User Reviews

A group of friends on their way to Miami for Christmas break take a backwoods detour to avoid highway traffic. There, in middle-of-nowhere West Virginia, the friends run afoul of a faceless murderer who roams the woods looking for unaware victims.

Using a tired old story with the typically undertalented cast, and the typically low-quality audio & video, and the typically subpar script. However, even without these three important components, a film can still find a way to be, at least, entertaining. Look at all the great B-movies that have come out over the years. They still hold an enjoyability factor that goes unmatched by 'quality' cinema. While Plasterhead doesn't have the same entertainment value that most of the classic B-movies have, it's still relatively watchable compared to other films in its category. Also, compared to those films, the direction & cinematography are both fairly well done. The film has a nice mix of comedy spread throughout, most of it unintentional. For instance, the biggest mystery of the film would be trying to figure out all of the continuity errors. Snow disappears and reappears (creepy!). Waitresses give out wrong orders. A house that's sat empty for a period of time is in perfect shape, extremely clean, and (best of all) has hot running water. Much of the story makes little sense. The killer randomly goes around murdering townies (who are still IN TOWN and not in the scary woods), even though he never does that. I mean, town's safe, that's why they moved there, right? Well, unless you're just innocently drinking in the local bar, that is. It's not a good film. At all. In fact, it's pretty bad. But, there are enough reasonably okay elements that make it good for a watch. Or, you can watch it for the really bad elements and have a few laughs. Either way, it's entertaining enough, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

Obligatory Slasher Elements:

• Violence/Gore: There are some cool kills (I particularly liked the barbed-wire one(s)), and the gore's not too bad-looking.

• Sex/Nudity: There's a bit of unimpressive nudity at the beginning, but that's all.

• Cool Killer(s): I liked the idea. It's nothing new, just a deformed man seeking vengeance for being deformed. But, faceless and disgusting? Cool.

• Scares/Suspense: Eh, I didn't even find many good jump scares, let alone any quality suspense.

• Mystery: Not really any at all.

• Awkward Dance Scene: Ah, no. No opportunities, unfortunately.

• - -

Final verdict: 4/10. Fairly generous here, I think.

-AP3-

Four college students are on holiday driving to Miami for some sun, making the mistake so many idiotic characters in slasher movies make..instead of staying on the main highway, the driver, Steve(Josh Macuga)decides to take a "short cut" onto a country road leading into "middle of nowhere" West Virginia. Almost out of gas, the group encounter a book bag containing money and a person's belongings(..a journalist we see fall into the trap of a psycho at the beginning)when David(Ernest Dancy, the token black character with attitude, who likes hip hop and saying the f-word)finds it while draining his lizard. Nearby town of Rolling Glen(..with no gas station?!)has a buried secret that will be unleashed on these kids and selected citizens before the night is over..a black truck driver named Ray Williams was severely beaten, face rendered a hideous visage, by drunken locals and dropped at the old Dixon place in Ellis. Ray's body wasn't recovered because he isn't dead..far from it. Creating a plaster mask to hide the monstrous face he now endures, his identity and humanity lost, now lives off the animals of the wilderness, killing anyone who dares "invade" the territory of the Dixon area. David pleads with the others to leave for Miami with the 500 dollars they found, but Steve's girlfriend, Maggie(Kathryn Merry)insists they seek out the identity of the person whose bag was found. An address of the Dixon place written on paper in the unknown journalist's bag, Steve and company find it, deciding to stay the night due to the fact that they are in fact out of gas. Audra(Raine Brown)and Steve decide to wait at the Dixon house while Steve and Maggie see about information regarding the nearest gas station, heading for a local bar. That's where they hear about the local legend, and the truth regarding Rolling Glen's crooked sheriff, Earl Taggart(Gerard Adimando)who covered up the attack on Williams, the ones responsible never seeing a moment in prison. Returning the house, Steve and Maggie will find out from David that Audra's missing and the terror commences.

Polished cinematography aside, PLASTERHEAD is simply another cheap, run-of-the-mill slasher with limited graphic violence shown on screen. The fate of Audra is pretty unsettling(Williams uses barb wire to drag her by the mouth from behind)and another victim's guts appear from an open wound. The killer of the title is merely a black version of Jason Voorhies..uniform, walk, weapons, everything. The bad casting of Adimando, fighting a thick New York accent, doesn't convince as a hick sheriff. The premise has been done to death regarding college kids making the wrong turn into West Virginia due to heavy highway traffic. And, I have a really hard time believing these kids are gonna pick up 500 bucks and constantly pursue the identity of whose cash it is. The most unpleasant moment is the make-up work for Williams, seen at the beginning, before applying the materials needed for his plaster-cast. Raine Brown, as slutty Audra, fails to convince with that phony Valley-girl imitation..a bit old for such a tired cliché. None of the characters rise above their stereotypes, and the cast is pretty amateurish. Jason Snells score loudly intensifies, attempting to add suspense to a movie that lacks atmosphere or dread. The house is about as menacing as Micky Mouse and doesn't particularly seem as ancient as the Rolling Glen locals(..or the outsiders who make plenty of snide comments regarding how old it looks)would have us to believe. The film does feature a really grim conclusion, but PLASTERHEAD lacks the necessary budget needed to truly grip us..having to shoot away from Williams' attacks on victims proves this. Confusing attack on employees at a diner made little sense to me..how come Williams decides to attack them? If they have been around for a while, why would he just up and decide to kill them? Ludicrous performance from Tom DiNardo as Artie, a foul gas station mechanic who doesn't have any fuel for Steve and his friends(..woefully attempting to sound and act like a disgusting redneck, his New York accent remains bleeding like an open wound as DiNardo fails miserably to hide it). If you wish to have realistic hick carciatures, hire southern actors who actually have an accent..don't hire New Yorkers who sound like they came right out off the streets. A real waste of time.

This was a poorly planned, poorly executed crapfest. The characters were so one dimensional, clichéd and unrealistic that I really didn't care what happened to them. Only one of them was a decent actor, and she barely pulled it off. Everyone else seemed like they were reading directly off cue cards.

***spoilers ahead***

There were SO many holes in the plot, most of them big enough to drive a Mac truck through. The killer goes to a diner and kills two people for absolutely no reason... at all. He smashes through a window and pulls a dude out... a minute later the dude apparently managed to get away from the killer, who some how forgets that he was chasing him. After magically recapturing him and nailing him to a chair, he just goes to sit in front of a radio and stare into space like some kind of vegetable. ***end of spoilers***

In all, this was a horribly constructed mish-mash of typical horror movie clichés that are poorly strung together amid unbearable dialogue delivered by dense, unattractive actors.

Don't waste your time.

Low budget horror films can usually be spotted a mile off - poor acting, poorly recorded sound, unconvincing sets and crude digital video cinematography usually make them films to avoid. I was, however pleasantly surprised by Plasterhead.

Although the story and characters were as clichéd and derivative as they come, the standard of acting was pretty high for a film of this nature, although some of the actors did look a little too young for the parts they were playing. On the plus side, the lead characters were believable and likable - a nice change from the pot smoking, obnoxious teen "hero's" in many Hollywood horrors. It was also nicely paced with a good build-up establishing the back-story, all leading up to a final half-hour which contained moments of genuine tension - a very rare quality in the world of low budget horror.

Visually this film was good. Although some of the locations had a "best friends house" quality to them - particularly the "abandoned house", which was cleaner and more modern looking than my own house! - the choice of camera shots was pretty faultless and the continuity good.

Soundwise, certain scenes suffer slightly from obvious ADR and unconvincing "local" accents. However, this is compensated for by the use of atmospheric incidental music and effects.

Overall, possibly not a film for the casual Hollywood horror viewer, but if you own the entire "friday the 13th" series or if you are a film maker with an interest in horror then you could do a lot worse. Recommended.