the audience applauded

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Blistering performances.

This film proves that you don't need a big budget, or fancy special effects to create a great movie. I loved the way it kept shifting between sub-genres, shifting from slasher to revenge to... well, I'm not quite sure what I would call where it ended up. That shift kept me guessing the whole time, which is a rare and wonderful feature in a movie.Although the gore is minimal and not particularly graphic, there is a considerable amount of nudity and fairly graphic sexual content that might make this an uncomfortable movie to watch with the family.As for the acting, I had no real issues with it. The characters were not complex, as is to be expected in a horror film, and the actors handled them just fine.If you enjoy horror movies, this one is definitely worth watching.

A group of 5 college-aged kids go to spend the weekend at the house of one of their parents. Before they get there, they stop in town for something to eat. Two of them are confronted by a man who was recently released from prison, along with his demented side-kick. After that scary incident, the group of kids get in the car and continue to their destination. The parents are a bit creepy, but nothing is really thought about it, and the parents leave the house for the evening, leaving the kids alone. Just by chance, the ex-con and his friend are driving by, trying to find a house to rob, when they come across the place where the kids are staying. They break in and the fun begins.This is a slasher, but not in the typical sense. Usually, a slasher is a movie with an unknown assailant. In this movie, it's very obvious who the killers are. There are the typical slasher props of blood, boobs, butts, gore, 3 rape scenes. Considering that this was low budget, they were a bit graphic, and - like all rapes scenes - were a total turn-off to me. There are also some typical clichés, such as the most commonly used; the phone not working. Another of the clichés is when the victims have the chance - the very definite chance - of killing the badguys, they simply smash them in the face or the nuts or try strangling them instead of using the knife to do the job quickly. All of that gives the badguys the ability to overpower the kids and...well, do their horrific best on them.I did not like this. The two boyfriends were the most useless people in the entire movie. They make a point of showing how muscular one of them is, but when the badguys break into his room and grab his girlfriend, they don't have any weapon out at that time, and the big, strong boyfriend doesn't even try pouncing on them.To some extent, this was a movie where the characters - specifically the goodguys - did such stupid things, I had to really laugh. But all-in-all, the movie, especially the ending scene in the basement, was not at all what I thought it would be, nor did I like it.I gave this a 4-star rating because the acting wasn't that bad, considering it was low budget, and I think one has to consider that when rating these things. The cinematography was pretty good. The storyline...not so much.

The first half of House of the Witchdoctor hearkens back to the uncomfortably gritty ultra- violence of 1970s films such as "I Spit on Your Grave" and "The Last House on the Left." The final act of "Witchdoctor" eschews the standard rape-revenge formula in favor of the occult and supernatural, and delivers quite a bit of unexpected humor in the process. Solid performances from a great horror cast make this a joy to watch. Allan Kayser is convincingly savage in his role as one of the criminals. Bill Moseley and Leslie Easterbrook deliver darkly humorous performances as suburban parents with a twisted secret. Genre fans may also recognize Dyanne Thorne of "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" in a bit part as a neighbor.

The reviews for this certainly made me anticipate it more. As it is, it's not the usual horror flick you'd expect, but because I kept reading about its originality, I was disappointed in where it did go. It just seemed like too simple a set up, not to mention very obvious, since the film clearly doesn't hide that its hiding some secrets and it sort of becomes apparent early on with a glance exchanged between two characters. Still, the film works despite of itself, and the two leading male antagonists are quite good here, and seem to actually be having a lot of fun which helps the film's energy.Overall, nothing all that great or even all that good, but worth it.