Crazy Eights Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
No secret stays locked away forever.
Six friends reunite after 20 years at a mutual childhood friend's funeral. A search through their deceased friend's house reveals a map to a trunk. The map spurs the friends to find it and dig it up. After uncovering the trunk, the unexpected is found ... the rotted remains of a child. A child from a past they've long forgotten, a child that begins to haunt their every waking moment and makes them question who they really are. The closer they come to remembering the circumstances of the mysterious child's death, the closer they come to their own reckoning.
| Dina Meyer | Jennifer Jones |
| George Newbern | Father Lyle Dey |
| Traci Lords | Gina Conte |
| Dan DeLuca | Wayne Morrison |
| Frank Whaley | Brent Sykes |
| Gabrielle Anwar | Beth Patterson |
| Christine Eads | Nurse |
| Stephen Szibler | Orderly |
| Michael Gabel | Dr. Pike |
| Cheryl Scungio | Jennifer's Mother |
| Karen Beriss | Karen |
| Linda Delpierre | Extra |
| Kaitlyn E. Lindsey | Hospital patient |
| James Koya Jones |
4.30 out of 10 (502 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Are the crazy gang really going crazy?
posted on 30 Aug 2009A half-decent cast and a half-decent storyline make for a half-decent movie, elevated in places by some genuinely spooky moments.After the death of their friend (a friendship forged in childhood that had lasted intermittently over many years) the remaining members of the "Crazy Eights" follow his personal map to a trunk full of memories . . . . and something else. Following a mysterious figure, they then find themselves stuck inside an abandoned facility that shows them aspects of their past it seems they were intent on keeping forgotten.The cast (including the likes of Frank Whaley, Dina Meyer, George Newbern, Traci Lords and Gabrielle Anwar) all do okay. Nobody stands out with their talent, although Whaley does the best, but nobody makes you cringe either.The scares are competently handled by director James K. Jones, deftly mixing subtle moments with the odd in-your-face "cheap" fright and providing a pleasing final product considering it's obvious relatively low budget.Overall, I really enjoyed Crazy Eights and felt pleased to have discovered it in my viewing pile. It's not the kind of little gem you can rave about to fellow fans or push upon all and sundry but it's certainly worth a watch if you're a genre fan and after something that tries to provide solid chills.See this if you like: Session 9, The Orphanage, The Abandoned.
Disappointing, dull and almost unwatchable
posted on 30 Aug 2009"Crazy Eights" is a potentially good movie undermined by a lot of flaws.**SPOILERS**Following a friend's death, friends Jennifer Jones, (Dina Mayer) Father Lyle Dey, (George Newbern) Gina Conte, (Traci Lords) Beth Patterson, (Gabrielle Anwar) Brent Sykes, (Franky Whaley) and Wayne Morrison, (Dan DeLuca) who have known each other since childhood, gather together to go through the belongings left to them. Despite being initially apprehensive, they go out to an isolated cabin where everything is located and set about looking through the valuables, eventually discovering a strange facility located within. Trying to understand how everything fits together, they realize that all of them were involved in a top-secret project that had experimented on children, including them, and that someone is still there trying to get revenge on them, forcing them to race to find it's secret and stop it.The Good News: There wasn't a whole lot to like with this one. The fact that it starts off with a potentially-promising premise that sounds pretty cool and should-be fun to occur. It's quite unique, about the experimentations going on and it does have a ring of plausibility about it, one of those areas that could've happened in the past and really could've been done, making it all that much better. The fact that the locations on display, when we can see them, are pretty creepy is a plus. The giant bunker underground looks really creepy when we get to see it, being large, spacious and, in one of the highlight moments where we follow one of them who goes in circles trying to get out only to arrive back at the same spot, is inspired and ingenious, full of great shots and really makes for one of the creepiest times in the film. Another minor one, where the professor has the flickering images pop-up on the video-screen after the classroom lecture is really nice, considering it's unknown what's happening then and it doesn't take an eternity to get through like the others shortly after. The last good plus here is the fact that there's some nice deaths in here, when it gets around to knocking them off. One is impaled through the neck with a spear-on-the-wall, another is stabbed with a glass shard, one has their leg broken in a fall down stairs, one has a windowsill closed on their neck and another rips their eyes out, so this one has some gore. Otherwise, it's all that's good here.The Bad News: This one here can only be called a major disappointment, as there isn't too much good stuff here. One of the many problems is that there's hardly any real interest going on at the beginning of the film concerning what's going on. Despite the fact that they meet together to discuss the funeral, yet it's just so dull and lifeless that it hardly gets anything going. From an abundance of failed scares, such as whatever was happening to the sculptor as that scene lasted an eternity while she kept smoothing out a piece muttering to herself yet not once was there a clear revelation of what she was making or why that was a scary situation to be in, or the haunting of the priest in the rectory as he spent another eternity searching for something making noise off the distance, yet because of the way it's edited, it appears that he's looking for the source of the music playing over the scene. That the film then proceeds to spend close to ten minutes with them all talking to each other about the significance of it, with no resolution only to suddenly throw out an idea that no one made a trail to so that it seemed logical, and then even more wandering around in an area so dark it renders the hopeful-suspense moot before finally finding the underground bunker that leads to even more time wandering around. Half of the movie is literally devoted to wandering around the different locations spouting off the same thing about trying to find out why they're there and what it all means. This makes it incredibly difficult to get into the film and take anything about it in any way, shape or form seriously, meaning the whole thing is just deadly dull. Another big flaw here is the film's lack of explanation for what exactly happened at the bunker in the finale. The film just had a bunch of actions carried out, including some gruesome deaths, then just ended without really saying what happened. It makes no clues as to whether it was a ghost, one of them, or what, and the stopping suddenly without explanations tactic isn't comforting. The last flaw to this one is that, because of the amount of time spent elsewhere, most of the big revelations concerning the story occur at the very end. The reason for naming the group as such, what happened to them to get to know each other, what was happening to them, left unexplained until the last half-hour of the film, rendering them of their importance and making it seem as though the film had forgotten about them. It's not a good feeling to have, and these here are what's wrong with the film.The Final Verdict: This wasn't all-out bad, as there's a nice amount of potential on display, but fails mainly into the disappointment area. Really only seek this one out if you're a fan of the cast or feel the need to complete the series, otherwise those who know this isn't something for them are advised to ignore.Rated R: Graphic Language and Violence
Hectically Manipulative.
posted on 30 Aug 2009A movie which is hectically manipulative with cinematography as indicated with the use of unsettling angles. There is a feeling of not being allowed to go (entrapment). It's about the remaining energy which has been trapped for so many years must be released and the grudge of the issue must come out in order for the problem to be solved. This is also a movie which revolves around history repeating itself and it must be faced; the horror has to be uncovered and the secrets of the past must be revealed. And this movie has an incredibly effective sound track with the use of manipulated synths and electronic instruments which give a haunting sensation! Hectically manipulative!
Predictable Waste of Time
posted on 30 Aug 2009Being named to the After Dark Horrorfest must be a mixed bag. On the one hand, your independent horror flick gets great distribution and promotion. On the other, it gets saddled with unrealistic expectations, the result of the festival's hype about releasing films that are too scary and subversive for Hollywood. I've yet to see one of these films that lived up to these inflated expectations. Most are just variations on a theme, with CRAZY EIGHTS proving no exception.This picture offers us a combination of THE BIG CHILL and CUBE (or any number of Twilight Zone episodes about people being stuck in strange environments). A group of childhood friends regroup after the death of one of their own and find themselves stuck in the basement of an abandoned research hospital. Of course, they share a horrific secret: they were all test subjects in a psychological experiment that went awry. They hallucinate. They scream and cry. And then they run off by themselves, character after character, so they can be conveniently picked off by an evil entity.CRAZY EIGHTS is competently directed. It features a great location (who can fault an abandoned, creepy hospital?). And the actors, including former porn star Tracy Lords, do a nice job.But I was again struck by what the film didn't have: any kind of plausible explanation about the spirit infestation. Instead, we get lame J-horror borrowings. *BIG SPOILER* All this carnage was due to the spirit of one angry little girl. It's an angry little girl we hardly ever glimpse, which is a good thing in a film like this, but it's still a lame excuse for 90 minutes of supposed "terror." It's as nonsensical as its big-budget cousin, SILENT HILL, which used the same premise.Don't get me wrong, this isn't a horrible movie. But neither is it a thinking person's horror film. I'm actually confused by who its target audience was. There's so little blood that it isn't pandering to gorehounds. CRAZY EIGHTS actually goes out of its way to hide the aftermath of the ghost attacks. And even if it did want to linger on the carnage, the effect would have been nullified by the muted color palette of the film. The entire picture looks like it was de-saturated. It's an odd and pointless approach…a perfect compliment to the plot.
The very many problems with Crazy Eights
posted on 30 Aug 2009Six people come together after the death of a childhood friend and begin to unravel the secret behind a past they can't remember while trapped in some abandoned hospital kind of place, and thus begins the very many problems with Crazy Eights.The film is basically one very big collection of plot holes, beyond what I tried to sum up never really made sense, because for someone like me who has a long attention span, I can clearly say that barely anything is explained, for example, what was the purpose of the experiments? why was the dead girl so vengeful if she died accidentally? And how can a group childhood friends remember each other but they don't remember a thing about their childhood? I don't know if the director tried to make one of those films that's suppose to stay with you for a long time after you've watched it, wondering about the same things I just pointed out, well he did, only after I watched it, I didn't really like it.Another problem is the score, while watching the film I noticed that the score practically played throughout the film, I can probably account for less than three seconds for when I didn't hear it, and it was more annoying than anything else, for the majority of the film it just played, it didn't help set the tone or create a certain mood or help the film build any kind tension, it just played and muffled a lot of the dialog.The acting was so so, but whatever kind of film the filmmakers tried to make obviously doesn't work, want my advice? Broaden out the storyline leaving fewer plot holes and make less use of the score and more use of sound and lighting effects to create a lot of atmosphere, I am sure it'll work better.
Big Chill of ghost movies
posted on 30 Aug 2009Another one of the After Dark, Horrorfest movies, that is kind of a Big Chill horror movie with a very angry ghost. The death of a childhood friend of six others, bring them all together at the funeral. The deceased has outlined something he wants his friends to do, and that's follow a map that leads them to a spooky building, that they get trapped inside with a little girl ghost that takes them out one by one. Not a lot of action in the first half of the movie, mostly dialogue between the six which is pretty interesting, but might not sit well with a lot of horror fans. After the ghost comes into the story, it becomes a survival against all odds, and with a very strong cast, they pull it off pretty well. I kind of liked the movie myself, but I can see why other genre fans may not be too fond of it.
Unfathomable Saw II style horror film.
posted on 30 Aug 2009Crazy Eights starts as six childhood friends who called themselves the Crazy Eights attend the funeral of a seventh mutual friend Brax, afterwards the six friends learn that Brax left them a map to an old barn & a note saying to find an old wooden chest there. The six travel to the isolated barn & find the chest & along with various childhood trinkets find the rotten skeletal remains of a young girl inside. Shocked they all decide to just go but end up driving round in circles, then they see a large house & decide to ask for directions. One of the friends hurts his leg & the other's take him inside the house which suddenly turns into a hospital where the vengeful spirit of the dead girl stalks the corridors seeking revenge on those who killed her & left her body in the chest...One of the entries in that annual 8 Films to Die For After Dark Horrorfest festival thing Crazy Eights was co-edited, co-executive produced, co-produced, co-written & directed by James K. Jones & I have to say it's one of the most poorly written horror films I have seen in a while. For a start the title Crazy Eights is terrible from a marketing point of view, it doesn't tell you anything about the film & the words Crazy Eights will mean nothing to the majority of people. The film itself is no better, there are plot holes galore & a story which is just all over the place. The pace is pretty slow to begin with & the first forty odd minutes is sleep inducing stuff, then there's the almost total lack of exposition or explanation for anything that happens. There's no explanation as to why the six friends can remember each other but not the fact that they were orphans or the fact that they spent time in the hospital, we never really find out anything about the dead girl except that she was killed somehow & she blames the Crazy Eights, despite being trapped inside the hospital there are plenty of glass windows that the character's surely could have broke & climbed out of & there's no reason as to why the house suddenly turns into a hospital or why it's abandoned or where all the pictures & clues scattered throughout came from. The script is a mess, either that or the makers didn't shoot enough footage & merely had to use what they had whether it made sense or not which it most certainly doesn't. The ending is terrible too & doesn't make any sense, I was waiting for some sort of twist but it never comes & the whole film ends in a very blunt, abrupt & unsatisfying way. The set-up during the second half of the film feels very much like Saw II (2005) as a group of character's are trapped in a single location unaware of what's going on or why they are there & they begin to get killed off one by one, unfortunately Crazy Eights has nothing that made Saw II so good like the twist's & turns, the gore, the clever traps, the surprise ending & quick pacing. Throw in some nonsense about nightmares, some pointless flashbacks, the ghost of a young girl straight out of any Asain horror & you have a confusing mess that leaves the viewer with many unanswered questions as the end credits roll. Crazy Eights just doesn't feel like one coherent film, it's very bitty with a poor plot that is badly written & explained. Even the character's are standard stereotypes & the dialogue is forgettable, overall Crazy Eights is a bit of a mess from start to finish.I must admit that Crazy Eights looks quite nice with one or two nicely lit & shot scenes, unfortunately it's not worth sitting through the rest of the film to see them & in isolation on their own don't add up to much anyway. I don't know if it's just me but this looks cut, whenever there's an opportunity to show some gore the makers either shied away from it or it was cut. This sometimes makes it difficult to understand what is going on in certain scenes, the bit when Gina suddenly clutches her face with blood streaking down her cheeks is a good example as we never see what has happened to her. I assume something has happened to her eyes but we never find out for sure. The only reason this would get an adult rating is because of the profanity rather than the violence or gore of which there is virtually zero. The ghost of the dead girls pops up occasionally but seemingly at random & we never really get a good look at her or even find out who she is or indeed was. The special effects are alright but there's hardly any anyway.Probably shot on a pretty low budget somewhere in Maryland this actually has good production values & looks like a proper film. The experienced cast is pretty good here, to reinforce the Saw connections Dina Meyer who was in Saw (2003), Saw II, Saw III (2006) & Saw IV (2007) stars here while ex teenage porn star Traci Lords continues to try & make a career as a proper actress.Crazy Eights is a mess of a film that feels like a cross between Saw II & a Asain ghost film but without any of the merits of either of them. No gore, no twist's, a mess of a plot & a slow pace makes Crazy Eights yet another one of the 8 Films to Die For that is quite frankly pants.
Captivating
posted on 30 Aug 2009In a classic Old Dark House situation, a bunch of people are trying to find out what they have in common. Slowly a memory returns of something they tried to forget. And it's terrible enough to be lethal. Kudos to the camera department: there are great shots of faces in the shadow while light comes from behind, this is a good technical means to symbolize the psychological destruction of the individual, yet it's not overdone. The music often consists of slowly rising and fading synthesizer pads, deliberately creating an atmosphere of time standing still while it is impossible for anyone to get out of the house. "Crazy Eights" is neither something completely new (if you saw some Japanese movies recently), nor a masterpiece, but it captivated me for the whole running time and I can't say anything bad about it.Fortunately I decided to rent the DVD by chance, i.e. without reading any reviews first. That would have told me little about the movie, but a lot about horror movie reception in the 2000s. So, if no maniac with a chainsaw jumps at you every 2-3 minutes, a movie is "badly paced", "slow", "boring", "lame" and so it goes on and on. Oh my. Thankfully, many directors get into the movie business who have other intentions than just the body-count.
Your crazy if you see it.
posted on 30 Aug 2009This movie is the most stupid movie I have ever seen. Why would 6 white collar workers break into an abandoned house looking for a girl that ran past their car? Then add that they break into the basement looking for this girl? Then the door to the basement slams shut and they are stuck. Why did they throw the chest out the barn window? They intentionally smashed the chest why? Nothing makes sense in this movie.I am warning you that this movie is a waste of time. Why do they feel guilt? I think they feel guilt for making this movie and they now feel compassion for the people that paid money to rent it or worse those who bought this movie.
er...what?
posted on 30 Aug 2009...er...did anyone notice that this film had the soundtrack to another far more happier sounding, albeit odd film? Also is the name 'Chuck Hammer' nestling comfortably in the list 'Top Ten Names to avoid giving to your child at all costs or he'll seek his revenge by composing ill fitting musical accompaniments'?Does 'B-Movie" now mean 'Bad' movie?If however you absolutely need to fill 80 minutes, may I recommend the following course of action - get some paint, a brush, one wall and a chair.After enduring the painful experience of watching 'Waz', 'The Happening' and now this film, i fear these may be the last coherent sentences I am able to extract from my tortured mind.*****SAVE YOURSELVES*****READ.
Big crazy mess
posted on 30 Aug 2009Well...it's a pretty sure sign that you've seen a bad film when you spent nearly an hour and a half watching it and you can barely think of anything at all to say about it! Crazy Eights was released as a part of the '8 Films to Die For' set in 2006. I can't say I've been overwhelmingly impressed with what I've seen so far of this series; and not only does Crazy Eights do nothing to change my impression of it, it actually drags the average down; being by far and away the worst I've seen so far! The plot is a jumbled load of rubbish and focuses on a group of friends that end up reliving a childhood trauma after the death of one of their childhood friends. That's basically what we get and it ends up turning into another 'horrifying' and clichéd ghost story mess. It's obvious that writer-director James K. Jones wanted to do something intelligent although unfortunately the film falls very short of the line. The plot is extremely disjointed and much of the life is sapped out of it by a series of flashbacks. The twist at the end doesn't come off - although it's a bit of a shame as with better handling it actually could have been fairly clever. I lost interest in this film very quickly and as such wouldn't recommend anyone wastes any time on it.
Crazy Eights
posted on 30 Aug 2009Childhood friends come together for a dead pal's funeral, abiding by his wishes to open a specific box together which contains a map inside leading to a chest containing the skeletal remains of a little girl, and items each person had at that point in their lives(slingshot, paint brushes, musical notes, etc). Trying to find their way out of the area onto a road leading back to their lives away from the past, they seem to be driving in circles. Lawyer Brent(Frank Whaley, who has made portraying the @sshole character in movies an art-form)sees a girl, opting to follow her, hoping to get directions off the path and on the right road. Instead they find a condemned institution, with circumstances trapping them within thanks to possible supernatural forces. Attempting to find their way out, any exit at all seems lost to them, with doors locked tight and windows heavily protected. Slowly unraveling are each character as they remain locked inside this place.Dina Meyer is a professor, Jennifer. George Newbern is the trustworthy and wise padre, a pillar of strength the group begins to lean on. Traci Lords is a singer who is finding it hard to hold together. Dan DeLuca is Wayne, whose broken leg when starting down the steps to the cellar is the catalyst for the group's being trapped inside as they all converge to assist him with the door closing them in. Whaley is the foul-mouthed, moody executor of the will. Gabrielle Anwar is the petite and deeply troubled pottery sculptor with harsh nightmares that have scarred her worse than any of the others, although everyone has been plagued with unpleasant dreams surfacing perhaps buried memories. There's little exposition which might've been written this way on purpose because despite what we see in the early going, their past in the hospital, tested like guinea pigs(..perhaps they were autism patients since it's brought up when Jennifer is looking through files surprisingly in mint condition despite 20 years)is an ambiguous mystery. We know by what they slowly uncover, when the memories emerge, as separated members are killed, that 8 of them escaped from this hospital with one girl, Karen(..the one whose skeletal remains were discovered), dying of suffocation because she was hidden in the chest as they fled. Leaving her behind and forgetting to rescue her damns them all. As Karen was locked in the chest to rot, the ones responsible now face a similar situation. Mentioned in the movie as well is the fact that Karen's vengeful spirit was released thanks to the group's dead pal, because through the opening of the trunk, her demise and memory became anew. As long as she was absent, their guilt could remain the same, but, through her release, they're besieged by their part in Karen's death. That's the way I saw it, even though I could be wrong. Whatever the case, it appears that each member, when isolated, fall prey to Karen's ghost, in ripped, musty rags and rotted corpse. The film, to me, felt rushed and heavily cut(..it kind of feels like one of those film's put through the ringer on the cutting room floor)with an ending that left me rather flummoxed and confused. There are moments of stupid human behavior..one questions why these characters would even bother with the obviously abandoned hospital(..I mean seriously, do you think a little girl would be living within the walls of this place?)or split apart when possible danger is around every corner. I find it hard to believe that, as a unit, they couldn't free themselves somehow from the rickety building. The violence, for the most part, is off-screen. Even when victims are discovered, there's no real focus on their damaged bodies(..sure a severed hand is shown, but it doesn't really freak out even the casual horror fan with a rather weak stomach for such things). I think the film wishes to explore the trauma of what happens to grown adults effected by a childhood they've buried away, like the corpse of Karen. Perhaps, in unlocking Karen's memory, the events experienced in the hospital resurfaced which led to their downfall. I feel "Crazy Eights" suffers from being too ambiguous, the story of the group too sloppily delivered, leaving us rather confused at to what we just witnessed. To be honest, too, that, despite the aspects mentioned, "Crazy Eights" is still a slasher flick where characters drop out of the story one-by-one with a girl's ghost taking the place of a psychopath with black gloves.
Messy Collection of Clichés
posted on 30 Aug 2009Between 1954 and 1976, a large number of children were submitted to behavior studies in the South of the USA. When Brax Young dies, his childhood friends Jennifer Jones (Dina Meyer), Gina Conte (Traci Lords), Father Lyle Dey (George Newbern), Wayne Morrison (Dan DeLuca), Brent Sykes (Frank Whaley) and Beth Patterson (Gabrielle Anwar) reunite after twenty years. While in Brax's house, they discover a letter asking them to search a time capsule from their childhood and map indicating its location. They travel to Entonsburg and find a trunk with some objects and a skeleton hidden inside. Their discovery triggers traumatic recollections from their childhood with tragic consequences."Crazy Eights" is a messy collection of clichés, with a confused story about a government study that affects the subjects, proving that it was no harmless as promised to the families. The characters and situations are awfully developed, and the circumstances why the group becomes trapped in the abandoned house are ridiculous. Why should six people in a truck stop the car during the daylight to break in an abandoned house to seek directions? Further, the soundtrack is annoying. My vote is two.Title (Brazil): "Lembranças Macabras" ("Macabre Recollections")
Boring.
posted on 30 Aug 2009I've never been a quitter and I refuse to let these subsequently tedious "8 Films to Die For" I have seen so far, deter me from completing the collection. And as much as "Crazy Eights" sucked fermented zombie crap, I hereby consider myself one profoundly strong-minded individual! The premise of this movie deals with a group of former childhood friends, reunited for a funeral who come across a map leading to an isolated house in the country. They end up opening a window in their suppressed past in which they were subjected to secretly funded testing... Finding themselves trapped in the house, they succumb to paranoia and are killed off one by one by some unseen presence. This is a very boring, unoriginal, and nonsensical ghost movie... Avoid.
Maybe the worst movie I have EVER seen
posted on 30 Aug 2009Spoiler/Cliffnotes: Note: The real spoiler is enduring this film for 90 minutes.For some reason, a group of friends are summoned via friend's will to a chest in a barn in the middle of nowhere. In the chest is a kid's skeleton, presumably from a hospital where they all were as kids where some funky experiments took place.They leave to call the cops (no cell reception) and miraculously get lost. They pass a house a few times, which turns out to be the hospital...yet no one can remember it for some unknown reason. Though it looks like a large house on top, there is really 100 miles of underground spooky tunnels with no escape underneath...where of course they get trapped after "exploring"...though why they would do that after it was found to be abandoned is anybody's guess, since they were trying to find directions/phone.Now trapped in the basement, they splinter off into groups where they are picked off one by one by the girl's (trunk skeleton) ghost. Why? It makes no sense. And not until 90% of his movie is through do they realize that it's THE hospital. Amazingly, the hospital, though abandoned, still has power and a full library of medical records untouched...as well as valuable equipment and the like.There are so many holes and idiocies in this film to even address completely. I watched this for free "on demand", and ended up fast-forwarding to the scary parts, just so I could be done with it. I can't not finish a movie (double-negative disclaimer), though this movie would've been a great point to start.Senseless plot leaves you wondering "why" more than anything. If you find yourself waiting for this movie to get better, it won't. Avoid this movie at all costs...even if you can watch it for free.
One of the worst movies so far.......
posted on 30 Aug 2009It was a waste of time. I was actually expecting that this movie was going to be a little bit better than the other "After Dark Horrorfest" series because there were some familiar stars (Dina Meyer, frank Whaley, and Traci Lords). The sound effects and the editing was very awful. It started out good, but ended in a big disappointment. The movie made me think how it was possible for all the characters did not know anything about their past and foolishly ended back in this experimental and research building that they once lived in. Once they were trapped inside, it seemed like they did not make much effort to get out! Worst of all, they allowed themselves to be killed off one by one at a time, like idiots.
It's Not The Worst Of The Afterdark Horrorfest
posted on 30 Aug 2009I mean, it was really boring and it had a lot of flaws, but it's not actually terrible.It's definitely not good though, and even though it WAS entertaining to watch, I just really didn't think they tried hard enough.Well, let's start off with the good things.I thought that at some points it was creepy and cool, and the acting was really good for a film of this one's standards.Now the bad things.It was just so boring.There wasn't any scary or suspenseful scenes, and I thought that they could've made it a little more interesting then they did.Also, this movie had a lot of flaws, and it left a lot of things...unexplained.Well, if you want to watch it, I'm not stopping you, but for the record, it would be a waste of your time.
I actually found it to be good.
posted on 30 Aug 2009I thought Crazy Eights was a good film, and really nothing more than good.I will say when this film first started I was just so bored.I wasn't into it at all, and was even considering turning it off.Then I thought well, one of my goals was to see ALL of the Afterdark Horrorfest Films, so I then took a breath and continued to resume it.Then when it actually got into its concept I started to get more into the film itself.When this was over I'm glad I didn't turn it off.It was actually a really entertaining and good film.I love the films since of these friends being reunited and it having a since of memory and its since of claustrophobia as a horror aspect is pretty good and somewhat thrilling.I will say it was a little stupid at times, or at least over- the-top material.It was acted really well for a film of its type, and the characters were somewhat likable, some of them seemed to have no potential.Overall its a good film, must say not everyone will like it, and I can kind of see why, but its worth a viewing, even if you don't like it. 7.3 out of 10 stars
Taken on its own terms this is a pretty creepy movie
posted on 30 Aug 2009Warning: There are spoilers ahead.Friends reunite for the funeral for one of their childhood group called "The Crazy Eights". They are left a box and told to open it together. Inside the box is a map which leads them to a house where they find a trunk…and more revelations as the group ends up at the ruins of a hospital where things begin to go wrong and they begin to perish. Its not giving anything away to say that the adults met when they were children taking part in psychological experiments (The opening text implies as much) and that the hospital is found out to be the place where they were "tested".I liked this film a great deal. Its not perfect but there is something edgy about the way its put together that I found frightening. I liked the rapid editing in some sequences that make it seem as though you've caught something out of your eye. More than once while watching the DVD I backed things up to see if I saw what I saw. With in one or two seconds there are times when the picture shifts and we get images, children, faces, ghosts mixed into the action. I know this bothers some viewers but it kept me on edge since it made it seem like the ghosts are real or that it was the mind of the characters breaking through. I liked that the camera didn't hold on the visions since it allowed for my mind to take over. Or in the case of some of the deadly appearances the small motions on the edge of the frame just before the next scene makes you wonder what you just saw.The script is an odd mix of the sort of thing you'd find in this type of film, and some touches that blur the line about what you are seeing. Is the film now or then or something else? I don't know. The film is constructed as a film taking place in the here and now but there are clues that that may not be wholly the case. The final sequences (which many people don't seem to like) I found oddly affecting. What exactly are we seeing anyway? I'm not sure. Just as I'm not sure about the intrusions of the memories through the earlier parts of the film, but its in a good way since it requires me to think about what I'm seeing. I think if the director had been less sure of himself the film would have collapsed on itself, something the film is never in danger of doing.The acting by the reasonably well known cast (Frank Whaley, Tracy Lords, Gabrielle Anwar) is good, if somewhat histrionic. Clearly they are aware of the films limitations but are trying to at least go for it.I liked it. I think this is worth a look
Why is there no zero rating?
posted on 30 Aug 2009I've never known a movie to physically hurt me before. That was then. This is now. I feel a part of me was destroyed last night. I haven't been the same since. Something's hurting and no amount of shrugging or reviewing will ever heal the part of me i lost when i watched this movie. I could say so many things, but one thing for sure is that the music set the mood...the mood for an uplifting children's adventure. I also really enjoyed how whenever something horrifying occurred in the film, we were watching someone sit, or read, or even sleep. All we heard was a delayed scream with no other sound effect. Sometimes I exaggerate. I now, more than ever, regret that because no one will truly understand the weight of what I am about to say: that was the worst film I have ever endured. I'm lost, still not found. If anyone knows how to help me, please contact me.