After Dark Horrorfest 2007: Crazy Eights (Review)

Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights (2006)

Directed by James Koya Jones

That’s 80 minutes I’ll never get back. That would be my quote if it appeared on the DVD cover of Crazy Eights.

So instead of a review that thoroughly shreds this movie, let’s go with a revised TV show theme song.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip
That started at this abandoned house aboard this horror flick
The main character was a mighty professor, the priest was brave and sure,

Four badly written horror characters set sail that day for a 80 minute tour.

a 80 minute tour.

The movie started getting rough, each horror cutout stereotype started to die.
If not for some dialogue about an angry, evil supernatural little girl who wanted revenge because of guilt?!?, the audience would be lost.

The audience would be lost.

The movie set ground on the shore of mediocrity
With Dina Meyer, Frank Whaley too, some other guy and his wife (ok not really his wife, that just needed to rhyme),
Traci Lords, the Priest and Gabrielle Anwar, here on Crazy Eights Isle!

That was fun. Suffice it to say I didn’t like Crazy Eights. It’s mind boggling that this was part of the After Dark Horrorfest. These 8 movies are supposed to be shunned by the mainstream as having dark or disturbing subject matter. But Crazy Eights is like a horror TV movie of the week.

The plot-matic tells us 6 friends have gathered for a childhood friend’s funeral and discover a map to a wooden trunk. The contents are all things from their mysterious past which eventually leads them to an abandoned house (because abandoned house are freakin scary). There they see glimpses of a little girl who has long black hair and raggedy clothes (and no she didn’t climb out of a TV). The horror gods trap them in and they begin to search for a way out discovering clues to their mysterious childhood along the way. They all eventually get picked off one by one which is done mostly off screen (the most aggravating horror movie convention) Gore hounds, you do not need to see this muck of a movie.

The cast is the most recognizable of all the Horrorfest movies. Dina Meyer (Saw franchise), Frank Whaley (“Big Brain on Brett” from Pulp Fiction), Traci Lords (c’mon you know), Gabrielle Anwar (Body Snatchers), George Newbern and Dan DeLuca who also co-wrote the film. All are in acting class mode and regurgitate badly written dialogue and overact when they are in danger.

Director James Jones vision is atmospheric, using his prime location of an abandoned asylum to dictate the “scares” from an arm grabbing hand to a missing jaw. But this crappy snooze fest is just filled with emotional psycho babble dribble and a script that is so boring, it makes straight to DVD torture porn look like Citizen Kane.

Crazy Eights seemed to have a good premise and a creepy location to draw out a disturbing story. But just like the cast of Gilligan’s Island, it never gets off the island and you sit there wondering, where did my 80 minutes go?

The Extras:

Included in all of the After Dark Horrorfest DVDs are the Miss Horrorfest Contest webisodes. Think Surreal Life meets the Misfits. It’s a VH1 version of the Suicide Girls.

Rating:

1/2

The Trailer:




Tags:
crazy eights, crazy eights trailer , traci lords , dina meyer, frank whaley , after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark,
after dark horrorfest, horrofest

Categories: after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark horrorfest 2008, after dark horrorfest boxset, crazy eights, dina meyer, frank whaley, miss horrorfest, traci lords