Music

Exclusive: Shannon Larkin Reviews BD Selects ‘Atrocious’

Published

13 years ago

August 19, 2011

Godsmack drummer Shannon Larkin has written up another awesome movie review. This time, he tackles Bloody-Disgusting Selects Atrocious, which will be in theaters August 17th – 26th. The Spanish found footage horror film details the last five days of Cristian Quintanilla and his siblings and the unnatural circumstances they encountered.

Godsmack just finished co-headlining the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival and has several more tour dates lined up for the rest of summer and the beginning of fall.

Atrocious

Hell-O Horrorhounds!

I want to write a small pre-face for this weeks review. Upon getting the opportunity to review films here, with my undying love of horror and all aspects of the genre, and being in the entertainment biz for so long, I really didn’t want to write any kind of negative reviews because I realize just how hard it is to make a film of any size or budget, and how much heart and soul goes into the process. With that said, I promised you all that I would give my honest opinion as a horror fan and lay it out exactly as I see it. You know what they say about opinions…so if I have to be the asshole, I will tread as gently as possible and give props where they are do.

I’ll start the review with a little positivity: If you are a fan of the first Blair Witch Project, you will love Atrocious. Personally, I was bored to tears with BWP until the last ten minutes or so (much to the dismay of a lot of my friends who liked the film). The plot of Atrocious is very similar, with a group of people investigating an Urban Legend. This time, the group is the Quintanilla family, who travel to an old house in Spain where it is said the spirit of a girl named Melinda inhabits the woods. Opinions are varied in whether Melinda is a good or evil spirit, as we’re told there are many different variations on the legend. For instance, if you get lost in the labyrinthine woods at night, Melinda with show you the way out; but don’t turn your back on her or you might be sorry.

The film is shot in first person through the lens of two of the kid’s cameras. Oldest brother Cristian (Cristian Valencia) and his younger sister July (July Valencia) consider themselves budding paranormal investigators. They both do a decent job acting, but the dialogue is bland an unexciting, making character development a bore. Coupled with that, and the fact that it takes a good 45 minutes until the first kill, I was trying to keep interested in the story and fighting the instinct to fast forward. Then finally, blood is found and the cameras follow the trail to a creepy well (sound familiar?) where the first body is seen dead at the bottom. I won’t spoil it, but I even thought the first “victim” was a lame choice, and by this point was irritated with the pace and camera work. I understand building tension and have seen it done brilliantly (Paranormal Activity for one of a million examples) but really felt no pressing sense of dread at this point.

When the family realizes there is serious trouble, another member goes missing, so everyone hightails it into the maze of woods (at night!) to search, and everyone promptly gets separated. Then it really goes all “Blair Witch” and does that “shaky cam with night vision running through the woods scared at night” shit that I must admit I hate, and furthermore, after a few cold ones I actually felt nauseous.

This goes on for way too long.

For a little positive vibes, I will say the location was fantastic, with the labyrinth in the woods being genuinely menacing and scary.

The survivors make it back to the house and we get the OMG twist, which I admit I wasn’t expecting, but alas, too little too late, and certainly not enough to save sitting through the whole film for me.

Again, I felt the same way about BWP, and in fact, if you change the names and location, this would basically be my review of that film too.

Atrocious: 2 stars out of five. I won’t be adding this one to my collection☹

Until next time, Apocalypse!

Shannon

Related Topics:Atrocious BD Selects Bloody Disgusting Selects exclusive Godsmack review Shannon Larkin

Bloody Disgusting Staff

Click to comment

Music

“He Walks By Night” – Listen to a Brand New John Carpenter Song NOW!

Published

2 weeks ago

April 9, 2024

John Squires

It’s a new day, and you’ve got new John Carpenter to listen to. John Carpenter, Daniel Davies and Cody Carpenter have released the new track He Walks By Night this morning, the second single off their upcoming album Lost Themes IV: Noir, out May 3 on Sacred Bones Records.

Lost Themes IV: Noir is the latest installment in a series that sees Carpenter releasing new music for John Carpenter movies that don’t actually exist. The first Lost Themes was released in 2015, followed by Lost Themes II in 2016 and Lost Themes III: Alive After Death in 2021.

Sacred Bones previews, “It’s been a decade since John Carpenter recorded the material that would become Lost Themes, his debut album of non-film music and the opening salvo in one of Hollywood’s great second acts. Those vibrant, synth-driven songs, made in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, kickstarted a musical renaissance for the pioneering composer and director. With Lost Themes IV: Noir, they’ve struck gold again, this time mining the rich history of the film noir genre for inspiration.

“Since the first Lost Themes, John has referred to these compositions as “soundtracks for the movies in your mind.” On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs “noirish” is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone.

“The trio’s free-flowing chemistry means Lost Themes IV: Noir runs like a well-oiled machine—the 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster from Kiss Me Deadly, perhaps, or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from John’s own Christine. It’s a chemistry that’s helped power one of the most productive stretches of John’s creative life, and Noir proves that it’s nowhere near done yielding brilliant results.”

You can pre-save Lost Themes IV: Noir right now! And listen to the new track below…