Indie horror movies are like a thorn in my side right now. Sure now and again we’ll find something that is amazing–like Ink perhaps, but going back and watching these awful movies really makes me value crappy B-movie sequels and possibly even….The Twilight Saga. But in all honesty, as the old adage goes–just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Just because you have a video camera, does not make you a director. And unfortunately horror movies may get the worst of that- since most people think all you need for a horror movies is blood. (Good acting? Psssah!) This results in grade F movies, also known as the most painful and agonizing hour and 30 minutes of my life.
13 Seconds is about an annoying rock group who decides to record their new album in an abandoned school kind of place. Soon bad things start happening and people die. That’s about all I got out of it anyways.
I will say that there a few surprisingly creepy images delivered from time to time. Things like bald albino demons, dead bodies in body bags, and really spindly thin Nosferatu fingers creeping out from underneath beds. Things like this may have been the only redeeming factor- although the movie was just so awful in the rest of it that I could not for the life of me keep my eyes open.
Here is what is so atrocious. The acting and writing are some of the worst I have ever seen in my entire life. Lines are uttered that are so unnatural and so laughably bad it’s a wonder the entire crew didn’t walk out the minute they read the script. How this movie got distributed to places like Blockbuster, we’ll never know. Horrible lines followed by even worse standardized close ups, make for a constant cringe effect from the viewers.
Next, the music is the same few notes plunked out by what is no doubt some kind of Casio keyboard that try to elicit a creepy vibe. Repetitive and badly done keyboard music does not elicit creepiness–only death in the form of headache. People get killed for no good reason, we lose track of which character is the fat guy—because there are 10 of them. And I’m sorry but I can’t take a lead character seriously if it’s a dude wearing a skirt. It’s not punk rock to me it’s called embarrassment.
Finally one of the greatest laugh out loud moments comes in the form of something the Netflix description said, “After the band finds a series of gruesome artwork…”. Hmmmm gruesome eh? I must admit my interest was temporarily peaked. That is until said gruesome pictures were revealed, and our main girl said and I quote, “Wow. That is pretty gruesome” Pan to “gruesome picture” a photograph of one of the characters super imposed on a badly drawn canvas of “demon” arms. Soooo gruesome you guys.
So if you haven’t figured it out stay far away from this. Despite the few instances of creepy images, nothing can save this abomination of a movie from holding a place in my worst movies ever list.
Andre Dumas
I rented this movie from Blockbuster a while back, and I remember pretty much nothing about it. I think this is due to the fact the the guy wearing the skirt in the movie was so distracting that I spent the entire movie wondering why he would choose this particular item of clothing to wear. (Not that I have a problem with individual fashion choices per se). Maybe they thought that guy wearing skirt = memorable, and memorable = good ??!! I don’t know, but I agree that it was a terrible movie.