Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

THE CLUB is a low rent Canadian horror film that didn't make much sense to me as a viewer. The story involves a bunch of students on prom might who become trapped in a large building and are pursued by villains with supernatural powers. The film has no back story and the emphasis is very much on the stylistics of the piece, with a lot of blue-filter night sequences and the usual dated '90s trappings.The characterisation is next to nil and it's one of those films where the main characters are reactive rather than proactive, never doing much to extricate themselves from their situation. The acting is pretty bland, aside from the reliably kooky Kim Coates - ever a mainstay of B-cinema - but there are some gory moments to take your mind off the inanity of it all.

Time stops at midnight at the Senior Prom for five students, one murderous counselor, and John. They must find the courage to face themselves or, when time starts again, they may find that they are joining John's Club.This is apparently not a well-known movie. IMDb does not even have a poster image for it (as of October 2015). Which is just as well, I suppose, because the image that Netflix uses is not that great and almost scared me off giving it a chance.We have some nice performances, including one from Zack Ward before he really hit it big. That alone makes it worth watching. But then add in Kim Coates and a few others... this is a very nostalgic sort of film, like a mid-1990s film trying to capture the sort of feeling that the 1980s had with movies like "Waxwork".

Excellent interior setting ("Casa Loma" in Toronto- just like X-Men..), funny characters, acceptable acting and a typical campfire plot make this an enjoyable horror/comedy movie. As someone who usually does not like horror movies I very much liked this film- especially since the amount of gore is limited. Even though the plot is mostly predictable there still are some surprising twists and turns. Add to this some black humor (thankfully only very little slapstick acting..) and you get an entertaining not-too-much-horror horror movie.

He was the the reason I spent a very long time trying to track down a tape of this Wyrd little film. My vote definitely would have been higher if there had been more Ferguson it it. Other than that, I found the film a mixed bag -- some unexpected twists and some ho-hum predictable scenes. It certainly deserves a look-see from any horror film afficiando, at least. .