Synopsis: Six friends receive a mysterious chain letter via text messaging and in their email accounts from a maniac who's hunting down teenagers who fail to forward his online chain letter. Who knew they should take the threats in the chain letter seriously? Or that chain letters using the teens' favorite technologies to track them can kill? This maniacal game pits friend against friend as they race to beat rules that seem impossible to escape. Break the chain, lose a life. Do you pass it on? Does friendship mean anything?
My Thoughts: "Chain Letter", as with producer/director Deon Taylor's previous film "Dead Tone", involves telephones. I can only assume that the man is a huge fan of the "Scream" series. Am I getting tired of cell phones in horror movies? Kind of, but then again I'm getting sick of seeing people with cell phones stuck to their head altogether.
The movie itself is nothing new, but I can't really think of too many negatives. The story was fine, for a slasher. The acting was decent enough. Brad Dourif (Child's Play, Rob Zombie's Halloween) was great as the paranoid school teacher. The fact that they teamed up Keith David (They Live, The Thing) and Betsy Russell (Saw, Private School) as detectives was pretty cool, since I'm a fan both of them. I mean, who isn't?
So what makes this otherwise average movie, slightly above-average? The gore. I was really surprised too because they leave you hangin on the film's opening kill (pictured below), but do they come back strong. Smashing a dude's face with a chain, crushing a guy with a car engine and then going back to finish the opening scene before the movie wraps up. Way to save what could have been a forgettable film.
My Rating: 6 / 10
Deon Taylor's (Nite Tales, Dead Tone) best effort to date. Good for a Netflix rental, so queue it up!
"click here to see the trailer"
This movie was tight!
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