Frayed (2007)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The deep dark secret motivating Kurt to kill and kill again is his abuse when he was a child. His abuser is the seemingly good-guy sheriff. All this is made relatively clear at film's end. There are 2 competing levels of reality through the first 95% of FRAYED: the metaphysical, in which Kurt can assume the forms and demeanors of those around him, and the usual, everyday reality. In the metaphysical, Kurt is some sort of supernatural being, an Evil Thing with the sewn-together face of a clown-thing. (Move over Michael Myers, Leatherfaces, and others of their ilk.) In his everyday guise, Kurt is the policemen or security guard or trustworthy neighbor next store. Why this excellent horror/thriller has not yet spawned a sequel is odd. It's not too late. PHANTASM (1979) took almost a decade to spawn Universal Studios' PHANTASM II (1988) {in those films an Evil Thing, "The Tall Man,"is portrayed by Angus Scrimm). Maybe horror fans will eventually be able to see an extension of FRAYED, a 2007 independent film. Fright fans can hope so.

A twist, in a twist, in a twist, in a twist, in a twist, with a side of twist, BY THE WAY, its all made up and in the person head anyway, so there is really no point to watching this festering pot of rubbish to begin with. A typical clown killer, nice good job for originality writers. I respected the part where the mother gets killed with the bat, i pretty much felt that exact pain the entire way through the movie. "This movie had so much potential" No it didn't. The plot. Where can I even start? It was crapped out in 2 minutes, basically they just said "hey for our lack of good plot or plot at all, lets throw in 10 twists and stack them on top of each other for extra value" Lets make the lead character that is with the victims, the killer the whole time! thatll get em! "wait bob your forgetting that he cant be the killer,because how is he going to be in the front seat of the car when the driver is killed from the killer in the back seat?" Shut up. I don't know if you heard but there's this new age thing called a twist that you probubly don't know a thing about. All in all, it was pretty laughable at the end watching every twist unfold in about 2 minutes, thats why this movie got a 1 and its lucky for that.

A town sheriff's mentally ill sun murders his mother and he is sent away to an insane asylum, years later he escapes and starts to wreak havoc in the community.Of course the storyline is a lot more fleshed out than what I've summed up, like there is actually a reason why the child is mentally sick but I'm not going to spoil it, because this film is actually worth seeing for any horror fan, its probably one of the more unconventional horror films I've seen because with other slasher horror films I can actually predict who will die and who will live, with FRAYED I was way off the entire time and that was probably the first time that's happened to me in years and the array of plot twist at the end drove me nuts because that's when the film really took hold.The suspense is kept surprisingly high thanks to the relatively casual pace of the film which helps to keep the viewer hooked and allow for some well done character development.Note, I did say it was close to becoming a classic but there is only one flaw that keeps it from actually being a classic, its not 100% original despite having a great plot, if you look carefully you'll notice it seems to borrow from older films Like HALLOWEEN (1978) but en light of that I'd put it along with LAID TO REST as one of the more competently made slashers in a while.

Okay, so I feel obligated to warn people about this movie ONLY because there are so many "positive" reviews about this film.Plot: Child kills mom, gets locked up in asylum for many years, later escapes when they are going to transfer him to another institution, tries to kill everyone and his sister....Halloween, right? Wrong! MAJOR Spoilers AHEAD:If your idea of a good time is figuring out the beginning, middle, and end of a movie, see this. From the opening scene, when the kid is sitting on the bed....when you never actually SEE him beating his mother to death, you will know who did it because NO OTHER OPTION for who could have killed her besides the FATHER are introduced. Its all too convenient of a plot device.When you see "someone's" foot sticking out of the bushes near the asylum at the start of the movie, and THEN an hour later you are being told who's dead body it is, and THEN you have to watch another 20 minutes of BAD ACTING as the movie continues, as if the audience is absolutely clueless......all I can say is whatever.The director's obviously thought their double-twist at the ending was good enough to make-up for BAAAAD and laughable acting throughout this film, and a complete lack of suspense since you can see the first "twist" coming a MILE AWAY. Right from when "Gary" the security guard is in the car at the beginning and the driver says, "But, there wasn't anyone out there, I saw. I saw there wasn't anyone there". Maybe because...THERE WASN'T ANYONE OUT THERE!! And for everyone else who is thinking this looks good, the second twist reveals that it is all in the escaped son's head, that he has been lying at the edge of the road THE ENTIRE TIME, that he never killed anyone, he just "imagined" killing everyone before his pedophile cop-father kills him to silence him, later to just to head home to his real family and molest his other son....SICK.The ending is a PRANK, a GIMMICK, to make you squirm, and also tells you that everything you just watched NEVER HAPPENED. Congratulations audience, you just wasted you time watching nothing. Now child molestation is horrific, yes, and I am sure that the directors and all of their script writers (all FIVE of them) used the "life is scarier than a slasher killer" angle when selling this movie and its "ending" to the studio who financed and distributed it, but come ON! You have to sit through all of this to find out its 1) not real 2) the pedophile father gets away with it and 3) BAAAD acting.Watch "High Tension" instead, or again if you have already seen it. At least it moves along faster and doesn't completely cheat you in the end.