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USA 2011
Director: Johannes Roberts
Cast: Kacey Barnfield, Ned Dennehy, Diarmuid Noyes, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Eliza Bennett, Colin Maher, Stephen Rea, Roisin Murphy, Oliver James
Rating: Not Rated (DVD)
Release Date: 23 April 2011; 30 August 2011
Running Time: 1 hour 29 minutes
The Movie Review
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I was rather overwhelmed by surprise when watching Roadkill... It's a SyFy movie which entertained and made my viewing and reviewing time more blissful. Okay, okay those who have their share of SyFy films must've been questioning my sanity by now, but "dude" (borrowing the epical word from this movie), Roadkill is definitely one of the better!
In Ireland, seven teenagers are hooking up once more to celebrate a reunion. Kate (Kacey Barnfield of Lake Placid 3 (2010)) the lead girl and love interest of Ryan (Oliver James), Kate's brother, Joel (Colin Maher), who is the crush interest of Anita the fashion designer (Roisin Murphy), Hailey the posh (Eliza Bennett), Tommy the kind (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) and last but not least, Chuck the joker & troublemaker (Diarmuid Noyes).
Driving their RV to a camp site, they inevitably arrives on a dusty gas station which the owner is a sleazy old man, Luca (Ned Dennehy), selling bunch of plastic/toys/useless stuff. These "innocent" kids, especially Anita, forces to buy some kind of medallion dangling on the man's neck. Luca rips them off and in the heat of tension between the two parties, Chuck roadkills a gypsy woman (Stella McCusker), who curses them to be the prey of Simuroc! Not long after that, they try to drive to the camp site but only to find them suddenly surrounded by thick fog which makes them eventually lost. Amidst the confusion and repentance of their roadkill incident, suddenly one of them is snatched by a giant bird with incredible strength and CGI (mmm I mean "and Wings breadth"). What will happen to Kate and her friends?
Filmed in Ireland with a budget not more than US $1,600,000, Roadkill is supposed to be the example of decent low-budget filmmaking pertaining teenagers, as the filmmakers could neatly combined decent acting, dialogue, camerawork and storyline which is practical to give more effect to the thriller side. Even though it doesn't hold many surprises but with those aforementioned aspects, Roadkill could deliver some intense moments especially in the early scenes. On the flipside, the CGI is a big bummer even though B-movie fans might find it as usual staple of low-budget realm. Unfortunately also, nearing the end, there are many illogical stuff start to come out. In a nutshell, there are gonna be quite a lot "WTF" moments the viewers gonna experience, mainly when a character smear the blood of a comrade to her face.... Hmmm okay....
Simuroc is a giant mythical bird of prey, is a nice-enough-looking beast if one know how to use it effectively, and while I can't say that you are guaranteed to be satisfied upon looking its fake CGI Simuroc, but at least the intensity built up by friction between the teenagers and the locals (equivalent to American stereotype of brutal hillbillies) is very good! The total performance of the cast is a mixed-bag, from very convincing to rather wooden, but the one who keeps it together all the time with such menacing appearance is Ned Dennehy. Ned Dennehy has appeared in Blitz (2011) as a weak and loser old man, which is the polar opposite of his performance in Roadkill as Luca.
I have seen some really fugly feature films before, and I can safely say Roadkill is not a bad one as long as you know that CGI is still the culprit for modern viewers. Me, personally, still fond of and love the original and amusing movie better titled The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) which features many monsters with cool stop-motion animation, but as an entry in the Maneater Series, Roadkill is pretty entertaining.
> More of Maneater Series films for SyFy: Swamp Devil (2008) and Malibu Shark Attack (2009).
> Other horror films shot in Ireland: Wilderness (2006) and Legend of the Bog (2009).
© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
Twitter: @movielogy
posted: Friday, 26 August 2011 11:20 pm
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