You know the old saying never judge a book by it’s cover? Yeah, well that’s the case here. Upon first glance at the artwork for PERKINS 14 I though it was going to be a lousy Asian B-movie. the cover is very misleading. The second thing I has against this movie was that it was from the director of DARK RIDE. Not that I don’t like Craig Singer, he’s a nice guy and even signed an AFTER DARK poster for me a few years back, and begged for me to like DARK RIDE. I saw it, but never did a write up for it because I simply felt bad because I really didn’t like it at all. Needless to say with PERKINS 14 he redeemed himself.
So you must be wondering the same thing I was wondering, Who the hell names their movie PERKINS 14? Why the heck would I want to even watch a movie with a title like that. Well it’s simple really. The movie is about a police officer named Dwayne Hopper whom ten years ago lost his son. A victim of a kidnapping. Still living with the grief years later. His marriage on the rock, and his concern for his punk rock daughters antics lead Dwayne to drink a lot to forget the pain. On a routine traffic stop a man named Ronald Perkins is picked up. He seems to know a lot about Dwanye and his son’s disappearance. On a hunch that this is the man who took his son, he sends his partner over to Perkins house. While there his partners uncovers a grizzly scene in the basement. Children locked in cages and drugs and other chemicals. But little do they know is that Perkins has modified these kids over the past ten years with drugs and serums that have made the kids into blood thirsty monsters that he plans on using to get revenge on the people who killed his parent. However, his experiment is now unleashed on the small town and the fourteen children are going around killing everyone they can get their hands on. Dwayne and his family end up locking themselves in the town jail, while his now crazy and brainwashed son is leading the army of PERKINS 14 to attack the prison. Not knowing that the family that has missed him so much over the years is the ones he’s trying to kill.
Looking at the film there is a lot here that that the moive took from other films and kind of combined them together. Its pretty much like if you took 28 DAYS LATER, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, and THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS and threw them in a blender you would get this film. Now I’m not saying that the script is bad, in fact while it’s a bit slow and confusing in the first twenty minutes or so, the movie really picks up very quickly and the action begins. It’s actually a pretty decent script. The character development is decent and so is the dialogue.
The movie does have some pretty good acting and the performances are pretty good. Patrick O’Kane was great as Dwayne Hopper and was surrounded by as decent supporting cast. The film did have some alright production value, some of the lighting was a bit dark, and some of the visuals where a bit flaky, but over all it’s not half bad. The sets were pretty cool and the effects where full or plenty of blood and gore for the average horror fan.
Overall, I really enjoyed PERKINS 14. It did have it’s faults, but what I really enjoyed besides all of the horror in the film was the family element in this film. The true horror that this film bought to the table was what if you lost a child? It’s hard to just live with that on your mind, even harder not knowing if that child is dead or alive. But what if someone turned that child into a monster and years later that child you loved so much came back and wanted to kill you. That’s where the true horror of this movie comes from, and for myself that’s what I liked about it.
Like the other Horrorfest Discs this one does not have a lot of features but does include more Miss Horrorfest Webisodes as well as ten making of Webisodes as well. PERKINS 14 is one of the better films to be released in the Horrorfest series this year and is well worth checking out.
– Horror Bob
- 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
