According to the Production Notes included on the DVD for ROT: REUNION OF TERROR, this film took six years of blood, sweat, and weather-related mishaps to come to fruition. Also, the Making Of featurette actually shows some of the movie’s many roadblocks—engine fires, DUI warrants, camper explosions on the 405. Having just finished watching the movie, I found myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, all these filmmaking snafus were not merely coincidence, but were, in fact, a concentrated effort by the gods of horror to halt production. It’s not all bad, mind you, and it’s obvious that even for its budget, it’s actually well made—problem is, when it comes to important stuff like characters, scariness, consistency, and plot, it’s seriously lacking.
We start off with two happy, horny gals going to the woods for a bit of boozing and Sapphic love. Of course, they decide to go wandering about in the woods, which leads to their inevitable demise. Fast forward a bit, and we meet a fivesome of old high school friends on their way to meet their sixth for a weekend reunion at a cabin in those same dead-lesbian infested woods. There’s a mysterious hitchhiking slutty girl who gives random handjobs with no provocation, a creepy game warden who sniffs panties, and, on top of all that, the guy who set up this whole party never shows up. What does all of this mean? It means that when the killings start, there’s a whole gaggle of suspects and a bunch of corpses waiting to be lined up on a sofa.
So, first off, the quickly severed lesbians. For the gore-hound, these are the best and most creative death scenes. The whole “sex-in-a-tent” bit, along with much of the dialogue, plays like a watered down porno made by geeky fanboys, but at least it moves quickly and we get some blood. Once those girls are dead, we meet all the main players—Prom Queen Amanda (Monique Barajas), Jock B.J. (Mark Carducci), nice guy Tyrone (L.J. Green), snooty blonde Michelle (Nori Jill Phillips), goofy Jimmy (Christian Anderson), and underage Celia (Hallie Bird), the chick Jimmy happens upon on his way to the cabin. Soon, things deteriorate into an unpleasant trend I really started to notice during the recent FRIDAY THE 13TH revival; let’s make everyone so freakin’ repulsive that we can’t wait for them to die! None of these people elicit any kind of sympathy or display any kind of likeability—they don’t even seem to like each other! We have to have someone to root for, and with this group of jerks, we’re really just cheering on whoever’s taking them out just so they’ll shut up and quit snarking at each other.
Next, with all these folks that we’re just itching to see beheaded or stabbed through the eye with an ice-pick, we’re forced to sit through 45-plus minutes of bad dialogue, reminiscing, and needless shots of bear traps from the time our lesbians bite the dust until somebody else FINALLY gets it. Once the killings start, it’s all pretty rapid-fire from there, leading to the heavily touted “controversial” climax. Here’s how they actually put it on the DVD cover:
“As the night progresses, a secret is uncovered which reveals one of the most brutal twist endings in cinematic history. No horror feature has ever dealt with a controversial subject matter in this capacity.”
Now, those are some high-bar-setting claims, and I’ll give it to ROT, they do try to live up to them—and, if nothing else, they kept me watching until the end just to see if they could live up to their hype. Unfortunately, they couldn’t, and the big twist falls flat—especially when it goes on for a few minutes and scenes too long.
Having said all that, though, there are some things this film does well. For one, director Michael Hoffman does a nice job of establishing just how remote this doomed cabin is, and even if that does involve a lot of forest traipsing, at least we KNOW that it’s no easy feat to go to town and get help—and the only would-be authority is that creepy panty-sniffing game warden dude. (That adds a lot to the suspense level; believe me, that’s a big deal I realized after watching the heavily promoted and mind-numbingly boring new TV murder mystery HARPER’S ISLAND, where the “small island” feels way too large to provide much in the way of necessary isolation.) Also, even though the big controversy isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be, there’s a mini-twist that’s a fun tweak of the genre, and during the climactic final fight, there’s some well done gore.
The DVD features several bonuses: a Making Of featurette, an Audio Commentary with the director, writer Meghan Jones, and composer Ryan Copt, a Making Of featurette all about the music, a Music Video, a Gallery, and some Production Notes. It’s a pretty decent selection of goodies for an independent flick in this budget range, and it serves to show just how much went in to making this. The film is available on Pay Per View/On Demand in select areas and an also be found through www.downloadhorror.com and downloaded for your iPod and for self DVD burns.
Overall, ROT: REUNION OF TERROR fails to live up to its own promises of groundbreaking shock and awe, but it has its moments, and director Hoffman shows the potential to do something good if given the right material.
– Amber Goddard
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
