Sunday, September 19, 2010

Short Movie Review Of Deadfall Trail

By Dean Frazier

Deadfall Trail is one of the best indie psycho-dramatic horror flicks of 2009. The cast includes three budding actors in the lead roles; Slade Hall, Cavin Gray Schneider, and Shane Dean. The film was shot in the desert of Tempe, Arizona. It was directed by the singled named director, Roze.

Along with directing the film, Roze also co-wrote and produced this movie. The film is eerily similar to the hit movie Deliverance. The amount of violence, profanity, graphic images, and nudity all make this film worthy of its R-rating.

The movie starts off with Julian, Paul, and John, the three main characters traveling to Arizona's Kaibab National Forest on a three week camping trip that is solely about survival in the wilderness. This is not your average camping trip. The requirements of this trip are simple. Each boy can only bring a simple plastic trash bag, one camping or hunting knife, and only one bottle of water to drink. The only way to survive for three weeks is to completely depend on their strength, their instincts, their wits, and how they are able to live off of their surroundings.

Soon into the movie, the three boys' personalities are exposed. John shows promise as the leader of the small group since he has survived trips like this one before. His friend, Julian, has also experienced trips like these, with John and proceeds to act like second in charge. Paul is the newbie on the trip. He has never even considered doing something like this. He is horribly excited but his inexperience worries Julian. John is quite sure that Paul will do just fine on the hike.

The start of the trip goes just as planned. Despite his lack of experience, Paul is very confident in his own abilities and often puts the group of young men in awkward and potentially dangerous situations. However, they are not so serious that the group cannot handle them. Even so, Julian's anger and irritation towards Paul increases while John tries to keep the peace and help everyone remain calm.

The main reason Paul even agreed to a three week survival trip in the Arizona desert is the he was promised that they would indulge in peyote, a small cactus like plant that acts as a psychedelic drug. Despite only having a single bottle of water and being dissuaded by his friends, Paul only wants the peyote and does not care about his friends' warnings.

This would not be a horror flick if everything went totally fine. Of course, crazy bad things start to happen to the boys after they take the peyote. The film really begins to pick up the intensity and pace as the characters begin to capture the audience's attention. This film will have views wondering if any of the three boys will survive the strange adventure and if so, who it will be.

Deadfall Trail is a pretty good movie. It may never me the criteria to be considered one of Hollywood's great horror movie classics. However, it is a well written and intriguing film. The acting is up to par and the characters are well developed. It is a movie that teenage boys and young adult males will definitely enjoy. It is entertaining and perfect for movie night. - 40726

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