Disturbing yet enthralling

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Another day, another cheap horror film from the drug store bargain bin! I'd never heard of EVIL BREED: THE LEGEND OF SAMHAIN, but I gladly plunked down my $3.99 for it as soon as I saw retired porn star Jenna Jameson's name above the title (yes, I'm shallow). Before watching "Evil Breed" I read up on it here on good ole IMDb and I learned that the film went through multiple behind-the-scenes problems during its production, and that though it was intended to be an all-out, over-the-top gross out gore fest the film was heavily edited (against the director's wishes) prior to its release. So in the end we're left with a film that's a mere hint of what it might have been....which is a shame, because without the gore (which was supposed to be glorious), the film runs a scant 78 minutes and there sure isn't much of a plot to keep the viewer involved. Our story: a group of annoying American college students and their instructor are on a trip to the Irish countryside, where activities apparently consist of staying in a creepy old cottage in the woods and attempting to have sex with one another. Their hostess, former adult video queen Ginger Lynn (whose Irish accent comes and goes depending on what scene you're watching) fills them in on some of the area's local legends (Druid cults, the ancient festival of Samhain, human sacrifices, yadda yadda yadda), with particular emphasis on the story of Sawney Bean and his clan of inbred cannibal cave dwellers... whose decendents, of course, are rumored to still roam these very woods. Anyone wanna bet five bucks who our unlucky tour group will eventually run into? While exploring the forest, a pair of the students finds a seemingly deserted castle, which is of course inhabited by the aforementioned mutants. These guys are so deformed by centuries of inbreeding that they resemble the members of GWAR. From there...well, hackings, slashings, decapitations, and bad acting are the order of the day. The group is picked off one by one until only the unlikable "final girl" is left and she has to escape from the cannibal stronghold by herself. Will she make it out in one piece? Do you really have to ask?There seems to be a lot of hate for this movie on IMDb but I thought it was a stone cold hoot. I certainly wouldn't recommend renting this one just to see the various porn stars, because most of their appearances (other than Ginger Lynn's) are limited to brief cameos (Jenna Jameson may get top billing, but she's only in the movie for about four minutes, two of which are taken up by her death scene). The gore, as previously mentioned, is not as hardcore as originally intended, but there are still some good bits to be had. The one absolutely EPIC must-see scene involves Jameson's character being carved up by one of the mutants... who reaches into her chest and pulls out one of her silicon breast implants, then stares at it quizzically while squeezing it like a dog's squeaky toy. I can honestly say that's something I've never seen in a movie before! Haha.Okay, so this film is obviously not a horror classic by any means, but for $3.99, "EVIL BREED" was a decent night's cheesy, sleazy entertainment. Obsessed fans of Jenna, Ginger, and Chasey Lain may want to add an extra star or two to my rating up above. Hopefully somewhere down the road we'll get an uncut version of this flick, so we can see it according to director Christian Viel's original sicko vision. A couple of the uncut death scenes are available on the DVD as bonus features, and judging from those, I can only imagine how nasty the original version must've been! What a shame...

Viel says that he was hired to do the goriest slasher film ever, and he comes pretty close. The nude scenes are just a bonus (if you like silicone...if you know what I mean and I think that you do.) This is a lot better film than anything the SciFi channel has produced recently, though they would have been forced to soft-focus the nudity and censor the language. (On the other hand, I haven't seen any significant censoring of violence in SciFi's presentations, so the gore would probably get through in one piece.) The pacing is a bit unusual for a modern slasher film, too. Typically-paced beginning...then everybody gets killed at about 15-second intervals. I'm serious. With multiple murderers, you don't have to go through these boring set-ups where the bad guy gets from one spot to another to set up some elaborate trap. In fact, at one point, a bad-guy drags a victim to the torture table, straps him down, and then goes back for another. Returning with a second victim after the first has managed to release himself, the bad-guy doesn't even seem to notice that the first victim is now gone. He just straps the second (or is it third or fourth?) victim down in the same place and gets busy.The deleted scenes on the DVD are also a suggestion of how much better and over-the-top the movie would have been if the producers had kept their noses out of things.Don't buy this, but do give some thought to renting it.And it IS true that porn stars can't act.

"Samhain" is a slightly flawed, but decent film.**SPOILERS**On a field-trip to Ireland, Karen Douglas, (Bobbie Phillips) and classmates Shae, (Brandi-Anne Milbradt) Steve, (Phil Price) Jim, (Neil Napier) Tara, (Heidi Hawkins) Barbara, (Gillian Leigh) and her boyfriend Paul, (Howard Rosenstein) arrive at a small house in the countryside and begin a study on the surrounding druid rituals and structures. As their spend more and more time among the ruins and each other, they start splintering off into little relationships that form. As they start mysteriously disappearing in the woods surrounding the house, they band together and realize that a local mystery about a murderous family deep in the woods is true. The survivors band together to defeat the murderous family.The Good News: It's actually not that bad. The gore here is enough to satisfy. There's a knife in the mouth that exists all the way out the neck, an axe in the face, and two very brutal and inventive ones. They alone are the reason why this is a good movie, and are certainly on the creative and inventive scale of things. One character has their intestines ripped out from behind and strangled with them for an extended amount of time. The other one is a character has their chest sliced open and an implant removed. It should be easy to figure out what happens next, and I'll leave it at that. While not being as graphic as they could, it's good enough to give an idea of what they are. The setting is perfectly captured and is actually suspenseful at times. The first attack in the prologue is the best example. It's just dark enough so that it's hard to comprehend what is out there, but the off-screen twig snaps and bush rustling are enough to convince us that something is out there. It's actually pretty suspenseful throughout the rest as well. The escape at the end is pretty nerve-wracking, as is an assault on the house in the middle of the film. It works well with the extreme blood and gore. The last half hour of the film is very fast paced and more than makes up for most of the films' shortcomings. The action is so fast and furious that it just simply flies by and moves at a fast pace. It's certainly a great part of the movie as it gains momentum for the finale. The film is also notable for one other factor: the bevy of porn stars in it. The fact that they all take their clothes off is certainly not a bad thing. Combined all this together with a fairly creative storyline and it's not as bad as previously thought.The Bad News: I hate bringing in a film's background into a review, but this has to be brought up here. As good as it is, there is still the feeling that it was being held back. As gory as it already is, it should be gorier. As much nudity it shows, it should show more. As much exposition as there is, there should be more. It feels and looks like it's been cut up before it's been presented, which reading the rumors is a pretty accurate account at times. Looking at the film as is, though, this is the only main problem with the film. A couple of other scenes did nag at me, though. A complete scene-for-scene re-shoot of a famous sequence from a popular horror film is a big distraction, especially at how close the two scenes are to each other. It's not a major complaint, but it is one. It's not as bad as it could've been.The Final Verdict: Yes, the film is cut up beyond what it should've been, and there's a couple other small things here and there that could've changed, but it's still not as bad a film that it has received. Give this version a chance, it's not that bad, but don't see the other version first.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Nudity, Graphic Language and a short sex scene

Tourists head to Ireland for a school trip to learn about Druids. What they encounter is a horrific tale of cannibalistic killers.If I had to sum up Evil Breed, it would be a low grade gore fest. The film mixes Dead Alive, Evil Dead, Wrong Turn all in one. It's just too bad that the film has so many inconsistencies to keep track of that it loses any "fun" one would have watching it. The film has lots of random "horror" nudity...although the film also stars four porn stars, yup four, so there could have been plenty more. Breed also showcases a good amount of gore. Evil Breed has a horrible start, with laughable dialogue and horrible acting. That's a given in a straight to video horror film, but this takes the cake. I can't really figure out who the main character is, since the one female who "lives" at the end is not really in the movie all that much. Speaking of the ending, that has to be one of the most random and bogus ending in the history of film. It has no purpose with the rest of the film and totally changes one's view of the film.You have to see this film to believe it, since there are some pretty great death scenes. There are two death scenes that come into my mind, one in which the inbred killer rips the intestines out of a naked woman through her chest....yea her chest, don't ask me. The other id when the guy gets his intestines, yet again, ripped out through his asshole. Does that kill the guy? No, the killer continues to strangle the guy with his own intestines. These scenes remind me so much of Dead-Alive, with the right amount of humour in each. I also got the sense of Evil Dead, with the pointless mentions of horror films and Sam Raimi. Along with Halloween, when the female character is in a closet screaming for her life with the killer trying desperately;y to get in.Although, the gore and nudity are not enough for the poor audio and visual quality of the film. When the teacher wakes up from her bed and walks down the stairs, her footsteps are so loud and hard that it seems like she was wearing boots. Distracting indeed. As well as the continuity in the film, with only one inbred killer? As well as which character dies at which moment. I couldn't tell if the breast implant chick was Jenny or Gary's sister/cousin...I can't remember. As well as the random naked chick with a dead baby hanging out of her body, still attached with the umbilical cord.The horrible editing is distracting as well, the opening credits are too fast and disorienting. It did have a bad start and got better, but the ending just brings the film back down to a horrible level. If maybe there were better production values and more faith put into this film, then it wouldn't have been horribly butchered to death. Stay away from this film, unless you are happy with the below budget horrible bad film with decent gore.