Within the first 30 seconds of the title sequence I was going to give HILLSIDE CANNIBALS the benefit of the doubt : " Hey this is one of those THE HILLS HAVE EYES rip offs " I said to myself and knew I wasn't going to be watching a masterpiece . Within the following five minutes I was still giving it the benefit of the doubt: " Hey horny teenagers with weed , beer and a sex drive , this is one of those HALLOWEEN rip offs " I said to myself and knew I wasn't going to be watching a masterpiece . However ten minutes later I had more or less given up on the movie . It's a gory film , a derivative film , a retro film but worse of all it's a film that makes no sense whatsoever . Even a hardcore horror fan and IMDb contributer like Paul Andrews despised this film which shows youhow absolutely dreadful it is
Even the subtitle THE LEGEND OF SAWNEY BEAN makes no sense . I remember as a child reading a book by Daniel Farson which was the first time I'd heard of the legend of an inbreed brood killing and eating passerbys in a remote part of Scotland . A great number of people even in Scotland have never heard of the legend so what chance of the average American ? No doubt the average American teenager watching this will be scratching their head wondering why the male cannibals are wearing skirts . For those of us who have heard about the legend we'll all be scratching our heads wondering how mythical 17th century Scottish cannibals have suddenly decided to jump 6,000 miles and 300 years in to present day America . Have they got a Tardis ?
This lack of explanation and logic goes well beyond the premise and in to every plot turn . I know 28 WEEKS LATER received a lot of criticism of characters acting stupid in order to drive the plot forward but that was still a highly entertaining well made movie with a political subtext where as here we have absolute garbage of the lowest order . For example if all these people have been disappearing over the years how come no one seems to be aware of this ? In fact it must have been so obvious to the sheriff that I started to think he might be involved in the culling himself long before it was revealed on screen he was . This leads to a ridiculous plot hole where he comes across the surviving female early in the film . Ask yourself this - why didn't he hand her over to the cannibals there and then instead of waiting till the end of the movie ?
The above line is really a rhetorical question since if he did that the film would have ended , thereby saving the audience another hour of torture . That's basically all that happens plot wise - girl saves boy from cannibal den , boy gets captured and tortured again ,girl gets saved by survivalist , survivalist gets killed , girl gets captured by sheriff and to pad this out we have to endure meaningless scenes with the cannibals grunting and fighting amongst themselves . Perhaps the worst aspect is the ending where the film suddenly stops during a cannibal sex scene . It's impossible to believe atrocious rubbish like this was aborted during draft stage since it's undoubtedly one of the worst , most unentertaining films I have ever seen
Even the subtitle THE LEGEND OF SAWNEY BEAN makes no sense . I remember as a child reading a book by Daniel Farson which was the first time I'd heard of the legend of an inbreed brood killing and eating passerbys in a remote part of Scotland . A great number of people even in Scotland have never heard of the legend so what chance of the average American ? No doubt the average American teenager watching this will be scratching their head wondering why the male cannibals are wearing skirts . For those of us who have heard about the legend we'll all be scratching our heads wondering how mythical 17th century Scottish cannibals have suddenly decided to jump 6,000 miles and 300 years in to present day America . Have they got a Tardis ?
This lack of explanation and logic goes well beyond the premise and in to every plot turn . I know 28 WEEKS LATER received a lot of criticism of characters acting stupid in order to drive the plot forward but that was still a highly entertaining well made movie with a political subtext where as here we have absolute garbage of the lowest order . For example if all these people have been disappearing over the years how come no one seems to be aware of this ? In fact it must have been so obvious to the sheriff that I started to think he might be involved in the culling himself long before it was revealed on screen he was . This leads to a ridiculous plot hole where he comes across the surviving female early in the film . Ask yourself this - why didn't he hand her over to the cannibals there and then instead of waiting till the end of the movie ?
The above line is really a rhetorical question since if he did that the film would have ended , thereby saving the audience another hour of torture . That's basically all that happens plot wise - girl saves boy from cannibal den , boy gets captured and tortured again ,girl gets saved by survivalist , survivalist gets killed , girl gets captured by sheriff and to pad this out we have to endure meaningless scenes with the cannibals grunting and fighting amongst themselves . Perhaps the worst aspect is the ending where the film suddenly stops during a cannibal sex scene . It's impossible to believe atrocious rubbish like this was aborted during draft stage since it's undoubtedly one of the worst , most unentertaining films I have ever seen