Five Across the Eyes (2006)

Too much of everything

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Well what can I say about this movie. First you have the opening titles with music that sounds like the opening to a cheesy 80s gameshow.I think the initial motivation for the girls being chased by the crazed woman was not the broken headlight like we were lead to believe but she was trying to rob the store and she was concerned the girl might of seen something. In the seen where she makes the girls take off their clothes outside the car she says "How much did you see!?" although it understandable many people may not have heard that as there is so much screaming and yelling over the dialog in many places.As for the scene where she makes them strip off. Disappointing. We only get to see the girls from behind even although 2 or 3 of them are wearing bras.After the 38th minute the story seemed to lose consistency and it got a little boring. Mostly just scenes with the girls arguing about what to do next "Let's vote on it..." and scenes with regret and blame "This never would've happened if you hadn't have done this..." and "This never would've happened if I hadn't have done that..." as if they were trying to make the movie have the right length.The girls themselves weren't all that nice and I really didn't care if all five of them died. There was the one who covered her face in sticky plasters which I found completely ridiculous. If you are in a life or death situation you do not notice mere skin wounds.At the end all five of the girls stabbed the woman to death using a screw driver. At least two of the girls should've been in no condition to do this because of their injuries. The girl who got shot in the arm and made to swallow fish hooks (who didn't even have any blood around her mouth funnily enough) and the girl who got stabbed between the legs with a screwdriver.I feel this movie is fairly good and follows a plot although it is not too clear what that is but there is far too much vomit in it for my taste.I still give it 10/10 because it is an enjoyable. distraction for 90 minutes.

Im really interested in low or no budget movies that provides a genuine feeling and atmosphere. The silent house is an excellent example, because despite its flaws, it offers an original atmosphere at a minuscule budget. Another film (a short film you can watch for free on youtube)that does offer a lot of emotion in a horrifying, but comically painful way is Phantom miscarriage. Five across the eyes don't really give me anything! The story is simple, a couple of young girls, get lost, bumps into a strangers car by accident and escapes. Pretty soon they are chased by a maniac woman who tries to kill them. A typical slasher story.Its nice that the creators of this film have made an attempts to create something unique, but wiggly camera angles, bad acting, and a plot not worked through enough gives me nothing. I saw a bunch of amateur movies made by media students, while I was studying drama, and these movies ware far better. Every scene should be worked through in a good movie. The purpose for the scene, the camera angles for the scene, and the actors should have enough time to get into character no matter how bad they are. What the movie really lacks is suspense, effects that are worked through, and a feeling of realism. They had the intent to create something, but failed. Oddly enough they worked hard enough to get the movie released!

Five Across the Eyes starts as five young teenage girls are driving home in time for their curfew, they stop off at a store & accidentally hit another car & decide to just drive off & leave it. Soon after the other car forces them to stop & a crazy woman with a shotgun gets out & shouts at them, makes them take their clothes off & makes them pee on them & then randomly drives off. Shaken & shocked the girls think their ordeal is over but the crazy woman comes back for seconds as she seems intent on killing the terrified girls who are lost & are low on gas...Produced & directed by Greg Swinson & Ryan Theissen with Swinson writing the thing & Theissen responsible for the cinematography & editing I have to say that Five Across the Eyes is easily one of the worst films I have ever seen if not the worst, I mean I'm struggling to think of a film I have seen that's worse. Now let me start off by saying that I am sure a lot of the film-making decision taken here were deliberate to try & provoke atmosphere, tension, realism & suspense but there is not one aspect of Five Across the Eyes that I didn't hate it to be honest it looks like a bad home video that has been put up on YouTube & even then it's still slightly embarrassing & a frankly worthless waste of 90 odd minutes of my time that I could have been doing something more entertaining & fun like pulling my fingernails out with pliers. The reviews on the web seem quite positive but on the IMDb (the amount of 1 Star comments is revealing & they can't all be wrong, right?) & it's message board which I think is much more of an indicator of what the average person thinks it's absolutely trashed by just about everyone & the phrase 'the worst film I have ever seen' is used a few times & to be fair most of these negative comments mention th same things & I have to agree with them. The story is terrible, alright I suspect it's meant to be minimalistic but this minimal? There's never any reason or explanation for the events that happen & it just feels totally random. It goes on for ages, the amount of plot here would struggle to fill a thirty minute made for telly program let along a full length feature. The dialogue is awful with these annoying girls who don't seem to have a brain cell between them taking about random stuff & screaming a lot. Oh god the screaming, there are seemingly endless scenes of these girls screaming or crying or whining which not only irritates & annoys & prevents any sane viewer feeling any sort of sympathy for them it also makes what they are trying to say almost impossible to hear properly. Then there's the real killer, the entire film is set & shot within the confines of a mini van, seriously the camera never leaves this car & as you can imagine it gets really boring, add that the low body count of just one person killed on screen & Five Across the Eyes is a film that I hated with a passion.On a technical level again I can see that the film-making style here was a deliberate choice but I have to be honest again & say Five Across the Eyes is the worst looking film I have ever seen. As a fan of film I like my films to look like proper films as it's a visual medium & I definitely don't want them to look worse than the average YouTube video or my home films shot on a camcorder while I was drunk. It really does look that amateurish & that bad, it's a complete eyesore & I hated every moment of every second of it. Just think The Blair Witch Project (1999) only ten times worse looking & sounding & you will be almost there. There are times during Five Across the Eyes when you literally can't tell what's going on or happening because of the camera-work & the almost pitch black & grainy contrast levels. The violence is tame too with a few splashes of blood & a stabbing at the end.Low budget doesn't even begin to describe Five Across the Eyes, with a supposed budget of about $4,000 this is easily one of the lowest budgeted films ever given a wide release. The two vans in the film were owned by members of the production & that's basically pretty much the entire budget right there, the locations. The acting is pretty bad by the main cast, I just hated all the fake put on crying & screaming that didn't convince at all but did irritate immensely.Five Across the Eyes will go down as one of the worst films I have ever seen & I have seen a few films, whenever anyone now ask's me what's the worst film I have ever seen Five Across the Eyes will definitely get a mention. I hated it, every single aspect & wretched moment of it.

Well it starts off well enough, with a theme tune that sounds like a 80's Nintendo game and 5 sexy lasses in a car trying to navigate their way through the dark night. They stop off at a roadside shop to get directions, and accidentally collide with a stationary car while leaving, busting its headlight. Panicking, they don't stop to exchange insurance details, but drive off.. BIG MISTAKE. The deranged, rabbiting female driver catches up, forces them out of the car at gunpoint and makes all five strip in front of her. She even coaxes one to pee on her own clothes!! Then, after mumbling something about 'having to pick up her kids' she abandons the young ladies, and they think their ordeal is over.. but it's only just begun..Well, you can say one thing for FATE, it earns its 18 certificate and then some. We have torture, graphic violence, non-stop profanities, gore aplenty, human fecal matter being thrown at windscreens and bloody rape with some very unusual objects. It's safe to say whoever dreamt up this project is a very sick puppy indeed. Of course this would mean nothing if the movie wasn't suspenseful enough, and the for the first 20 or so minutes the scary premise seems to be working, as our heroines get abused and lose their way out in the middle of nowhere, with not one phone signal between the lot of them ( Typical ) and a mad woman following their every move. The scene is set for a efficient low budget thriller..Only to come crashing back to Earth as we are forced to listen to these TERRIBLE actress's boring conversations about boyfriends and family even while they are being pursued by a serial killer. These little chats would be fine in moderation, but even when some of their number are grievously injured, we still get comments about what one of the girl's dad is going to think of the state of the car, or who arranged a date on the phone that evening. WHO CARES? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE!! SAVE THAT CR*P FOR LATER!! And speaking of injuries, considering what the girls have been through including being shot, concussed, sexually abused etc. they make miraculous recoveries very quickly towards the end. Why do we even have an NHS when a cigarette lighter and a torn off bit of cloth can stop someone from bleeding to death? AMAZING.But the worst aspect of the whole film is: we don't care about any of these people. They're all airhead bimbos obsessed with how their hair and nails look and the only thing that matters to them is being part of the in-crowd. Killing these tedious strumpets would almost be a mercy. As mentioned before, listening to their obnoxious banter for 90 odd minutes is sheer hell in itself, quite apart from any torture meted out in the film. Lastly, I should warn you about the Jerk-o Cam, which makes it virtually impossible to see what's going on sometimes, as it wibble and wobbles about as if made out of gelatin. Nowhere is this more apparent than during the climax, where a lot the action is missed thanks to the ADD director. I know you're trying to be cutting edge sir, but you're rendered your film almost unwatchable. Get a tripod next time, will ya?3/10. Now I'm off to be sick. Not because of the horrendous violence I just saw, but the to-ing and fro-ing of that damn camera. BLEURGH!!