Cornered! (2009)

Well Deserved Praise

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I really enjoy this movie! I was searching for this movie for years because I caught the second to last kill while watching TV one day I HAD to find it. But I couldn't find anything for a long time.BUT. When I did see it? I had to watch the whole thing. The acting is pretty decent, although there are a couple bad moments in the film and a lot of the main characters over-deliver their point. However, I'm just fine watching this movie cos the effects are decent, it doesn't drag on too long and I really actually like this.No where near the best movie ever, but even for a low budget film, I still give it 6 stars out of 10

While gathering together for a card game in their convenience store, a group of friends find themselves the latest victims of a serial killer's rampage against similar employees in town and race to escape before they all succumb to his fury.This one turned out to be quite exciting and enjoyable. Well, supposedly this was going to be a hybrid slasher/comedy but instead, it didn't really do either all that well and still came away rather enjoyable. The comedy elements are the biggest miscues, being not at all funny and really just lame that tend to make the film far longer than it really should be because the middle section is just so boring and dull that not a whole lot really registers. Once they come aware of their being stalked and hunted, it turns into a rather enjoyable affair with some big suspense scenes set within a location that really doesn't set itself up as being capable of doing so, and a rather nice twist that allows for some brutal kills to come along. While the killer isn't that threatening and it does have some other flaws, this one does become a lot more watchable as it goes along.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence

Cornered! (2009) * 1/2 (out of 4)Pretty bad slasher flick about a serial killer stalking convenient stores in Los Angeles. A store owner and his friends sit down to have a poker game after hours one night and sure enough, the killer shows up and starts to pick them off one by one. There are countless direct-to-DVD horror releases out there so you have to pick them with caution but I decided to give this one a go since Steve Guttenberg has a small part. I'm sure those who grew up watching POLICE ACADEMY wondered what he was up to in his recent movies and this here was my shot of seeing him again but it frankly wasn't worth the trouble. This screenplay is without question one of the strangest I've seen because it features a lot of bums and the reason for this is beyond me. We have the store owner who is obviously a cheap, rude jerk. We have his nephew who runs the cash register and just happens to be a meth head. We've got a prostitute trying to pick up some extra cash. We have one lady who works as a phone sex operator. We even have an overweight guy hooked on donuts. Umm....what the hell? Have we really gotten to the point in horror films where one of the characters needs to be addicted to donuts? I'm not sure if this was meant to be part of the humor but the laughs certainly never work and this is painfully obvious in a scene early one where another bum, this time a homeless man, tries to steal some alcohol. I'm really not sure what the point of this comedy was but it certainly doesn't work but then again neither does the horror or mystery aspects. The killer was rather obvious within the first five minutes so the entire mystery gets flushed right down the toilet. With the comedy and mystery gone you'd think we'd at least get some gory deaths, right? Well, wrong. The violence for the most part is rather tame and the bloodiest scene is actually a quick edit to part of a jelly donut dripping onto a table. The performances in the film were fair and that includes Guttenberg who at least proves he still has some nice comic timing. With that said, CORNERED! is a low-budget slasher film that doesn't work on any level and should certainly be skipped.

Workers and patrons at a small, cruddy(cockroaches appear from time to time) liquor store in Los Angeles discuss how they would execute a notorious serial killer on the loose in the area not knowing he's in the midst of them listening! When a wino goes through the front store window attempting to free himself(with a bottle of stolen liquor in hand), the janitor seals up the door with planks of wood cutting off one particular entrance/exit. While participating in games of poker, what this group(which includes owner Steve(Eduardo Antonio Garcia), his methadone-addicted junkie nephew, Jimmy(James Duval), a rotund sex hotline operator, Mona(Ellia English), a donut-eating weakling janitor, Donny(Peter Story), and a hot scantily clad prostitute, Jess(Elizabeth Nicole))doesn't expect is for the psychopath to show back up in the store, awaiting each one of them curious enough to see what that noise was downstairs(Steve's apartment is up above the store where he secretly hides VCRs recording from security cameras set up in and around his place).Steve Guttenberg in a slasher movie will obviously draw some to see this movie, but he's more of a special guest star than the male lead the credits depict him as. His deliveryman, Morty, seems to be a likable chap, and, while his presence is limited, he factors in the grand reveal of the killer at the very end. Weapons of use on victims involve an ice cream cone(which gouges an eye!), cellophane(accompanied by a broken bottle of ketchup used to stab this person repeatedly), a meat slicer(which cuts one poor soul in half as he's hanging upside down by meat hooks), and, probably the best sequence, a meat cleaver(effective in how we see the victim's eyes cross as life leaves her body). While the violence sounds severe, the filmmakers don't dwell on the details so those that might squirm at meat slicer damage will be relieved to know that most occurs in a tame fashion. A detriment for many slasher fans, I imagine, is the time between one kill to the next. You'd think that when one member of the group hadn't returned that they would all venture downstairs to see what was keeping her, but CORNERED! is about getting one person alone with the killer at a time so he can do his work. Nicole is definite eye candy in her short jean skirt and tight shirt above her navel, her boobs almost spilling out on more than one occasion. Garcia's Steve is supposed to be a sort of sympathetic character in that he wants his nephew to kick his habit so he can stay clean and out of rehab, but he's also a lousy drunk who steadily became tiresome for me personally. Duval(THE DOOM GENERATION) fans will get a kick out his hallucinating junkie, the way he envisions these large roaches not allowing him to leave the store..his Jimmy stays worse-for-wear almost the entire movie. Director Maze(he gives himself some love by putting his name on a six pack of beer Steve gulps unmercifully throughout)localizes the plot almost exclusively in the liquor store(which also functions as a grocery where many customers kidnap snacks and alcohol much to Steve's dismay). The killer wears a gimp mask(with a zipper mouth)and leather gloves as he attacks his victims. This is the kind of slasher which will have many yelling at the screen to "Don't do that! Don't go down there!"