aspects of it. I thought the production values, camera work, music, etc..was all pretty damn good. Also the hulking Purge looked pretty damn intimidating when he’s throwing people around. That’s almost fucked up too because they show his face too much and have him dressed in army fatigues. A cool costume could have gone a long way.

I also give them credit by trying to mix it up by doing a few things unexpected, even if it doesn’t work. One character has an ulterior motive that not only doesn’t make sense, but once revealed it’s handled in exactly the way you are expecting. Also one character that survives was kind of shocking. It was cool they lived because it was different, but on the other hand I would have loved to see them die a gruesome death.

The movie is pretty light on the gore, with most kills by bare hands or by knife stabs. There is a lot of brawling style fighting, with the climax one huge brawl that’s choreographed very sloppy. Then in a fitting moment for the movie, the final scene is an ultra melodramatic cheesy ending that’s suppose to be touching and romantic, but it had me rolling my eyes and chuckling. Way too many flaws to recommend. Stay far away.

Final Rating: 4/10

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