Review of Spike

Spike (2008)
1/10
Little Mistakes Cost Lots of Stars
17 October 2010
I was rather excited to see this movie, because some of the reviews here were positive and the back of the CD case interested me. Part of it read as follows: "As they are each picked off one by one by a bizarre beast it becomes clear that none of them will make it out of the forest alive; unless the one the monster so desires is left behind." I should have taken a cue from this. If the back of the case isn't even written properly (sentence fragments should not follow a semi colon), then the chances that the movie might not be worth watching are higher than average.

The plot revolves around four friends who, while on some sort of road trip, blow a tire and plunge into the surrounding forest. When the one male in the group steps outside to see what the damage is, he is attacked by something and ends up with a possibly life-threatening injury.

After this incident the group becomes separated and the movie's title subject comes into play. Throughout the movie, it's clear that someone put a great deal of thought into the different scenes, situations, and dialog, but that person failed to put it together cohesively.

The scenes are fragmented, and the characters act in a way that would simply not be logical in the situation, were it to really occur. The female lead knows that her male friend is seriously injured, and yet she walks around calmly for much of the time afterward.

There are also small items that lower the movie's attempted believability. (For example, when human beings, who are endothermic, reach for jackets due to the temperature of the woods, it is not possible for a rattlesnake, an exothermic animal, to be active. It would be too sluggish to move.) Even considering all the little mistakes in filming and poorly-developed characters (with the exception of Spike, who is something else), I still might have enjoyed the movie had it not been for the music. The music was just terrible. It was not appropriate for many of the scenes and even went so far as to ruin the mood much of the time. I began to wonder if the director had driven to the nearest church to find an organ player, and the one he found had suffered from a stroke years earlier and was half tuned on Balwinnie at the time.

The concept of the movie was interesting, and the creature's costume was well-designed. But this wasn't enough to save the entire film from a horrible music score and unbelievable dialog and character behavior (not to mention obviously staged reviews). And seemingly endothermic snakes.
5 out of 14 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed