Scare Zone (2009)

 

 

 

 

I've been to countless haunted Halloween houses, hayrides, cornfields, et.al. I was even in one held in a church once and I've seen good ones and I've seen some really bad ones.  You can figure out for yourself where the one in the church fits in.  This is a film about one of them called The Scare Zone.  It's in a shop in strip mall, OK, I've never been to one in a strip mall so that's different.  The place is only open for three days but oh, what a three days it will be.  Especially when a real killer is on the loose and they are murdering the employees of The Scare Zone one by one.  I've been warned off of this one before and I've read some really bad reviews as well but I'm not one to shy away from a horror film because someone else hated it.  And I'm happy about that this time!  

 

 

 

  

It's a good story concept, I mean several times I've been walking around one of these type attractions and I thought the very same thing.  This is another one of these low budget slasher flicks that I thought was going to be average at best.  I'm happy to say I was pleasantly surprised.  The film was written and directed by Jon Binkowski who only has a handful of films to his credit none of which I've ever heard of.  It stars a cast of little known actors playing all the participants including Neil Brown Jr. (Straight Outta Compton and 2009's Fast and Furious) as Spider an ex-con, Arian Ash (Phone Booth and Out of Time) as goth girl Claire, and Chris Burns (The Other Side and The Unwanted) as Daryl, one of the new hires. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Even with a shoestring budget (I honestly think this one was at least partially filmed inside a Halloween Spirit store) this one has some nice gore effects and some really decent acting as well.  I had little to no expectations going in to this so imagine my surprise when half way through or maybe even less I turn to the Horror Honey and I comment "Is this movie really good or am I just too stoned?", to which the Horror Honey replies "I'm still awake so this must be pretty decent!".  It's true, she had just worked more than twelve of the last twenty four hours so she could have easily been asleep and she was wide awake AND paying attention.  This is a really decent "less than B movie" level of horror film with some main stream ambitions.  It gets three and a half buckets of lye out of five from me and the Horror Honey agrees.