Manje' (2007) Movie Review, Trailer and Poster

USA 2007
Director: Josh Muscatine
Cast: Chris Morgan, Erica Franco, Bobby Pataki, Jenn Page, Lena Bookall, Tyler McGraw
Rating:
Release Date: 10 January 2007; 1 February 2007 (DVD)
Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

The Movie Review

Among the horror aficionados all over the world, there are some that prefer to watch old characters horror, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy and Zombie, which dated back to the early 20th century. But there are also that prefer to watch slasher films that is much closer to the real life with all the teenagers being killed. However of course there are some that like both. Manje is a movie that tries to combine both! Now I don't think that it's a spoiler since well, it's not a secret worth keeping.

Manje tells the story of ten friends that are gathering around at a very very secluded cabin deep in the forest to cheer up their friend Krista (Erica Franco) after the lost of her father in a car accident. Four of them including Krista are not there yet, since they're still driving on their car. But on their way,


MANJE'
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Jason hits a man deep in the forest, who is actually has been severely wounded even before they hit him. Krista, Jason, Peter (Bobby Pataki) and Marc (Chris Morgan) decide to just leave the man dying on the forest and continue their journey and not to tell the other six about this matter.

Things are going normally among them with all the casual loving and fighting and arguing. Until the find their friends killed one by one by a mysterious figure with a mysterious motive. The rest of them are gonna have to stick together and escape from the darkness of the forest.

A low-budget film with two out of three of its producers also star as Marc and Curtis (Doug Richardson). And its writer also acts as the Mortician (Jason Pitts). From the start I already got the vibe of its overall quality. There are some decent aspects that I regarded as good horror elements. Most notably the music that is so eerie and daunting (thanks to Chris Woods), and of course the location (although a cliché in the slasher world) but that forest is spine-tingling in itself. And the reasoning behind the killing is quite a twist, thus adds some entertainment value to it.

However, the acting quality of the actors and actresses is divided greatly between solid/convincing and downright fake/silly. It is obvious, putting 10 people in the forest is just for the sake of "Bodycount" or in other words just to give more than two persons to be killed. And the make up of the main villain is not scary, the use of make up is so obvious, plus seeing his expression is just felt silly. But most of all what I considered being absolutely fake is the poster of the movie! There aren't so many creepy figures like that in the movie as is it was pictured on the poster, not even a single scene contains that.

Okay I've lain out the truth for you moviegoers, so you got a view what you're really getting into. Manje' is quite scary and terrifying, mostly for those of you are not familiar with slasher movies or if you are forgiving enough to overlook all the flaws stated above.

© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com