A mostly uneventful Hand Held/Found Footage flick that was decent enough, but didn't really pack much of a punch or many scares.
Episode 50 is the story of a reality TV crew who runs around to haunted locations, to debunk the alleged haunting of said locations. Their newest episode (#50 fyi), involves a local asylum that is supposedly the gateway to hell. The reclusive owner has granted Jack and his team exclusive access to his asylum, and so they head off to debunk and conquer...
Sadly, there's not much about this movie that's likable or scary. It's supposed to be a found footage flick, an yet we have a musical score that plays throughout. We get plenty of flashes of ghosts and specters, but they aren't used to much of a good effect, and really never amount to anything beyond a jump scare or two. The acting is poor across the board, which never allows us to get into or care about the characters. And of course, the characters do nonsensical and unrealistic things in the face of such presumed danger, which really just frustrates us as viewers, and kills almost all of the believability... which is basically the cornerstone of any found footage flick, no?
The CGI demon thing at the end was pretty bad too.
This movie tried way to hard to be engrossing and multi layered, when it should have just gone the minimalistic route. It would have actually worked then.
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I'm not sure what Ray Liotta is doing with his career lately, but this movie is nothing he should have ever starred in. Field of Dreams, Goodfellas, Unlawful Entry, No Escape, Copland, Narc... the guy has been amazing in some great movies... And now he's not only in this shitty movie, but but he really sucked in his role.
The River Murders is another story about a cop trying to solve some murders and bring a serial killer to justice, so nothing really new here plot wise. This is definitely one of our favorite sub-genres, so we're fine giving some slack to movies of this kind, because some of them suck, but still have redeeming qualities. Nothing redeeming here though. It was flaccid.
This movie is not only dull and messy, but it contains some of the worst acting we've seen this year. Sorry Ray, we really do love you, but this one was a swing and a miss for you. Everything about his role and performance was just off here. And Gisele Fraga... well she was just downright painful to watch. Not trying to be mean here, but it was tough to stomach her Broken-English overacting.
And while we're at it, what's up with Ving Rhames? That man is Marcellus Wallace for Christ's sake, and he can't get better roles than this? Shame on you, Hollywood casting directors.
If anything about this movie was redeemable at all, it was Christian Slater; it was kinda fun watching him play a complete asshole. Aside from that...
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