User Reviews

*** There be spoilers here ***

This is another film from directed by J. Christian Ingvordsen and written by Matthew M. Howe who previously brought us Blood Relic which I enjoyed and Bog Creatures which I haven't seen yet. Fort Doom is another enthusiastic production. It also reunites much of the same cast headed by the beautiful Debbie Rachon, the talented Billy Drago and the lovely Jennifer Lauren Grant who I look forward to seeing more of.

While the idea if transplanting a slasher flick (or half a slasher flick) to the old west is commendable I didn't enjoy this as much as Blood Relic, a film that knew what it wanted to be all the way through.

First off, most of the major characters were prostitutes, yet the film has very little nudity (thanks Debbie for coming through at the end!). One of the things I liked about Blood Relic was that most of the females characters got naked to one degree or another (Jennifer Lauren Grant, we're still waiting!!!), and those characters were just typical horny young adults not professional sex workers. Note to filmmakers in general: If your characters are strippers, prostitutes, or porn actresses then modesty is not usually among their character traits, nudity is expected.

And while there is some blood, the film pretty much lacks any gore. While I still haven't decided if this is a horror film in a western setting or a western with some horror elements, either way it would have benefited with some good old gore and T&A.

*** Danger: even more spoilers ***

Another problem is that a mystery stalker/killer just doesn't come across as threatening in an already dangerous situation. This is why horror films set in a war don't work so well. In the setting of this film the characters talk about the dangers of "Indians" outside the wall of the fort yet characters venture out there and are killed. I think the tension would have been more effective if the killer struck within the fort and the homes of the victims.

*** Lots o' spoilers ***

Lastly, I'm not even sure how to characterize this film. Th packaging presents it as a horror film, and it starts off as a slasher movies set in the post-civil war old west. Then about 2/3 of the way through after the killer is discovered and dispatched it turns in to a straight up western as confederate troops attack the fort. Then it changes into, well, I'm not sure what, sci fi?, as we discover that these aren't regular confederate troops, but were treated with a drug that makes them physically stronger yet weakens their will so they are being controlled like some deformed zombie army. Very strange indeed. And just when it looked like I knew what was going on it turns into something like an episode of Wild, Wild West when one of our heroes turns out to be a special Secret Service agent reporting to the President.

While I did enjoyed the film I think the story switched direction a few too many times.

Fort Doom looked very promising from the outset. I felt the setting and premise were intriguing, despite some minor anachronisms (more on that later). The acting was, for a low budget production, very competent, and the character exchanges were convincing.

The problems, however, were many. I felt that the setting of Fort Doom was too populated, especially for a place that was supposedly abandoned out of fear. I felt the story at this point should have been set up differently, perhaps an abandoned place with a nearby settlement that the locals feared. Clichéd, yes, but certainly more horror potential. I also felt that the major plot turn was one in which the writers tried too hard not to be cliché and to provide more of a surprise. It just didn't work for me, and it made the plot a bit too convoluted as a result.

Although other reviewers have noted anachronisms such as asphalt pavement, that didn't really bother me too much. The one to me that was much less forgivable was the fact that all the firearms in the film used smokeless powder. Smokeless powder wasn't really in use until the 1880s, and the movie is set in 1867. I felt this really harmed it's authenticity, since gun play was an important part of the film.

With so many problems, one would think it odd that I rated it so highly. Well, it is a step above the majority of low budget films I've seen in the general production quality and acting alone. And a number of characters were endearing. Lastly, anachronisms aside, I felt it probably did well at capturing the feel of life just after the civil war. There were most certainly several contingents of Confederate forces after 1865 (the official end of the war) for whom the war was not yet over, and whom carried on a reign of terror for many years afterwards. These acts of vengeance against the north (and the south) were extremely brutal, and it would certainly not be unheard of to find murders such as those depicted in the film committed on a semi-regular basis.

Although not overly impressive, I found myself entertained throughout.

the real plot...

A group of post-Civil War prostitutes seek alternative housing in FORT BOOM. Lacy Everett and a close-knit family of call girls have been eating date expired sausages for days and plan to move into the former Fort McMillian. Locals warn the women of eating more of the dated sausage. Because there is a vicious pyromaniac loose in the area and he refuse to shuttle them out to the property. When they finally arrive at their destination, they discover their stomach is full of gass after all the bad sausage. It is not long before they learn why their new home is called FORT BOOM.

This is the first horror western that I can recall seeing, and it was really a good story. It was one that has been told in many forms, but with a horror twist.

Debbie Rochon looked absolutely splendid as she led her girls (Melissa Paladino and Mya Sagara) and her sister (Jennifer Lauren Grant) across 15 miles of country on foot from the end of the rail line to the fort to set up business. Jason (Joshua Park), a photographer accompanied them to the fort.

There were no soldiers at the fort. It had been abandoned to the settlers. Lots of people were horribly murdered - a girl in a cornfield, two old geezers in a cabin, then one of the girls - soon followed by another.) Guess there wasn't going to be any business after all unless Debbie planned to do all the work.

Jason and the Sheriff (J. Christian Ingvordsen) were left to defend themselves and Debbie and her sister. Like I said, the story is familiar to western watchers, so I won't give it away.

Billy Drago was especially creepy as the undertaker - a perfect part for him.

Like all westerns, the gunfights included six-shooters that never ran out of bullets. And, like all westerns the hero gets the girl in the end. Those aren't spoilers, as anyone who watches westerns knows that will happen.

Even though the girls were pros, the only titillation is through sheer fabric while they frolicked in the river, and a very nice surprise towards the end. A very nice surprise, indeed. Thank you Debbie.

Here's my best description of Fort Doom - boring, boring, boring, unintentionally hilarious, boring. Yet another one of the countless low budget pieces of crap that have flooded the movie marketplace, this is thing is no more than two steps above a bunch of high school kids in 1992 grabbing one of their parents' video cameras and running out into the woods one weekend to make their own film as a lark. The marginally amusing outtakes that run during the closing credits are a billion times more entertaining than everything else in this motion picture put together.

The flaccid plot goes like this. In post-Civil War Missouri, a madam (Debbie Rochon) is taking her two whores (Melissa Paladino and Miya Sagara) and her virginal sister (Jennifer Lauren Grant) to set up a brothel near an abandoned fort. Along the way, they hook up with a budding nature photographer (Joshua Park). Nothing at all interesting happens for over an hour of screen time, and then our not-so-intrepid band is thrust into the middle of a ludicrous conspiracy involving horribly burned ex-Confederate soldiers who've been turned into brainwashed slaves by some sort of Old West plant concoction. A bunch of extras get dispatched like zombies in a Romero movie, Debbie Rochon bares a single breast…and that's about it. Aside from a wet petticoat contest early on, I've just charitably described everything of any possible value in Fort Doom.

Let me be blunt about this. People are certainly entitled to make these kind of low-budget, amateurish productions. Everybody's got to start somewhere and Joshua Park does show glimmers of enough talent to be a professional actor, though looking like a bloated version of Screech from Saved By The Bell probably limits his career possibilities. But these pitiful creations should never be unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. Even if you only paid 15 cents to watch Fort Doom, you'd still feel like you didn't get your money's worth. This is the most rudimentary filmmaking applied to a script where every scene appears to have been written 30 seconds before it was shot and performed by a cast that should have stayed behind the cash register at McDonald's.

On the off chance somebody involved with this film somehow happens to read this review, I want to focus on one specific example of the depressingly inept storytelling on display in Fort Doom. There are dozens and dozens of things I could bring up, but here's one to demonstrate I'm not unfairly maligning this production.

Toward the end of the movie, the young nature photographer reveals himself to be a Secret Service agent. Why? Because after wasting the audience's time for an hour, these filmmakers needed a character to vomit out a buttload of exposition in order to explain what the hell was going on. There are multiple opportunities to use multiple characters to convey the necessary information to the viewer, but these filmmakers leave it all to one scene with some half-assed revelation to justify it. They basically took the speech where the villain explains all of his plans and inserted it into the mouth of another character, then realized they had to explain how that character knew all that stuff. And then, they go on to actually have a scene where the villain DOES explain his plans. These James Bondian scenes are always fairly lame and this film has two of them that happen almost back-to-back. That may seem like a little thing given acting that wouldn't pass muster at community theater and scenes that look like they were shot for the public access show of a local travel agent, but I wanted to provide at least one concrete example of how the people behind Fort Doom had no idea what they were doing.

There's virtually no way and anyone could enjoy anything about this film. By the time it becomes unintentionally hilarious, you've already suffered through so much bad acting, awful directing and even worse writing that there's no relief to be had. Avoid Fort Doom like the plague.

Alleged "scream queen" Debbie Rochon and her group of frontier prostitutes travel west to the title location and encounter grisly killings that turn out to be the work of a cult of ex-Confederate psychopaths attempting to resurrect the south through pointless massacre.

Action and suspense take a backseat to loads of boring dialog and uninteresting character development.

Billy Drago is good in the thankless (not to mention pointless) role of the town mortician but everything else about this wannabe slasher western is extremely poor, including the town and the fort, both of which look like modern made western tourist traps and costumes that look like they were bought at Party City.

Do yourself a big favor and watch Ravenous instead.