The Roost

The Details:
Directed by: Ti West
Runtime: Argentina:80 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival) / USA:80 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color
Certification: UK:18 / Argentina:18

The Review:
"An unheralded horror gem...Displays a raw talent reminscent of early George Romero and Sam Raimi." -Fangoria

"One of the best, if not THE best horror flicks of the year." -Bloody-Disgusting.com

"A creepy, old-fashioned 80's sleep-over movie, with the perfect blend of blood, screams and scares." -Eli Roth, Director of Cabin Fever

"B is for BORRRR-IIIIINNNGG." -bisforbrains.com

Now that I have my initial childish remark out of the way, let's get serious.

"The Roost" involves a group of uninteresting twenty-somethings (surprise surprise) on their way to a wedding. They wreck their SUV (surprise surprise) and seek help at a creepy house in the middle of nowhere (surprise surprise). The house has a barn out back full of bats, and after 43 painfully drawn-out minutes we find out the bats somehow turn people into zombies. WHY? Because zombies are hip right now, haven't you noticed???

Now I could have easily forgiven the extremely typical scenario, the awful acting and the complete lack of thought process by every character if this movie would have at simply ENTERTAINED me. That's right. To put it bluntly, "The Roost" is not entertaining. Here's why:


1. Zero character development. Who are these people? If you aren't going to bother intriguing us with the damn people on screen then at least kill them off in unique and fun ways!!! That leads us to...

2. Forgettable and relentlessly boring zombies, gore and death scenes. SPOILER WARNING: There is only ONE creative death in the whole mess, involving a stuntman running full speed out of the upper level of the barn and biffing it hardcore on the concrete. OUCH! Way to take one for the team buddy! END SPOILER. It's too bad the rest of the movie isn't worth while, because of the...

3. S.....L.........O...................W pacing and piss-poor-payoff. "The Roost" drags on and on as if everything that is happening on screen is the most important fucking thing you will ever see. To make matters worse, the only time there is any background music is when the bats are chasing people. I'm sure they attempted this to give the film more of a "realistic" or "gritty" effect, but instead it just made it an absolute chore for me to keep watching. However, the movie does break things up a little bit, bringing us to...

4. Blatant and unrelated attempts to spice things up. There are a few genuinely sweet black and white segments with a TV host talking to the viewer and actually giving them something to get excited about! Now why am I listing this as a reason this movie is not entertaining? Because these tiny little parts are actually BETTER than the movie itself!!! They end up being nothing but a tease. If they would have just kept this idea and ditched everything else I would be a much, much happier camper right now. But alas...

5. It kills itself with its own sparse sense of humor. Now don't get me wrong, I love humor in my horror movies. Read some of my other reviews if you have any doubts of that. But "The Roost" wanders aimlessly through being a tongue-in-cheek campy good time and a serious, gory exploitation film. Problem is, it's not gory enough to give the gross-out fans anything to gawk about and it's not cheesy enough to give a continuous flow of laughs.

There you have it. Five (5) solid reasons why this movie isn't worth your time. The only reason I'm not putting this in the bottom of the bisforbrains.com gutter is because I liked the intro. Consider this B-ball DROPPED.



BARN-BIFF: Yikes, that smarts!
HORROR-HOST: Cut out the film and just put these together please.
?????: I honestly can't think of anything else.