[Somebody Help Me]
Plot:Centers on characters Brendan Young (Houston) and Darryl Jennings (Omarion) who take a trip to the Lake Arrowhead with a group of college friends to celebrate Young's girlfriend's birthday. One-by-one the coeds begin disappearing until a mysterious young visitor arrives and helps them begin to unravel their tangled web of terror.

Cast: Marques Houston, Omarion Grandberry, Jessica Szohr, Alexis Fields, Brooklyn Sudano, Christopher Jones, Donna DuPlantier, Brittany Oaks, Stephen Snedden, Jessica Friedman, Garrison Koch, Luke Fryden, Jim Wilkey, Sonny King, Irene Stokes, Todd Thomas, Amanda Lee, John Wiltshire.

My Thoughts:Good for a slasher film, ut still plagued by issues.

Review:Slasher movies try and yet these days it's so hard for any of them to be original. Yet the word "try" is always appreciated by me, as opposed to films that don't even try to make any efort to be original. "Somebody Help Me" is a direct-to-dvd slasher movie which tries to be original in some ways, while still sticking to the basics in others. The movie follows two couples Brendan Young (Marques Houston) and his girlfriend, and Darryl Jennings (Omarion) and his girlfriend. It's the birthday of Brendan's girlfriend and so they are headed to a relatives cabin to celebrate with a few college friends.

Of course per usual, there's a nut lurking in the woods who's ecstatic about the new arrivals, becuase it gives him some fresh meat to brutalize. This film pretty much plays on the expected cliches which keeps it entertaining on a certain level. The two main couples are black, and their college friends are all white. Of course, it's the white college friends who put themselves in harms way by getting it on in the woods, strolling the woods alone, and so on. Most of the black people in the film aren't that easy of a target for the killer, who has to work twice as hard to capture them due to the fact that they don't put themselves in harms way.

Pretty much how you'd expect a mixed race horror film to play out, but this movie also makes sure to avoid the ghetto cliches that films like "Bones", "Tales From The Hood", and "Hood Of Horror" practically reveled in. The film doesn't allow itself to get bogged down by such annoying things, and instead focuses more on the horror and slasher elements of it's product. But there is an annoying cliche or two tossed in which in some ways, hamper the movie.

For example, the cabin is located in an all-white small town which brings up that whole issue of hassled by the cops, and "funny looking" outsiders being in town, etc. etc. Basically the same thing Burt and Vicki went through in "Children of The Corn", only alot more subtle in this films case. Secondly the villain of the movie seems to enjoy keeping his captured prey in cages ala "See No Evil" and plenty of other slasher movies where the killer likes to watch his victims squirm in captivity for awhile, before he does sadistic horrible things to them, or even kills them.

The torture and death scenes however are pretty dramatic and in some ways sad in their brutality, so they work on a certain emotional level, which is not something you can say about many slasher films where the cast is so one-dimensional you end up turning to the person next to you to ask "Is this person dead?" only to get the reply, "yeah she died 20 minutes ago." Omarion and Houston, who are popular R&B singers do a pretty good job in the lead roles, which kind of was surprising but then again to me not really in some ways.

Houston has acted before plenty of times, and due to the fact that him and Omarion are brothers in real life, I think their natural family bond made their on-screen friendship alot more believeable than if the casting directors had paired two random strangers together in the roles. "Somebody Help Me" is indeed a bloody film, and while it doesn't go overboard with the blood, guts, and gore, it contains a normal level of the red stuff for this particular genre of movie.

The films finale is pretty intense, with alot of twists, turns, and surprises...especially at the end of the movie where a very clever plot twist is implemented into the story. "Somebody Help Me" is one of the few horror films with minority leads that avoids stereotypes and still manages to make a good, entertaining slasher film. Hopefully this will send the message to future directors and writers that cliches and stereotypes aren't needed to make a good urban-slasher film.

Positives:Good performances by Houston and Omarion, and to a lesser extent the two young ladies who played their respective girlfriends. Pretty good twists at the end. .

Negatives:The villain was okay but the whole locking-people-up to torture them later plot device never works. Especially considering a killer never wants to be caught or have screamsof those captured alert other people.

Overall:Good slasher movie.





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