Carver could have been a well-done low-budget horror film but gets bogged down by bad acting and even worse editing.
Plot Synopsis
Supposedly based on true events, Carver is about five campers who happen upon an abandoned farm once owned by the Carver family. The group decides to spend the night in the barn and uncovers a horror film about killers who torture and dismember people and decide to watch…only to realize later the film is actually a home movie and the Carvers have them targeted next.
Carver in Depth
[Caution Spoilers Ahead]
Five friends go for a camping weekend in the mountain town of Halcyon Ridge. A detour leads them to a rundown farm once owned by the Carver family and unwisely choose to spend the night. While exploring the farm, they happen upon some reels of film and decide to watch them.
As the movie progresses, they start to realize what they think is just a lame attempt at a home-made horror flick are actually real-life recordings of the Carver family killings. The quintet later become trapped by the murderous clan who not only likes to slay their guests, but torture them first.
Promises Left Unkept
While the plotline is creepy, this film is not. It’s basically a mish-mash of people being tortured then killed, with very little in between to tie it together.
Picture the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (unsuspecting travelers meet homicidal family in deserted rural area) with elements of Hostel (killers who like to torture their victims first), Hills Have Eyes (killers are slow and stupid) and Saw (killer likes to video) thrown in. Only this film misses a lot of what makes those others work, and that is the psychological elements that make a horror movie scary. It definitely starts out promising but soon gives way to just being a typical gorefest of slayings.
It doesn’t help either that the acting is really bad (at one point one can see the actor being tortured helping the other drag him across the floor of the barn), and it’s so obvious the continuity editor was asleep on the job, it’s almost more fun spotting all the errors in the film.
The only thing that even remotely saves this film is that the gore effects, while low-budget, are nicely done. Had the filmmakers spent more time on building up the tension between the killings, it would have been a rather entertaining horror film.
Worth Watching?
Though a promising first-time attempt at filmmaking, this low budget direct-to-DVD release is better off left on the shelf, unless one is really desperate to watch some slightly gruesome killings.
Or better yet, rent Wolf Creek instead. That film does the whole “campers-meet-killer” plot much better and is way more creepy overall.
 |
