People who suffer from insomnia, rejoice! Relief is at hand! This may very arguably be the most boring horror movie that I've ever seen. Nothing even remotely suspenseful or frightening happens until literally the last two minutes of the movie.
The film plays more like a travelogue for anyone that might might be interested in visiting this section of Texas. The main n thrust of the film centers around a man who becomes estranged from his family, and buys huge tracts of land near a geographic landmark called the Devil's Backbone. A great deal of the movie consists of interviews with the land owner's friends and family. Some opine that he's a great guy and a paragon of philanthropism, others suggest that he was shady, and not such a swell fella, after all. His children belong to the latter group.
The land owner dies, and his widow requests that his ashes be spread over a certain section of the property. The youngest child, Jake, decides to comply with the request, and he wants to combine this with a video-documentation of the ritual. He also plans to investigate, and see if the property is as haunted by ghosts, spirits, and demons as his late father had suggested. To commemorate this auspicious occasion, Jake invites his three besties along.
We get more flashbacks and interviews sprinkled in with "current" events in the movie. About three quarters of the way into the film, we're still waiting for something supernatural or scary to happen.
When mysterious or frightening events do occur, we come to find out that these events were all part of an extravagant, complicated practical joke played by Jake uopn his friends. Ha. Ha. Ha. Oh, Jake. You impish prankster. Jake is both mystified and disappointed that his friends aren't at all amused by the prank, which he intended as a tribute to his dearly departed father. Then, in literally the very last few seconds of the movie, Jake and his accomplice are snatched up into the night by some unseen force. We get a single glimpse of a hideous, pallid female face, and roll credits; the movie ends. You literally have to sit through 99.9% of this movie before anything "scary" actually happens, and when it does, it really isn't all that scary.
I gave this film two stars instead of one, because it contained original footage Friday m the first "Unsolved Mysteries" television series, hosted by Robert Stack. I used to love that show. If not for the inclusion of that footage, I would have struggled to give this movie a single star, at all.
The film plays more like a travelogue for anyone that might might be interested in visiting this section of Texas. The main n thrust of the film centers around a man who becomes estranged from his family, and buys huge tracts of land near a geographic landmark called the Devil's Backbone. A great deal of the movie consists of interviews with the land owner's friends and family. Some opine that he's a great guy and a paragon of philanthropism, others suggest that he was shady, and not such a swell fella, after all. His children belong to the latter group.
The land owner dies, and his widow requests that his ashes be spread over a certain section of the property. The youngest child, Jake, decides to comply with the request, and he wants to combine this with a video-documentation of the ritual. He also plans to investigate, and see if the property is as haunted by ghosts, spirits, and demons as his late father had suggested. To commemorate this auspicious occasion, Jake invites his three besties along.
We get more flashbacks and interviews sprinkled in with "current" events in the movie. About three quarters of the way into the film, we're still waiting for something supernatural or scary to happen.
When mysterious or frightening events do occur, we come to find out that these events were all part of an extravagant, complicated practical joke played by Jake uopn his friends. Ha. Ha. Ha. Oh, Jake. You impish prankster. Jake is both mystified and disappointed that his friends aren't at all amused by the prank, which he intended as a tribute to his dearly departed father. Then, in literally the very last few seconds of the movie, Jake and his accomplice are snatched up into the night by some unseen force. We get a single glimpse of a hideous, pallid female face, and roll credits; the movie ends. You literally have to sit through 99.9% of this movie before anything "scary" actually happens, and when it does, it really isn't all that scary.
I gave this film two stars instead of one, because it contained original footage Friday m the first "Unsolved Mysteries" television series, hosted by Robert Stack. I used to love that show. If not for the inclusion of that footage, I would have struggled to give this movie a single star, at all.