Customer Reviews

The Roost

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I saw this film when it had a theatrical run last year. The entire film is contexualized as a midnight movie feature complete with actor Tom Noonan as a fictional "host" who guides you through the whole movie.

It is not very scary, but if you are looking for an old school 80's style slumber party gore-fest, you can do a lot worse!

The director Ti West obviously has a lot of love for 80's horror and has created an awesome love letter/worthy addition to the genre.

Recommended.

Released in 2005, but with a retro 70's feel, The Roost has the intention of being a scary film but in the end fails miserably. Many of the scary elements are there, being lost and trapped, darkness, zombies, large vampire bats, old people, and stupid ill-prepared young people traveling to a non-relevant function. Playing more on bad luck, stupid choices, irritating characters and contrived happenstance the "scariness" is systematically stripped away until you are left with stretched out moments of people fumbling around in a dark barn. The horror threat is never fully realized because the "monsters" seem to lack the energy to pursue their victims creating almost a comatose feel that ends up only being frustrating. The late night "Saturday Horror Host" element, which tries to make the film fun, comes across more as trying to curb criticism by forcing you to believe the film was never really supposed to be a serious horror movie. The special effects which are few and far between are nice and do bring some merit to the film. Watch this while doing housework and you should be able to get a lot done between the real action scenes.

Writer/director Ti West's film "The Roost" is not the best low budget horror film, but it does have its high points.

The film uses entertaining host segments that pay homage to the any number of TV horror movie shows. "The Horror Host" (Tom Noonan) introduces the film and occasionally pauses it to interject his own campy observations. I haven't decided if the "host" segments were intended from the beginning or if they were added to the finished product to stretch it out to a feature length film, whatever the case they add a bit of extra originality to the overall film.


The movie itself follows four twenty-somethings on their way to a friend's wedding when they become stranded after their car hits a bat... yeah well it could happen. Anyway, the group ends up at a remote farmhouse. The owners of the farm have already mysteriously disappeared after entering their gigantic barn. Soon enough the viewer learns that it is the "Roost" of bats in the barn that is responsible. They not only kill and horribly disfigure anyone they come in contact with, but for some un-explained reason the bodies come back to life as zombies. Following usual zombie rules, if you get bitten you turn into one and so it is that the four friends must face the killer bats and several re-animated corpses.



Overall "The Roost" does a pretty good job. It drags a bit at times, but the special effects are surprisingly good for an obviously low budget production. The film doesn't hold any real twists or surprises; if you are familiar with the genre then you can guess where the film is going. That being said, when being taken for what it is, low budget horror entertainment "The Roost" delivers a pretty good amount of bang for your buck. I give "The Roost" a five out of ten and say that you should check it out and see how it bangs for you!

Please consider buying a used copy for half the price/ I wish I would have. Bought it based on the cover and the editorial review. Big Mistake! The cover was far cooler than the movie and the editorial was not exactly accurate and kinda misleading! It was indeed about a group of kids who have (you guessed it) car trouble! That is where the similarity ends. The bats were not awakened by the kids. They were there from the beginning scene and who knows how they got there. I sure don't. If you are looking for a good bat movie there are better ones out there for sure. I thought this one was lacking in substance. And no, i do not mean lots of blood and gore. I'll take that in a movie, sure, but I am not so shallow as to think that is all there is to a good scare. This movie just never gets off the ground and then it's over! No suspense or chills and thrills. Not much really going on with the BATS! And the freaky Egor narrator at the beginning of the movie? What is all that for anyway? He interrupts the movie several times which is just down right distracting and aggravating.

ATTENTION HORROR FANS! This may be just the type of fright flick that you've been looking for... gritty film stock, perfect use of music and sound (especially violin stabs!), nice gooey effects, actors that look and act believable enough to make the whole situation plausible, all wrapped up in an intense and stylish 81 minute micro-budget package by a director who wears his love of the genre proudly on his sleeve (not a former music video director who casts porno stars and wrestlers for a quick check)! Sounds too good to be true right? Well with Director Ti West's first full-length film we get all of the above crammed into a plot that is "unique" to say the least (it's better to see what I mean then hear it on here). When you watch as much direct-to-DVD shlock as I do it's truly refreshing to be scared and entertained rather than sleepy and dissapointed by the films end (about 1 in 12 of these type of films are worth it). Highly reccomended throwback horror film that if given the chance will most likely suprise (and frighten) you. It should be noted that the flick starts with a "Midnight Movie TV Show" segment hosted by the great Tom Noonen (Ripper from "Last Action Hero" and Frankenstein from "The Monster Squad") that I highly enjoyed but may not appeal to others, just don't give up on the actual movie itself by this opening sequence (it's only about 4 minutes long).

Director Ti West has created many great dark and spooky scenes. However, the script and acting are average at best. West was only 22 at the time which is reflected in the dialogue and humor. 4 stars for atmosphere but only 2 for the rest. It's fun most of the time and definitely worth a look!

THE ROOST is the perfect movie to add to your next halloween marathon, right along w/ NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, FRIGHTMARE, etc. Director / writer Ti West has fashioned a cool tribute to the all american Saturday night creature feature. Tom Noonan (Manhunter, Monster Squad) is our ghoulish host, introducing us to the fearful feature. Four young folks wreck their car on the way to a wedding. There's only one old farmhouse they can go to for help in the rural area. Too bad for them that the farm is under a horrific vampire bat invasion! These fuzzy flappers are no ordinary mammals, as their bite causes the victim to become a flesh-craving zombie! Things get very interesting. THE ROOST has been mostly (sadly) overlooked and deserves a chance...

The Roost (2004) This extremely low budget flick from director Ti West starts off with an old school TV horror host (Tom Noonan, of all people!) opening his show which is going to be showing a movie called The Roost. After a few minutes of the standard horror host shtick, the real movie begins, which sends four twentysomething nobodies off to the boonies for someone's wedding. Before they can arrive however, the car of course breaks down, stranding the quartet (all together now) out in the middle of nowhere! Making their bad night even worse, the farmhouse they go seek help from has a barn full of mutant vampire bats! And the farm's owners, already attacked and killed, are actually a second menace to Our Heroes. Which leads me to one thing I've noticed about low budget monster movies in the last few years: If your main monster is too expensive to have on screen long enough to menace everyone that needs menacing, one fall back is to have your main creature's attack turn its victim into a zombie. That way, if you only have enough money for at most three adequate CGI scenes of bats/giant spiders/cockroaches/snakes attacking plus your big climax , but you have four or six main cast members, you can glop cheap goopy zombie makeup on the first couple of victims and have them knock off a couple of the others so you can save the effects for the climax. And that's what we have here. From there, you can kind of map this one out. Breaking it all down into pluses and minues: on the plus side, it's always nice to see Noonan. There are a couple of nice jump scenes. The CGI on the bats is extremely well done, especially considering the movie's budget. Then, on the minus side: while the stuff with Noonan is kind of fun, it's also pretty obvious it's there to pad out the very brief running time (around 70 minutes minus horror host). And speaking of that brief running time, it unfortunately takes about 40 of the movie's 70 minutes to get the kids into position at the farm for the bats and zombies to attack. Also, after the movie finally does pick up, one of the horror host sequences (literally) breaks in to the movie and totally stalls the flick out for several minutes. Another problem: absolutely not one second of explanation of where the bats come from or why they are in this particular barn. I know what the filmmakers were going for here; sometimes events just start happening and people are thrown in to them and no one knows what's really going on. Sometimes this adds to the menace of the movie. In this case, however, I'm forced to put it down to sloppy or bad screenwriting. Next: if you can't see the end coming a mile off, get a new hobby. The final minus is that the movie was shot on video, then given a film look in a computer, with added grain, scratches, and even the aforementioned film break, none of which is convincing or adds much to the movie. The reason it falls fully on the minus side is because the filmmakers baldly lie in the credits that the movie was shot on film. No fibbing in the credits, fellas, unless you're making an obvious joke! So, taking a look at the totals here: pluses 3, minuses 6. It's too bad, because with a tighter script that got down to business quicker, and threw out some kind of an explanation; and the really good bat scenes used to better effect, this could have been a neat little movie. As is, not recommended.

The Roost (Ti West, 2005)

There are some movies that you know are just going to be awful from the outset, and The Roost is one of them. The movie (which, I should mention, runs less than eighty minutes) kicks off with an opening from a fictitious Saturday-night-creature-feature intro and obligatory creepy host (Tom Noonan, perhaps best remembered as the bad guy in Manhunter). If a movie is this short and still needs a framing device that takes up four minutes at the beginning, it must be seriously lacking in something. And given the majority of no-budget horror flicks, that "something" is most likely going to be characterization. Your trepidation will be, of course, rewarded in this.

I'd offer a plot synopsis, but the movie's picture quality is so bad that all I can really tell you is that it involved bats and zombies (and I use both terms rather loosely). I was, therefore, forced to rely on listening to it most of the time. The dialogue was at least somewhat capably-written, which is kind of surprising for the no-budget horror subgenre, but it wasn't anything special. At least the sound mixing, which is the downfall of the vast majority of DVDs I watch (no matter how big-budget they were), is good enough that I didn't have to continuously fiddle with the sound in order to hear the actors. I can't really comment on anything else technical; the horribleness of the picture quality (which was, supposedly, by design--this makes it even worse) stops me from knowing whether, say, the cinematography was effective. How can I tell? Half the time, I couldn't see anything.

There was an attempt to bring everything back around in the end framing section, but by that time, honestly, I didn't care. Perhaps West will remake this film when he's got a bit more experience, and some better film stock, under his belt. For those of you who care about such things (and I do), note that there is a brief Larry Fessenden cameo here. *

I'm glad to see the friends and family members of the actors have done their reviews. Now for an unbiased one. This movie was about as much fun as a root canal. The action was slow, the plot made no sense, and most of the "action" took place off-screen. The best parts of the film were those blank screen transitions between scenes; at least then I could hope that the movie was over. If you can't get this for free, don't bother watching it. You'll hate yourself in the morning.