THE TASK - **

Director: Alex Orwell. Stars: Alexandra Staden, Victor McGuire, Adam Rayner, Tom Payne, Texas Battle.2010. USA. Horror/Thriller. 90 mins.

A group of ambitious students are kidnapped and taken to an abandoned and supposedly haunted hospital where they must take place in a reality TV show. If they survive a series of gruesome tasks, and the spirits of the hospital, then they will be rewarded with $10,000. Stop me if you have heard this one before…

Ok, so my first thoughts on ‘The Task’ were that I had accidentally inserted an episode of ‘24’ into my player. It looked a little too glossy for a horror film and the opening scene lost me when it broke into a dire series of freeze frames and split screens. Not a good start. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a badly made film, in fact quite the opposite, but it really does come across as a Sunday night episode instead of a horror film.

Once it gets going, the film is a few parts ‘House on Haunted Hill’ mixed with a little bit of ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ and some touches from ‘The Crystal Maze’ (or even ‘Knightmare’ if you remember that show!) thrown in for good measure. I don’t know if I was just really put off by the things I have already mentioned but I found myself becoming more and more annoyed as the film went on. I was really hoping that it would get better once the horror and/or gore began but after about half hour I was beginning to lose touch with the film (and realise that there was not going to be any horror or gore).

I’ll stop there for a minute before I put you all off as I’m sure that a lot of people will get enjoyment from the film. I just get very tired of watching films that don’t feel like they have anything fresh to offer. Like I said, it’s not a bad film, I just failed to personally find much good in it.

But there was good (a little), I did find some. The film is very well shot and looks pretty good. A lot of effort has gone into this side of the production. This does put ‘The Task’ above many low budget films that just look awful. Even though I wasn’t particularly interested in what was going on in the film, I was very interested in how it looked. The cinematography was the one thing that saved the film (and gave it an extra star rating)

I guess the biggest problem with films like this are the characters. Most of the acting is reasonable, nothing amazing, but watchable. Unfortunately the characters are unbelievable and unlikable. Some more than others, but on the whole I wasn’t impressed. There is great deal of stereotyping and over the top characterisation that took me out of the story. The dialogue really didn’t help either. Thankfully Adam Rayner and Texas Battle did stand out though and gave good performances regardless of the rest of the cast and a half-baked script.

Some creepy atmosphere is created towards the end of the film; mainly due to an interesting score that is very well executed when it really needs to be. Some tension is built up here but unfortunately it’s too little too late. The film is just too much of a mishmash of other films we have all seen before. There are a few original moments but they become lost in the torrent of clichés and predictability.

I’ve been following the releases of the After Dark DVDs and this is by far my least favourite so far. Like I said, I know this movie is going to appeal to some of you so give it a go. You might enjoy it a lot more than I did. Fingers crossed.

There are no extras to speak of.

Russ Gomm.

GORE IN THE STORE
REVIEWS BY FANS FOR FANS
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH