Customer Reviews

Crazy Eights - After Dark Horror Fest

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Crazy Eights, an offering in the second year of the After Dark Horror Fest, is a gory spook story that doesn't offer anything that hasn't been seen plenty of times before, and were it not for it's game cast, this flick would be a pure waste of celuloid. Crazy Eights revolves around a group of old friends (Dina Meyer, George Newbern, Traci Lords, Frank Whaley, Burn Notice's Gabrielle Anwar, and The Wire vet Dan DeLuca who also co-wrote this flick) who are re-united after the passing of a friend of theirs. Turns out that all of them were involved in some sort of dark research and experiments, and soon enough all of them become trapped and start to get picked off. What kills Crazy Eights is it's predictability: you know what's going to happen right before it happens. Not to mention that there are so many non-sensical twists and developments that the film ends up becoming almost incomprehensible as it winds down, and the road getting there is more boring than anything else. The grainy look of the film doesn't make matters any better either, but as said before, the cast is good. All of them, even Lords (who pulls off a great and blood-curdling scream), manage to accomplish some great work, but that's the only thing about Crazy Eights worth mentioning really. All in all, you'll certainly see worse horror flicks, but you can certainly do better than what you get here.

I just can not recommend this movie, it's not bad, I just found it to be incredibly boring and formulaic. The cast is really good but they just look bored, and if they were bored making just imagine what kind of fun you're in line for. Nothing of consequence really happens in this movie. There's some blood and off camera kills, nothing special occurs there either. The plot is far from anything new but this movie still could have been something more, an utter disappointment.

I'm not sure I saw the same movie as the other reviewers. This was a bloody awful film. I love psychological thrillers...the promise of this is what drew me to this film. However, it fell flat and left me upset I spent $3.99 and 80 minutes of my time on it. It does not require you to think except to think 'What the...?' Nothing really makes sense, there is no logic as far as why these people had to die (they accidentally killed a little girl while subjects of some crazy doctors...abandoned by their parents, apparently....how is that something they should be punished for as adults?) The ending left me completely baffled. Of course, by then, I'd pretty much given up on the movie. Dina Meyers says 'I'm the only one left' after she destroys the toys that supposedly hold the link to getting them out of the hospital. So, she has to kill herself to set herself free? What? And then suddenly she's a little girl again choosing between a trunk holding redemption and another representing more testing. Again...what?

I agree with the other reviewers comments about Session 9. That was a generally creepy movie and it's twists actually contain logic that you can follow without having to pry open the writer/director's brain or crawl around for scraps on the cutting room floor.

I definitely see NO comparison to The Big Chill. I can't believe it was brought up. TBC is a phenomenal movie with real stars, a great plot, and well thought-out character development. It has nothing in common with Crazy Eights. And this film only boasted Whalley- who's been not been consistently good in films. And, frankly, none of them should have bothered. I wonder if the script they read was completely different from what we saw or perhaps when the director explained it to them, he provided insight we weren't privileged to in the process of watching the movie.

Something just seems lost here- I believe it's the plot. Well, it seems to be happening with most of the other Horror Fest films, so no big surprise here.

I have just started watching the AfterDark movies, and except for "Tooth and Nail", I have been far from disappointed. Until now. Like most of the reviews said, it just left me hanging. Not very well developed. It has GREAT potential to be a thriller if only the plot would have gone somewhere. I was left wondering why the girl wanted to kill them -- if it really was them; or was everything in their head? Was it all just part of the experiments? I like movies that make me think, but I like a little something to back up my thoughts. I feel like these ideas I'm just pulling out of thin air because the movie doesn't give much for you to think on....WAY too open-ended

This movie is more psychological thriller than classic "horror". It has elements of "Lord of the Flies" and "The Mist" as in what happens to people when their minds get the best of them. It was a good enough film, but it ends so abruptly with no resolution to the story. I sat there wondering if my DVD player skipped a chapter. So, if you don't mind the frustrating ending then this is a fine addition to the Horrorfest anthology. So far, 2007's entries are proving to be far superior to the 2006 set. 5 down, 3 to go.

"Crazy Eights" is enigmatic and brooding, a clever psychological thriller with a supernatural twist. It opens with some information: a number of research centers were built in the most remote areas of the south, and they housed a number of children for the purposes of experimentation. Most of the time, these children were never heard from again. From this, the story builds slowly, which gives the audience time to take in the stylistic approach. Practically every room the characters occupy is grimy, faded, and poorly lit, and this creates a satisfying level of tension that doesn't release itself too quickly. I appreciated the look as well as the overall sense of foreboding, and this is despite the fact that it's occasionally piled on too thick. There's genuine imagination at work, here--a film that unnerves just as much as it entertains.

The overall theme is that of remembering, and that's exactly what happens to six people who reunite after the death of their childhood friend, who had grown up to be a writer. These are: Father Lyle Dey (George Newbern); Gina Conte (Traci Lords); Brent Sykes (Frank Whaley); Jennifer Jones (Dina Meyer); Beth Patterson (Gabrielle Anwar); and Wayne Morrison (Dan DeLuca, who also co-wrote the screenplay). Their friend's will states that they must travel to a distant location and find a chest filled with their old possessions. Why their friend wanted this is a mystery, but they all seem willing to go (although some need more convincing than others). They arrive at a barn seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and it's there that they find the chest. Upon opening it, they make a gruesome discovery, one that kick starts a series of strange occurrences.

The six friends soon find themselves trapped within an abandoned medical facility, and it seems as if there's no hope of escape. All the windows are barred. Most of the doors are locked. And worst of all, they begin to remember things they never even knew they had forgotten. There's a scene in which Brent asks for a pot, a spoon, and a jar full of sugar; Jennifer is able to find every one of those items quickly, as if she had been in that kitchen before. Later on, Gina is able to find a blanket for Beth. She knew where to find the blankets, yet she has never been to this place before. Or has she? Have they all? Are memories from their past resurfacing after being buried for over twenty years? It sure seems that way because something is there with them, some otherworldly force that wants them to remember.

This force affects the characters in different ways, beginning with nightmares and horrendous visions. Beth, for example, is an artist, and we first see her sculpting a disturbing bust; she frantically kneads and smoothes the clay, whispering, "Who are you?" over and over. Now in the facility, she reads specific pages of the dead friend's novel, finding that the words echo the reality the remaining group is facing. The situation becomes extreme enough that she begins to regress, going so far as to suck her thumb. But it's not just Beth--Brent is also visibly shaken, and he gets angrier and angrier as time passes. He was always the more obnoxious one of the group, always having some wry comment for everything and never willing to accept what's happening. He repeatedly vows to escape this place, although deep down, he probably knows that he can't.

At a certain point, the ghost within the facility begins attacking, leaving our group in the dark about what to do or where to go. They start to remember something about guilt, about how society would not survive without inherent emotions--"The definition of a psychopath," says a college professor at the beginning of the film, "is a man without guilt." So then this has all become a test, a way for the group to find the guilt within them and remove it. But how? And what does any of that have to do with people lured to an abandoned building? The mystery keeps on building, so much so that I began to think we wouldn't get any answers.

Fortunately, we do, but not in a way that's straightforward. "Crazy Eights" is a horror film that requires some thought on the audience's part, which is refreshing and baffling at the same time. But on the whole, the film's good aspects outweigh the disappointing ones--I left the theater feeling as if I had actually used my head, which is a nice change from just sitting there and letting meaningless images pass by. I have to admit that I didn't think it would be so enjoyable; the title alone is awfully amateurish, like that of a direct-to-video clunker. But that's a case of judging a book by its cover, which should never be done. Bad title or not, this movie works, and works well.

I JUST got done watching the movie "CRAZY EIGHTS" & initially I couldn't figure out if I just watched a depressing psychological horror movie or simply a BAD movie. I got kinda not-so-vaguely depressed after watching "C8s" -- was it because those 1.5-dimensional characters didn't "deserve" their unpleasant fates OR that I wasted 80-but-felt-like-120-minutes of my so-called life watching this piece o' ****, or both? Jeez, I'm not expecting EVERYTHING to be explained nice & neat-ly, but jeez [spoiler], I figure The Vengeful Kid Ghost should've went after THE EVIL SCIENTISTS that RAN the "hospital" instead of her "friends"! Also, WHY WOULD ANYONE WITH 1/2 A BRAIN go to the trouble of BREAKING IN TO AN OBVIOUSLY ABANDONED hospital for ANY reason, as did the characters in this movie?!? Ever notice that in horror films CELL PHONES NEVER seem to WORK? How did the heavy crate get into the barn in the first place? The "gore" looked like BBQ sauce splattered-about by Jackson Pollock. Plus, there was the usual "OK, let's us separate so we can be mysteriously picked off/murdered one-by-one" gambit....yup, it was a bad movie. But it was nice that Traci Lords DIDN'T play the "sexpot" role but I thought Frank Whaley over-played the "jerk of the group" role. And Dina Meyer was good as usual...recommended ONLY to fans of Lords and Meyer.

The film itself is pretty standard fare: bad karma meets a haunted mental institution. But that isn't what I love about the film. It is, rather, the odd and unsettling mood that it has. The subtle score is really creepy for much of the film. Their is a strange nostalgia to the moodiness that allows the repressed memories of the characters to feel palpable. (And Traci Lords is very MILFy.)

This movie scared my heart right out of my chest from the very beginning. I think it was just the vibe it was letting off, but it shur as hell scared me. But all in all, I liked it. Thought it was pretty original and cool. The only thing that kind of gets me about it was all the plot holes and how it got a little confusing at times. Also the ending was kinda stupid. Other than that, an interesting story and all. A pretty decent and really spooky film. Just should have been edited a little better thats all. I liked it.
The End...

Is it stupid? Yes. Does it make sense? Not really. Is it scary? Not at all. So why did I give it 5 stars? Because I had fun watching it and didn't treat it like a serios horror movie. Most of the Horrorfest movies (except for the 1st year) are not what I consider serious horror movies. But I do enjoy watching them. So if you have nothing else better to do on a Friday/Saturday night, pop a big bowl of popcorn, turn the lights down low, and enjoy "Crazy Eights" and some other Horrorfest movies.