It's hard to delve too deeply into writing about An American Terror without ruining what makes it really good. So I won't. I'll just pass on what you can gather from the preview. But I'm glad I knew next to nothing about it going in - I read a quick, very positive blurb on the excellent weekly "AICN Horror" column on aintitcool.com (thanks Ambush Bug) and decided to check it out before reading anything else. So, it you're inclined to enjoy low(ish) budget horror and are thick skinned as it pertains to controversial topics in horror movies, check it out!
On youtube, the preview for this is listed as "An American Terror (School Shooting Horror Film)." And yeah, it's about 3 high school outcasts who plan a to shoot a bunch of their fellow students at The Big Dance. Going in cold, I didn't know about this angle and thought it was a pretty ballsy move. I've been wrestling with two questions since I watched it:
(And when I say "okay," I mean as far as my personal ideas/morals are concerned. Obviously, freedom of speech and all that good stuff - I needn't spend time here about freedom of expression being a good thing.)
(1) Is it okay to have your heroes be guys like this? I'm not so sure. Something doesn't feel right to me about the way these three guys are presented. Their planning sequences are given this slick montage, complete with a cool industrial (Ministry-esque) soundtrack, and I think we're supposed to be on their side. Think of the gearing up /planning a raid scene from any "group of misfits" action movie from the 80's, and you get my drift. Regardless of how it all turns out in the end, I just wasn't comfortable with how the early stages of their planning was handled.
(2) Is it even okay to approach a subject matter like this in a horror movie? I think so. There isn't really anything much worse than a school shooting, but that shouldn't make it off limits. Getting it out in the public consciousness is a valuable thing. I actually think horror movies have a little more leeway in tackling taboo/hot-button subjects like this. You can approach it from a less tactful angle and no one is going to hold it against you. If it's great - more power to you. If it's not, it can just be written off as horror-movie nonsense. Even though the school shooting isn't treated very respectfully/deftly in An American Terror (it's more of a plot device to get to the hard horror), I think it's important to acknowledge it's worth in the micro sense (as a plot device) as well as the macro sense. Sadly, I've grown pretty numb to mass shootings over the last couple of years, so if it takes an indie horror flick to make me think about them on a deeper level again, so be it. Just because something makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it bad.
So you've got a first act that deals with this school shooting business, which segues into some good, hard horror stuff. It's a little mix of redneck/torture/escape-from-a-psychopath horror, and it is really, really well done. Since it just came out, I want to stay spoiler free - but suffice to say there are a couple of legitimate "Holy Shit" moments. And visually speaking, the baddie here is the best I've come across in a long, long time. He looks awesome.
I feel like a lot of really good horror flicks are ones that just sort of mash up two seemingly disparate genres - Kill List (crime and cult) and Dead Birds (historical-crime and ghost) come to mind right off the top of my head. And An American Terror is right up there.
It's a really well made film, and it's all the more impressive that it's essentially a one-man show - Haylar Garcia wrote, directed, and edited the film. Sometimes that can be the kiss of death, as multitasking can spread a filmmaker too thin. Here though, Garcia has put together a really high-energy, suspenseful, twisty film, that straddles the line between serious and fun without seeming tone-deaf or leaning too heavily towards one or the other. It's even more interesting that it was made on a pretty reasonable budget ($200,000 if you listen to imdb) - the only time you notice this? The crowd scenes are not crowded (like, at all), and the acting is certainly not the high point of the film. I don't expect greatness from the actors in something like this... but while no one is outright bad, no one is all that good either. But at least the money went to the right places - it's all there on screen. The set design is excellent (I loved the psycho guy's underground lair), and the special effects are really good. The horror-half of An American Terror is really just about everything you could hope for in a captivity/escape type horror film.
The only drawback is that there are some gaps in logic that are a bit distracting. (I swear, if I'm trapped somewhere and being chased by someone who legitimately wants to kill me and he gets knocked out, I'm going to bash his head in to make sure he doesn't get up, you know?) But I guess it wouldn't be a horror movie if you didn't want to berate its teen characters for their stupidity at least a couple of times.
Overall, it's a solid film. I think your mileage will vary on the school shooting plot elements - when all was said and done, I feel like that plot line was a bit exploitative. But to each their own. But first and foremost, this is a horror film, and it really got those elements right.
I would definitely recommend this film.
It's a really well made film, and it's all the more impressive that it's essentially a one-man show - Haylar Garcia wrote, directed, and edited the film. Sometimes that can be the kiss of death, as multitasking can spread a filmmaker too thin. Here though, Garcia has put together a really high-energy, suspenseful, twisty film, that straddles the line between serious and fun without seeming tone-deaf or leaning too heavily towards one or the other. It's even more interesting that it was made on a pretty reasonable budget ($200,000 if you listen to imdb) - the only time you notice this? The crowd scenes are not crowded (like, at all), and the acting is certainly not the high point of the film. I don't expect greatness from the actors in something like this... but while no one is outright bad, no one is all that good either. But at least the money went to the right places - it's all there on screen. The set design is excellent (I loved the psycho guy's underground lair), and the special effects are really good. The horror-half of An American Terror is really just about everything you could hope for in a captivity/escape type horror film.
The only drawback is that there are some gaps in logic that are a bit distracting. (I swear, if I'm trapped somewhere and being chased by someone who legitimately wants to kill me and he gets knocked out, I'm going to bash his head in to make sure he doesn't get up, you know?) But I guess it wouldn't be a horror movie if you didn't want to berate its teen characters for their stupidity at least a couple of times.
Overall, it's a solid film. I think your mileage will vary on the school shooting plot elements - when all was said and done, I feel like that plot line was a bit exploitative. But to each their own. But first and foremost, this is a horror film, and it really got those elements right.
I would definitely recommend this film.
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