Director: Matthew Currie Holmes
Writer: Shahin Chandrasoma, Matthew Currie Holmes (Screenplay) Johnny Pascucci (Story)
Starring: Evan Ross, Henry Czerny, Dominique Provost-Chalkley, Danny Glover, Colm Feore, Mayko Nguyen, Jim Watson
Plot: A college class project on creation and destruction of modern myth, turns terrifying when a trio of young people come to realize the urban legends surrounding the famed Buckout Road may, in fact, be REAL.
Tagline – The road less traveled… for a reason.
Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Creepy Horror
Story: The Curse of Buckout Road starts with the death of professor at the local college, Detective Roy Harris (Czerny) is leading the investigation, turning to his long-time colleague Dr Lawrence Powell (Glover) to just support his daughter Cleo (Provost-Chalkley) who is struggling to process the death of her teacher.
Dr Powell learns that Stephanie, Cleo and a pair of twins have all been having nightmares about the location of Buckout Road, which sees him start to investigate only for him to become another victim of the road, his grandson Aaron (Ross) takes over the investigation, joined by Cleo, Derek (Watson) and Erik (Mac) who are studying the idea of whether myths are real or not, with their focus on the Buckout Road one.
Thoughts on The Curse of Buckout Road
Characters – Aaron has returned home from his time in the military college, where he still has a strained relationship with his grandfather, he ends up getting involved with Cleo who is trying to unlock the myth behind the legend of Buckout Road. Cleo is the one struggling to deal with the loss of her teacher, with her project being on Buckout Road, she becomes drawn to the road with the only person that she can turn to is Aaron. Detective Roy Harris doesn’t seem to ever listen to his daughter and jumps to conclusion before hearing what could be going on, he doesn’t like Aaron, even though he has a strong relationship with his grandfather Lawrence. Dr Lawrence Powell once helps Cleo out with the death of her mother, he raised his grandson and now he is trying to put the pieces together when it comes to what is going on along Buckout Road.
Performances – Evan Ross in the leading role does everything right without being a standout, he works well with Dominique Provost-Chalkley and when the pair are together it is the highlight of the film, but when they are alone, the performance from the both do seem to drop in places. Henry Czerny is great to see in another horror film this year following up Ready or Not. Danny Glover is here bringing some star power to the film.
Story – The story here follows a group of college students that start investigating a myth from their local town, which does have a mystery about mysterious number of deaths, only to find themselves getting involved in the curse and it might not just be a myth. This story does try to focus on the idea that we do see a lot of horror films that focus on myths that could be true, which sees us trying to see the study it rather than just walk through it like others have. The weakness in the story telling process does seem like we are watching a series of repeating moments which does focus extending the previous version, or giving a slight twist to what we have already seen. We do jump around a lot in the story, which doesn’t help us get invested in what is happening through mix of reality and myth.
Horror – The horror in the film does come through vision more than anything else, while it does look at a horrific look at the legend of the area.
Settings – The film is set just outside of Buckout Road, it shows how the town is scared of the myth, but isn’t interested in investigating it further.
Special Effects – The effects in the film do work with most being wounds, with certain sequences having an effect to make us be in the correct time frame.
Scene of the Movie – Lawrence is that you.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Too many flashes between reality and the past.
Final Thoughts – This is a horror that plays into the cursed area idea that does jump between the present and the past a lot, too often at times, we get plenty of vision horrors, without any scary moments.
Overall: Vision based horror.
