I try to treat every film I watch fairly. To this, I manage
my expectations. If a film is billed as an erotic thriller, I don’t compare it
to Citizen Kane. Instead, I ask how well it did what it set out to do. If a film has a low budget, I don’t compare its
FX to Avengers. I also look for something that makes the film worthwhile.
Sometimes a movie isn’t very good, but there’s one thing in it that makes you
glad you saw it. Think of Primal Fear, a terrible movie that deserves to exist
because of an outstanding performance by a young Edward Norton. Sometimes it’s top-notch make-up FX that I enjoy.
Sometimes it’s an engaging subplot. Most movies have something. Feral has
nothing.
You tend to expect any movie with a “name” actor in it to
have a baseline level of competence. Feral fucks that expectation right
up. The plot is pretty simple. Three
couples go on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere. One of them is attacked
and killed by something. The others succumb to a sickness that turns them into
wild zombie-like creatures one by one. That’s it. Further summary isn’t really
warranted as nothing novel or interesting happens. Sure, then meet a man who
lives in the woods and take refuge in his cabin, so that’s more plot, but by
then we don’t really care. T
The attempts at character development are thin, and kind of cliché.
There’s a romantic triangle that isn’t believable, mostly because the people involved
seem less like actual humans and more like some novice screenwriter’s half
remembered recollections of characters in other, better, movies.
The star is Scout Taylor Compton (who was good in Rob Zombie’s
Halloween, and other films). Here she is wasted. The screenplay gives her no
real character traits and nothing to do.
The “characters” stumble about behaving almost entirely but
not completely unlike humans. They make
stupid decision after stupid decision and eventually we start to forget which
of them is which as they are all identical in their stupidity. The dumb is
fractal. No matter how closely you look it is always the same amount of dumb in
the same dull shapes.
Thy FX are bland. The music is flavorless. The trees at
least look like real trees and watching this slog of a movie I started to feel
badly for them. These trees did not deserve the indignity of being featured in
this monument to wasted investor funds. Whoever paid for this movie should
demand a refund.
Feral made me tired. I wanted to be angry that it had wasted
my time, but honestly what would be the point.
Mostly I feel like I need a hot shower and a long nap.
-Nathan Tyree
