Community (2012)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Pretty Good

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This film has a certain feel of realism, I live on the estate where most of it was shot, (Craylands Basildon, Essex). Sadly the behavior shown is'nt to far from reality as some parents allow kids to roam unattended, and the drug problem is rife. Despite its low budget, there are some effective shocks, and the dark humour comes in handy. Its effectively shot, making good use of run down locations, (many since demolished). The performances are adequate rather than award worthy, but doubt they were aiming for Baftas or Oscars.In the end, its not exceptional, nor a waste of time. If you live near here, it'll be more fun.

CLEARLY MARKED MILD SPOILERThis seems to be one of those movies where you either you get it or you don't. It's uniquely British in that it deals with a British setting, the current Daily Mail readers fear of those pesky hoodies and treats it all with a British sense of humour. The initial set up is creepy before turning into a black comedy in the same vein as Jam and League of Gentlemen. The leads are pleasantly good looking in that vacant, generic 'Skins' way, all the character is provided by Terry Bird (who is fantastic as Dumpy) and Paul McNealy as Auntie.SPOILERS ***There's a scene where he removes his wig and speaks to Isabelle in his real voice and tells her how he discovered the secret of his weed and it is a amazing piece of workSPOILER ENDS ***To sum up, this movie is nowhere as bad as the reviews say, these people are either not Brits or have a very light sense of humour. It is also not a 'drugs are bad' movie. It's a pastiche, parody and mockery of the Daily Mail way of thinking with some random horror thrown in.I was actually surprised by the twist too

To be honest with you, this film is so awful that I really can't be bothered going into too much details as to why; other reviews here sum that up very nicely. I simply wanted to comment on the main underlying plot: that all of this violence, depravity etc is caused by the bad guys all smoking this special "weed" that they grow using corpses as fertilizer. This is rammed down your throat at every turn, even to the point where the arrival of any of the psychos etc will be heralded by a cloud of white smoke. The way weed is talked about & used here comes straight out of a government anti-drug handbook (& is therefore scientifically inaccurate & dangerous propaganda): it makes you aggressive (er, no it doesn't), it's addictive (nope), lack of it makes you have cold turkey type withdrawal (huh?) to the point where characters like "Auntie" (probably the only sympathetic character in the whole movie...I liked him/her far more than the protagonists) can use it to control the feral kids (all 3 or 4 of them...wow, that's scary!). Look, I cannot say this more clearly: this is the dumbest, most ridiculous excuse for a horror movie I have seen since Cherry Tree Lane (2010); just like that movie, this relies on tired, worn-out clichés about "urban youth", moral decay in the inner cities, drugs etc etc. And just like that film the acting is appalling save for one person: Asley Chin in CTL & Paul McNeilly as Auntie in this one. Interestingly, both play one of the main bad guys in each film, but both bring the only sense of humanity to their respective films & are the only ones in each that could actually exist outside of their contrived environments. I don't know, maybe the director, now he's got his personal feelings on the devil's weed out of the way, could go on and create something worth watching, but on this evidence, he's a long way to go. All in all, if you are a Daily Mail reader or just generally believe everything your government tells you about everything & believe that the poor & disenfranchised are all scum who should be put together & left to their own devices then you'll probably like this film. It will justify your prejudices & beliefs. If however you are a free thinker, have the first idea about cannabis, the plight of the poor in awful concrete urban monstrosities, or just know a little about real life then you'll simply want your time back.On a final note, this movie has probably the dumbest "movie journalists" (or whatever they are) since the four morons broke into the "Forbidden Zone" in Lamberto Bava's Demons 2 (1986). In fact, if they had just watched that film first, they'd have realized that nothing good ever comes of wandering into the area "talked about only in hushed tones" that is renowned for some horror or other. Then they'd have given the Drayman Estate a wide berth, Isabelle could have gone to Amsterdam if she wanted some killer weed & everyone would be alive and happy. Including this reviewer, who wouldn't then have had to sit through this crap in the hope that "surely it gets better, there must be some twist that'll make it all worthwhile..." It doesn't and there's not. 'Nuff said.

The setting was great, the story was delightfully strange, and the acting was actually pretty good for low budget. Not a lot of jump-scares, but more of a twisting, winding tale of brutal insanity. This movie is very reminiscent of early Troma films, before they went for the buckets of gore and back when they relied more on the shock value of the story itself. The characters in this film were very 'Rob Zombie's House Of 100 Corpses' oriented in that they were believably trashy and appeared honestly completely insane. I was hesitant going in due to the 3.9 user rating, but was delightfully entertained and pleased. I'm giving it a 6 for it's harsh and unashamed originality and execution.