Skeleton Crew is set in Finland where a small film crew are making a horror film called Silent Creek about a doctor that worked in a mental institution who made snuff films by torturing & murdering his patients some thirty year previous. The film crew are actually filming in the same institution where the murders took place & while scouting the place out they find a hidden room with a projector & a stash of snuff films, the director Steven (Steve Porter) becomes obsessed with the films & watches them although the rest of the crew don't. The graphic snuff films seems to have an affect on Steven & he rewrites his film to include the murders of of his cast & crew as he intends to carry on the doctor's legacy & make his own snuff film masterpiece...
This Finnish production was directed by Tommi Lepola & Tero Molin & is a bit of an oddity really, I can't say I particularly liked it but at the same time I can't say I hated it. The first thing that is very noticeable about Skeleton Crew is how long the script plays the film within a film scenario in the sense you actually think your watching the film as it's supposed to be but then someone shout's cut & it's revealed that the previous scene was itself a scene being filmed within the context of the film but here in Skeleton Crew the entire first twenty one minutes is played out like a proper film before the film within a film twist is revealed & afterwards you have to basically forget the entire first twenty odd minutes as the film proper then kicks in. The silly twist's don't end there though as the character's realise towards the end that they actually are character's in a horror film & all the silly unbelievable things that have happened before are just part of horror film rules, it's a really strange plot twist & revelation that the makers can't quite pull off, it's an interesting idea with amusing comic potential but the film takes itself very seriously & it's hard to do the same. At 90 odd minutes I could have done with ten minutes or so cut from it, the character's & especially some of the dialogue is really bad (I take it as a Finnish production the makers first language isn't English which explains the odd dialogue & strange delivery) although there's some decent gore & it does try to throw in some twist's & turns that with a better script could have made for an effective horror thriller & it's saying something when you think the film within the film first twenty minutes is better than the rest of it!
The first twenty odd minutes is actually quite atmospheric & darkly filmed while the rest of it, the proper film as it were, lacks any of that atmosphere & feels far more routine. There's some decent gore here, a scalpel is plunged into someone's eye, someone's head is drilled, someones cut in half with a chainsaw, someone is impaled on a spiked lance & there's a fair amount of blood splatter. The film is not perfect with various people just disappearing (the nurse from the beginning & the guy playing Lisa's husband) & when the drill's are switched Bruce doesn't even notice how different they look before sticking it in a girls head?
With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 this looks pretty good, well at least the first twenty minutes do while the rest of it merely looks alright. Apparently shot entirely in Finland with a mostly Finnish cast & crew, I can't say I can ever remember seeing another Finnish horror film actually. The acting is often very bad, some of the accents, bizarre emphasis on random word & the way sentences are constructed give Skeleton Crew a somewhat surreal feel that I quite liked in an odd way.
Skeleton Crew really isn't very good with a couple of poorly handled plot twist's but I thought it tried & there's a few decent gory moments here & a bit of unintentional comedy value too with the bizarre dialogue & acting. I can't really recommend it but I didn't hate it.
This Finnish production was directed by Tommi Lepola & Tero Molin & is a bit of an oddity really, I can't say I particularly liked it but at the same time I can't say I hated it. The first thing that is very noticeable about Skeleton Crew is how long the script plays the film within a film scenario in the sense you actually think your watching the film as it's supposed to be but then someone shout's cut & it's revealed that the previous scene was itself a scene being filmed within the context of the film but here in Skeleton Crew the entire first twenty one minutes is played out like a proper film before the film within a film twist is revealed & afterwards you have to basically forget the entire first twenty odd minutes as the film proper then kicks in. The silly twist's don't end there though as the character's realise towards the end that they actually are character's in a horror film & all the silly unbelievable things that have happened before are just part of horror film rules, it's a really strange plot twist & revelation that the makers can't quite pull off, it's an interesting idea with amusing comic potential but the film takes itself very seriously & it's hard to do the same. At 90 odd minutes I could have done with ten minutes or so cut from it, the character's & especially some of the dialogue is really bad (I take it as a Finnish production the makers first language isn't English which explains the odd dialogue & strange delivery) although there's some decent gore & it does try to throw in some twist's & turns that with a better script could have made for an effective horror thriller & it's saying something when you think the film within the film first twenty minutes is better than the rest of it!
The first twenty odd minutes is actually quite atmospheric & darkly filmed while the rest of it, the proper film as it were, lacks any of that atmosphere & feels far more routine. There's some decent gore here, a scalpel is plunged into someone's eye, someone's head is drilled, someones cut in half with a chainsaw, someone is impaled on a spiked lance & there's a fair amount of blood splatter. The film is not perfect with various people just disappearing (the nurse from the beginning & the guy playing Lisa's husband) & when the drill's are switched Bruce doesn't even notice how different they look before sticking it in a girls head?
With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 this looks pretty good, well at least the first twenty minutes do while the rest of it merely looks alright. Apparently shot entirely in Finland with a mostly Finnish cast & crew, I can't say I can ever remember seeing another Finnish horror film actually. The acting is often very bad, some of the accents, bizarre emphasis on random word & the way sentences are constructed give Skeleton Crew a somewhat surreal feel that I quite liked in an odd way.
Skeleton Crew really isn't very good with a couple of poorly handled plot twist's but I thought it tried & there's a few decent gory moments here & a bit of unintentional comedy value too with the bizarre dialogue & acting. I can't really recommend it but I didn't hate it.
