The Vern tries to scare you for real but reviews Cut (2014) instead.

 Cut

Cast:  David Roundtree, David Banks,Gabrielle Stone

Writers:  David Roundtree, David Banks

Director:  David Banks

 There is a craft into evoking different emotions from the audience when one makes a movie.  I am amazed at how a group can come together and make that one moment where we either laugh, cry.  Or in the case of a horror movie.  Scare the living bejesus out of us,  Trying to evoke fear and make it feel real is a challenge a lot of directors haft to face.  It’s one thing to give people a quick jump scare.  But how do you make them afraid for a long time.  Well let’s meet two filmmakers who may have just the thing.

Travis Simon(David Roundtree) and Lane Hayes(David Banks) are novice filmmakers who own and run a film distribution center.  Travis is inspired by films like “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity” because of how cheap they were to make.  Yet made a huge profit in the box office.  Lane gets the wild idea to use actual people, not actors and scare them for real.    When one their ‘performers’ dies during one of the scenes.  They decide to help cover it up.  But how far will Travis and Lane push it to finish their movie.

“Cut” is a good horror thriller that has elements of “Man Bites Dog” and “Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer.  Although, those movies did a better job of juxtaposing the use of realism in with the heavy violence.    Those two  films also made a valid point that you can have truly disgusting characters but have them be interesting enough to want to follow for a few hours.  Lane is a cold stone psycho who beats up women and just got paroled from prison.  He puts down and makes fun of the clients so much at work.  I’m surprised that Travis didn’t just fire him.  He was an asshole from the very start and it was difficult to find anything likable about him.  The seemingly nice guy Travis was such a radical switch in personalities next to Lane.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was revealed later  that they were the same person all along.  There is a pretty good twist that I won’t spoil.  But it is ruined when they tack on another one at the end.  A twist works well because you can go back and see that it was there the whole time, but  for some reason never saw it right away.  Adding on another twist to this movie made me want to go back and question the logic of the first one.

The acting is all pretty solid and I was very impressed that Banks and Roundtree did double duties as actors, screenwriters, directors and editors.  Their supporting cast is also impressive with Suze Lanier- Bramlett(“The Hills Have Eyes“) and Gabrielle Stone( daughter of Dee Wallace Stone)  making cameo appearances.  There is a pretty creative opening that shows a projector showing images of a movie on a wall while someone narrates.  The images show the opening credits and I thought they were the credits to the actual film, but they were instead for the one the characters were making.  I think having the actual credits shown that way would have helped blured the lines between reality and fiction just a little bit more.  But that is only my opinion.  The use of violence was also effective as many of it was done off screen.  This may feel like a cop out to some of you gore hounds, but it will make sense when the ending is revealed.  However you still may question certain logistic character choices while watching.

To learn more about this movie and how you can see it.  Visit the official website below

http://www.thecutmovie.com/

 

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