Dark Cove

Excruciatingly awful... and I mean AWFUL. A pace and acting skills that would make a high school drama teacher cry, continual and badly placed strings of infantile sex jokes and talking about genitalia, and a cast that looks about as comfortable with each other as my dog is with my vacuum cleaner... all make for an unwatchable film. I also should give the soundtrack a mention - did they pair up the tracks with the movie, or did they just throw in some of their favorite songs when they felt like it? It's all so out of place and incongruous. It would be OK, I suppose, if it were a 10 year-old's project, but I'd really even expect more out of the ten year-old.

I lasted about 15 minutes, about 10 minutes more than I probably should have, but I wanted to at least give it a chance.

RUN - the worst film I've seen in ages.

I was intrigued about this movie after seeing the trailer online. Being a Canadian who has lived in the Vancouver area I noticed the scenery locations seemed familiar and was excited to see a gritty homegrown camping horror flick.

Somewhat to my surprise the movie is more of a thriller with a lot of comedy. In the first half of the film we really get to know the lead characters who come off as very authentic and entertaining. There is almost a Dazed and Confused or Superbad vibe to the movie and there are many very funny moments especially from the character Joey Deezio who almost steals the first half of the movie with his antics.

After an incident with two Australian surfers the movie turns into a tense thriller with many twists and turns which kept me very engaged throughout the film.

Having been made with such a low budget I found Dark Cove to be more entertaining than many high budget studio films released this year which often come of as bland and redundant. Dark Cove seems gritty and fresh compared to many movies out there now and it gives real insight into the Canadian west coast way of life. Would I like to go camping and do mushrooms with the characters in this movie? Absolutely.

OK, it was made for pocket money. Basically nobody's being paid. The whole crew are probably amateurs.

So far, so good. But the writing, the acting, and especially the editing reflect these budget values to the overall detriment of the whole. It just doesn't 'flow' like it should. Nothing is glaringly bad or anything, but it's not really very 'good' either. Overall, it has a bit of a 'first year at film school' vibe, which is not actually a bad thing, but more a reminder to manage one's expectations.

Maybe the camera work is a bit too intrusive. Maybe the characters could be more fully developed. Maybe there's a bit of a slow start before the inevitable mayhem ensues, and perhaps a bit too much reliance on teen stereotypes. In fact, some of the teen and racial clichés can become grating, and what's with the appalling "Brit" accent?