Crush the Skull (2015)

That was an excellent one.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I didn't know what to expect watching this film, but the brief description - robbers try to rob a serial killer's lair - sounded interesting, so I gave it a try. I was so impressed! The first scene immediately grabbed me. I found myself identifying with the main characters. Not the robbery parts, but the goofy humor and friendly banter was friendly and nice. How unusual for a horror film to have characters development! What a concept! Parts were so suspenseful that I was leaning forward in my chair.And I love films that go full circle.

Almost turned this off several times in the opening 15 or so minutes. Something told me to carry on. Glad I did. While the negatives up front stacked up, they, like the Jenga game, quickly fell down and the positives began to multiply. Beginning with Asian actors not only taking major roles, race, aside from a quick non-Asian, albeit racial joke, never was an issue. That was refreshing and progressive. Way to go, guys, not even bringing their heritage up and it was normal. Bravo. Second, such the strong female lead. For such an amateurish film, she 100% acted like a major Hollywood actress.I digress, let me back up. The movie is about "on-paper" good thieves who upon their last score inadvertently make that their second-to-last and their real last isn't a blast. They encounter a killer with a torture basement and no way out. The movie is mostly a comedy, though many ideas stem from many horror movies these filmmakers obviously admired. Unfortunately, for the film, the first third or so - when I wanted badly to call this a loss and find another Friday Night Fright, the "comedy" wasn't funny and the direction/camera work/flaws were so film-school reject, it's hard to believe the last two-thirds made up for it in spades.The jokes got funnier (I found myself actually laughing out loud a few times) and the acting improved as did the cinematography. In that first act, I admired these unknowns were making a movie - that's not an easy task even when most of the stars align, but I felt pity as barely any of jokes landed. Once the first third was over, I forgot this was all-but friends getting together to attempt to make a film and was actually watching a horror-comedy-homage. Plus, it was a huge plus this wasn't found footage as it hinted at in the beginning. Bravo, again, for not taking the easy and definitely stupid way out for making a real movie.Overall, while not 100% there and it still felt amateurish at times, once they got their grove and you can spot the dozens of references to subgenre horror movies, you'll probably enjoy this. And yes, references. I believe these people loved the many movies this jammed in and it wasn't about thief or unoriginality. This is an A for effort. I checked out your IMDb pages. Keep this up and grow more so we can see you get the box-office and praise you deserve.***Final thoughts: Horribly, though, I coincidentally watched this as real-life torture and abuse from two "parents" upon their multiple children came out this week. Two Californian "parents," absolutely destroyed their many children with actual torture for their whole lives. Mercifully, one of the kids escaped to get help and hopefully, those "parents" will live long enough to know the evils they did. So, that all said, despite this movie being made LONG before this incident came to light, it was still kinda hard to watch torture rooms and devices immediately after a true story about the same kinds of malice.

I'm with J S on this one the acting was terrible i think they have tried to make a comedy horror b grade version of the horror movie "the collector" which I loved...But this movie from the beginning isn't funny and wasn't scary at all... They have pulled an idea from the sequel to the collector called the collection where a woman is found that has been imprisoned and they try to help her escape and then find that she is in fact helping the murderer and in on the whole thing..This movie is a total waste of time unless you are at home stuck in the rain and have nothing else to watch and still watching the rain would have been a lot more entertaining...And the jokes in this I actually laughed once because they were so stupid... The whole ringing the police because a murderer is holding us against our will and we will tell them we're white and that will get the police here quicker,.... Like we haven't seen that before but at least other movies I've seen that type of scene its usually funny....If you want to watch a good horror comedy watch Tucker and Dale Vs evil or Shaun of the dead and give this a miss :)

This was a fun one. The dialog and chemistry among the four main characters was what drew me in. Sure, not all the jokes were winners, but the banter was charming and felt natural for the most part. Plus, the choices made by the Good Guys were often smarter than what you find in the average horror movie (regardless of its budget). They seemed to learn from their mistakes and make reasonable leaps of deduction without my "help" (a.k.a. yelling at the screen, "Why?! Why would you DO that??"). I was disappointed with the antagonist side of the coin, though. I get that there was a psychopath vibe being aimed at, but psychopath doesn't mean zombie. Showing no emotion and practically shuffling through every scene seemed more Heavily Sedated than Crazy Person to me. What really surprised me were the production values. Even in the dark basement shots the lighting was well done and the audio was consistently good in both interior and exterior scenes. So often it seems like sound quality in particular gets thrown out the window when the budget is tiny. Kudos sound folks! Overall, I'd say it's a comedy/horror film rather than a horror/comedy, but I was entertained. And, most of the time, that's exactly what I'm looking for.