X Moor (2014)

Don't Believe the Hype

disgusting, overrated, pointless

Better Late Then Never

Blistering performances.

A dark fog rolls over the moor. With a few quick cuts, the audience is placed in the shoes of a woman running for her life from a monster. The lighting is terrific, and the music ratchets up the tension till you can feel your heart racing in your chest. She screams at the top of her lungs, and then the scene ends.One could expect a beginning like this to be part of a creature feature, but instead "xmoor" is something entirely different. What starts off as a pursuit of a mythical cat turns into a game of cat and mouse from a demented rapist.I would not recommend this movie to anyone who dislikes disturbing content, because once you make it past the very methodically paced beginning, the plot spirals into a dark, sadistic hole.Although there were no blatant scenes of torture or extreme violence before I stopped, there was enough here to make me cringe. Below are the reasons I could not force myself to finish this film.1. The murderer is a serial rapist, and it is referenced that the killer pleases himself with the corpses of his victims.2. One of the main characters is aroused by the site of one of the dead women, and a very strong, sexually perverted reference is made as to his actions regarding the corpse.Overall, I thought the film was technically well produced, but very disturbing. I have hope for these developers, if they could produce something that did not contain such strong, disturbing content.Viewers beware, if you are in the mood for a nice, thrilling roller coaster of a thriller, look elsewhere. This is a slowly rising, tense, disturbing film that I would not recommend for the faint of heart.

Wow, so silly. The movie had the feel that the screenplay was being written while filming. That, or the bar napkin with the hastily written words "monster/serial killer?" which served as this movie's script, was not sufficient. It was a tedious story I feel like I've seen a hundred times before, like that bait-and-switch bullsh*t telling me people are going to confront a monster but it turns out to be a dude, cause the film makers are playing with the concept of reality versus myth and blah blah bullsh*t. It's all indicative of movies made by people with zero imagination, just recycled ideas made into a motion picture of equally recycled imagery. This movie would have been better with an actual monster in the plot and zero serial killers, but I assume there were budget constraints.Yawn.

This one happens to fall under the latter. Let me tell you why. OK, so first of all, this could have been a lot more entertaining. Not a bad premise. Not a bad story line or twist. The actors were decent too. The atmosphere is unbeatable as far as dark and depressing , what is more elusive and mysterious than the moors of England? OK so the reason why this movie drove me crazy? I have no idea what the writers were thinking when they wrote how some of these characters acted and what they did. I think they were trying to add suspense or tension, when it just seemed fake and really unbelievable. For instance , the relationship between the two male leads. That had to of course, hate each other because of this woman they would both die for. Yeah. That's another thing. Why do movies insist on this stupid, over played, exaggerated hero type love thing. For some unknown reason ( because to us, the audience , this woman is just another run of the mill, typical on all fronts woman.) but both men have such deep feelings for her they are " willing to protect her with my life" you know, I have lots of guy friends, I even have great brothers. One is even ex Special Forces. Not once , in my entire life have I ever had one of my friends or brothers need to tell people that they would protect me with their life , let alone actually feel that way. Twilight love stuff, like so teenage fairy tale. OK so this totally average female happens to know two men that are so deeply in love with her they both are willing to die for her. OK. And they hate each other of course, for no real reason. Anyways, moving on. They find a disturbing cache of dead bodies in the moor. OK. Here is where it gets really bothersome. Everyone freaks out and throws up. And that amazing woman? Acts like a total lame for the next half hour. Screaming. She suddenly decides she needs to run a mile screaming. Away from her friends. I get it. I've actually seen people react like that to stressful situations. But in this instant it was over dramatics big time and not realistic - she wasn't armed and it was dark and her only friends ? She ran away from them . Just don't see that happening - scared so you run away from the two guys who are willing to die for you and have guns out Into the dark woods . OK , so then , they get to the tent. Now they know some serial killer is out there. Of course she promptly starts to yell. About something meaningless and stupid. I'm just going to highlight some of this amazing woman's stupid acts. They see their friend get stabbed. They run. She sees her boyfriend on camera and the serial killer looks like he killed him before the camera shuts off. She runs out with a flare screaming for her injured boyfriend who couldn't run to her even if he didn't have a serial killer stomping on his head ( sprained ankle) of course the guy comes and shoots at her. OK another dumb thing? She finally gets to where she is pointing the gun at the serial killer and guess what? Doesn't shoot him. She decided to ask him what he did to her boyfriend. Who of course this guy doesn't know who Matt is. Real thoughtful. She needs to scream at him so much, that of course he gets away, but not before he stabs the poor victim that is alive. And really kills her. OK more dumb stuff. When she finally has the you know what's to kill him? Opps. Not him. Oh this movie. Gloria, your character ruined the movie. Nothing you did made sense. Nothing you did worked. She should have been killed first. I hate it when they just don't put thought into it . .

I really enjoyed this film. The story was well realised and the characters, while flawed, were at least so in believable ways. The turning point and resulting revelations came naturally without ever feeling forced or needlessly exaggerated for cinematic effect, yet still offered a number of tense and fearful moments. My friends had some criticisms about the actions of the characters, but in my opinion those were not unreasonable considering the circumstances each were in at the time.While much of the film was shot in night-time forest areas, the cinematography was pleasing and did a good job of saturating the atmosphere with the bleak cold & mist of Exmoor, including some wonderful aerial shots of the location in the early morning