[Crazy Eights]
Plot:Six people are brought together at the funeral of a childhood friend. While settling the estate, they discover a map, which leads them on a search for a long forgotten time capsule, at the request of their dead friend. What they discover reawakens repressed childhood traumas and leads them on a journey through their long abandoned childhood home: a home with a terrible secret and a mysterious dead girl who will lead them to their strange fates.

Cast:Traci Lords, Frank Whaley, Dina Meyer, Gabrielle Anwar, George Newbern, Dan DeLuca.

My Thoughts:Crazy boring.

Review::"Crazy Eights" is another film that was added to the list of 2007's After Dark Horrorfest. And like most films from "Horrorfest 07", it sucked...royally. The movie had potential, but wasted it pitifully. Starring Dina Meyer, Gabirelle Anwar, Traci Lords, and Frank Whaley...the film follows a group of six friends who after attending the funeral of one of their friends, are requested to visit said friends estate in search of a mysterious capsule that holds weird secrets which connects the group. The problem right from the beginning is that the film is titled "Crazy Eights", when there's only 6 friends, and one dead one.

I guess the dead girl who pops up in the film from time to time was supposed to count as the eighth and final member of he group. Speaking of which, yes...this movie recycles the old genre cliche of "mysterious dead girl who pops up from time to time to scare the crap out of people". How many horror films have attempted this great feat exactly? I'd say about 200 atleast. Someone needs to tell some of these filmmakers and writers that mystery dead people popping up on screen looking all gross is not what horror is about.

Especially if the dead person in question doesn't have a backstory to speak of. Which is exactly what happens in this film. It's really quite a shame that a cast with Dina Meyer, Traci Lords, Frank Whaley, and Gabrielle Anwar was so wasted in this production. These are some pretty talented indie film actors, and the best they could do with them was have them trapsing around some dusty old estate looking for a buried time capsule?

Gimme a break. And if that wasn't annoying enough, none of the characters were really that well developed, however Whaley's character does provide some rare moments of entertainment with his numerous proclamations throughout the film that he's getting the hell out of the house. However he never does and ends up getting stopped or talked into staying by some of the others, which in the end...just make his proclamations look retarded as hell.

This film doesn't really provide anything great or gruesome in the realm of blood and gore either, and other than a few ugly suicides, the movie really has quite a small body count. It mostly resorts to allowing it's characters to simply vanish instead of showing their deaths on screen. I will however give the film some credit for it's plot, which was very unique and clever. But having a unique and clever plot, and being able to execute it correctly are two different things. This film succeeded in the former, but failed miserably in the latter.

In the end, what I ended up getting was a nonsensical, and poorly written mess called "Crazy Eights". With some heavy overhauling of the dialogue and script, more kills, and some creative twists and turns...this film could've been a gem. But instead, it's a total joke. Think "House On Haunted Hill 99" minus the great kills, the interesting characters, the great dialogue, and the edgy story...and you've pretty much got "Crazy Eights" in a nutshell. But who knows, maybe if someone else had been tapped to write this movie other than Dan DeLuca and James Koya Jones, it might've turned out to be a worthwhile effort.

Positives:A great overall premise and idea for a film.

Negatives:Poor execution of the story, a horrible script, bad dialogue, alot of plotholes, a lack of scares and entertainment value, and a lack of blood and gore.

Overall:A film with a great idea that suffers from bad writing.





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