Plague town (2008)

For the last few years, something of a new genre has grown incredibly strong, namely the "Outback" genre. Nothing new really, but more of an blend of movies like Deliverance, Texas Chainsaw massacre and The Hills have eyes. Nowadays the dvdstores are full of direct to dvd crapfests because movies like Wrong turn and The Hills have eyes remake has made inbreeding fashionable again and anyone with a dvcam could make ripoffs fairly cheap. Plague town is another one of these, produced by Dark Sky Films who has released quite a few nice genrefilms on dvd and now wants to make their own movies. So, is it a hit or should they stop doing this upon the penalty of death?

This time the degenerate inbreds are in Ireland. Why exactly, I dont know since the movie is shot in Connecticut but I suppose the filmmakers wanted some variation. An american family visiting decides to take a busride into the middle of nowhere and ends up missing the last bus back to civilization. This wouldnt be a horror movie if they didnt wander off into the wilderness and wouldnt you know, there's an entire village full of inbred children who likes to play games with outsiders. Or breed with them to purify their blood.

Not exactly the most original plot but the whole concept with the children is actually pretty cool and some of them are really creepy, especially the girl on the dvdcover. The direction isnt half bad either with a decent atmosphere and some nice shocks. Its not very original, though well shot but Plague Towns biggest problem, is it's script. The concept is interesting but never explained in a satisfying way. Then we have the family itself - rarely have I seen such a bunch of annoying and unpleasant characters. It took me about ten minutes until I decided that I wanted to see them all dead but realized that I would have to wait 86 minutes for any hope of that to come. They moan and whine and bitch constantly until you yourself get a headache. Acting ranges from poor but earnest and decent but I guess you cant do any better when the script is written like it is. We do get a fair amount of pretty decent gore and the fate of the character who scorns the covergirl is a nice and juicy one. So thats it. A semidecent little horrorflick with some nice gore, some good horror parts but is ultimately somewhat of a failure because of a poor script. There are worse movies of this type out there so if you like this genre you can do worse and it's a nice try from Dark Sky films who does show some potential.