[The Hamiltons]
Plot:The Hamiltons seem to be an ordinary American family, living in a small town in Northern California and dealing with the problems of everyday life. They've also been recently adjusting to the untimely death of their parents. David Hamilton, the oldest, has taken it upon his shoulders to pick up the responsibility for the orphaned family. Twins Wendell and Darlene are darker than the other two siblings and have become more conniving in the past few months. The youngest and most sensitive of the family is Francis. Francis recently found an old video camera his parents owned, and is using it to work on a school project about his family. It's through Francis' eyes that we soon get to know the Hamiltons and realize that there are much more disturbing elements lurking below the surface of "ordinary."

Cast: Cory Knauf, Samuel Child, Joseph McKelheer, Mackenzie Firgens, Rebekah Hoyle, Brittany Daniel, Al Liner, Jena Hunt, Tara Glass.

My Thoughts:A real slap in the face to those of us who hope for creativity and originality every now and then.

Review:"The Hamiltons" is the type of movie that from the opening scene you get a slight inkling that you might be treated to something original. But then everything just comes apart and flies off track and chaos ensues. Kind of like a "Final Destination" rollercoaster ride. The problems that plague "The Hamiltons" are the same problems that plague alot of other horror films. A good idea, but implemented wrong.....very wrong. The film deals with a family who's lost their mother and father, and have had a rocky life ever since. They've moved 6 times, and for some odd reason they just cannot figure out where they "fit in" in the U.S.A. That's probably because they're not the average american family, in fact they're very different from the average family, or person, or human being for that matter.

But why? What are they? That's the question that writer/directors The Butcher Brothers dangle in front of us like a carrot on a string for 90 excruciating minutes. I say excruciating because the acting in this film first off is terrible. The production values are quite low budget but could be overlooked with the right directing style...which the Butcher Brothers didn't have. Lastly, the story which you think is leading somewhere interesting and shocking leads to a ho-hum conclusion. And it takes way too long to get there.

The movie is mostly told from the pont of view of Francis Hamilton (Corey Knauf), who doesn't indulge in the kidnapping and blood drinking of random local citizens that his much darker sister, who's basically a poster child for Hot Topic, and younger brother do. Francises older breadwinning brother indulges himself, but only against a much different clientel from his siblings. But even with their mysterious and savage behavior, the unanswered question of why, and the mysterious yet vicious *something* living in a large crate in the basement, "The Hamiltons" fails to be interesting on any level really.

The characters outside of Francis are all unlikeable and intolerable for the most part, and the supporting cast is very weak, and includes an annoying girl named Kitty and a social worker who kind of looks like producer Joel Silver. So what does that leave this movie with? Nothing really, except hoping it would hurry up and get to the revelation which if you have even half a brain you can figure out way ahead of the time it's finally revealed. Movies like this are really upsetting mostly because it's just another good idea down the toilet. With a reworked story, and better cast "The Hamiltons" could've been an interesting indie pic.

But instead it drops the ball on pretty much every aspect of it's existence. There's even a scene where Francis makes friends (sort of) with one of the girls his plasma loving relatives have kidnapped and tied up downstairs. Considering Francis is the only member of his family with any empathy, how exactly is this supposed to be a surprise or plot twist to the viewer? But what comes later in the relationship between Francis and this girl does come as a slight surprise, and that's about as good as this film gets. "The Hamiltons" might remind you of a really bad semi-ripoff of "Near Dark", set in the suburbs instead of on dark dusty desert roads. But it reminded me of only one thing, that this years After Dark Horrorfest really needs to pick Grade A quality horror if they wanna make up for the horrendous picks they made for their lineup in 2006.

Positives:None.

Negatives:Bad directing, lame plot twist which fails at being a surprise ending. Terrible acting.

Overall:Truly a must avoid.





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