Staunton Hill (2009)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

How sad is this?

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The apple and the tree, you know, most expressions are true. Bava and his son, Argento and his daughter and here we have in capital on the sleeve Romero. Of course we are talking of cult figure George A. Romero. But here the expression of the apple doesn't count. Yes, some parts are really well but it's only on the screen for maybe 10 minutes. Those parts are extremely gory and the red stuff flows copious but the rest of this flick is so dull. Not one actor or actress is convincing. It isn't really a slasher it's in the kind of hillbillies goes berserk. But they do it for only as mentioned maybe 10 minutes. There is to much blah blah and the director teases us with coming nudity but it never comes. Not that it is necessary but face it. If you show a girl go stripping in a shed then you expect that she shows her juggs. Or as one girl is stripped by the killer in her undies and he cut her knickers in shreds then you again expect to see it all, but no, he cuts away to another shot. When there is gore it is really greasy but I won't recommend it to gorehounds or slasher geeks. It's just one to see how you can make a bad movie.

I know the pressure on Cameron Romero must be massive. I mean...he went into directing horror movies as the son of a legend. That's got to be like being the kid of Lance Armstrong and picking up a bicycle for the first time. That being said, I'm willing to cut him some slack, but sometimes I feel like I'm giving him just enough rope to hang himself with.Staunton Hill is definitely not something you want in your portfolio if you're trying to make a name as a horror director. Nothing about this film feels original at all and even though you've seen it done a million times, you've seen it done much better. I won't place the blame solely on Romero because the whole thing was pretty bad...acting, directing, writing, the theme...pretty much everything.One of my major gripes with this film is the end. I'm not going to give anything away, but I think the end of the movie is supposed to be a surprise reveal. The problem? The movie very clearly addresses this about half way through. Why anyone thought the ending would be a surprise is beyond me, and it's almost insulting. I still have hopes for the younger Romero, but this is just beating a dead horse with another dead horse.

What a blatant act of misinformation to leave out that its "Cameron Romero's" movie. Honestly I don't care for his fathers movie either so its just a hopeless way of selling a movie anyway. But i hate when they sell movies on such points... most of the time you know they are bad. And "Staunton Hill is a bad movie too. The plot is a regurgitation of the never ending "Backwoods horror" theme with and inbred family, cannibalism and torture. You get your car full of kids in the woods, a fat dumb slayer... everything was there a million times before. The acting is often very bad. When the black guy watches his girlfriend being dismembered I was laughing.What is done pretty well in the movie are the gore effects but I have rarely seen a movie where these felt as displaced as in "Staunton Hill". The movie is incredibly boring for most of the time. The male characters get killed in a most uninspired and uninteresting fashion while suddenly female characters get a boost in their on screen time when they squeeze in a 10 minute dismemberment scene which shows every detail. What the hell were they thinking... its all a cash off. Put a misleading name in front of the title, include some gratuitous violence and then just end the movie when you don't know where to go with it.Ignore!

I thought that maybe, just maybe, some of George Romero's talent rubbed off on his son. Not a chance. Not that "pops" is a super talent like Kubrick,but at least he's found his niche with zombies. His son has not. This film was nothing more than a blatant rip off of Texas Chain Saw Massacre with the usual bunch of Southern inbreds that we've seen repeatedly in other slasher movies.Staunton Hill was a low budget, poorly written, poorly directed, poorly edited and overall poorly produced film. I believe that it went straight to DVD and if it was ever seen in a theater, the audience must've gone to sleep or left after the first 20 minutes. I would.This flick had just the most ridiculous dialog, it dragged and dragged and made little sense. Plot holes that would suck in a solar system. Supposely, this yawn, I mean this yarn, had taken place in 1969. Whoever was the stylist (I'm assuming they had one)had totally missed the mark with period correct clothing and hair styles (accept for the black dude with the afro pick sticking out of his hair.)Nothing was clear at all, including the reason for making this movie. The only reviewer's quote to appear on the DVD cover box was from George Romero. Not exactly objective.I'm assuming that this was baby Romero's first attempt at film making. He gets a B minus for effort, and a slap on the back for a "better luck next time kid," if there is a next time.