Small Town Folk (2007)

Absolutely the worst movie.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Three travelers -- amiable Jon (a solid and likable turn by Greg Martin), his plucky pregnant wife Susan (a winningly spunky portrayal by the fetching Hannah Flint), and crafty and resourceful teenager Marcus (an excellent and engaging performance by Simon Stanley-Ward) -- find themselves trapped in the remote rural community of Grockleton, where the evil The Landlord (marvelously essayed with lip-smacking sinister relish by Chris R. Wright) forces them to participate in a brutal hunt with the deranged local yokels. Director Peter Stanley-Ward, who also co-wrote the pleasingly loopy and tongue-in-cheek script with Natalie Conway, treats the familiar premise like a dark contemporary fairytale, ably creates and sustains a playfully creepy atmosphere, delivers a handy helping of grisly gore, and further spices things up with a wickedly funny sense of hysterically gonzo pitch-black humor. Better still, Stanley-Ward allows a deliciously dry, droll, and utterly idiosyncratic deadpan English wit to run gloriously amok throughout, thus not only giving this movie an extra substantial nutty buzz, but also providing a peculiar distinction that ensures that this sure ain't your run-of-the-mill killer hicks in the sticks flick. The redneck psychos are a colorfully grotesque bunch: Dan Palmer as infantile, gas-guzzling geek Dobbin, Jan Nicholas as the gruff Pooch, and Ben Richards as monstrous hulking freak Pike. Warwick Davis has a neat small part as the foreboding Knackerman #2. Peter Stanley-Ward's gaudy cinematography makes funky use of green screen and gives the film a gnarly stylized look. Good twisted fun.

Best horror movie I've seen in years!! Its really scary, really funny and at the same time charming-- I've never called a horror movie charming before, but this one is! The bad guy sings this creepy song and people are dying and and are really afraid and then its hysterically funny! I watched it twice-- liked it even better the second time. Its also a movie with a real story, that's suspenseful and clever. The main good guy is great-- reminded me of a young Matt Damon and the bad guys are unlike any bad guys I have ever seen before and they have the coolest weapons. The little guy from Harry Potter is in it-- he lives in a sack on this big guys back-- totally creepy and fun! I heard the movie was super low budget and it is way better than any of the bigger budget gore/horror movies I've seen lately! I totally recommend it.

Small Town Folk is set in England where Jon (Greg Martin) & his wife Susan (Hannah Flint) are driving along on an 'adventure' (this is as much as the film can be bothered to specify or come up with) & come across an area called Grockleton, they quickly become lost & head for Beesley's Manor to ask for a room for the night. It quickly turns out that the landlord (Chris R. Wright) & his brother's are all inbred freaks who like to murder anyone who ends up in Grockleton, obviously Jon & Susan decide leaving is the best course of action but with all the petrol syphoned out of their jeep they don't make it very far. With the inbred mutants right behind them Jon manages to escape but Susan is kidnapped for breeding purposes so the family line of freaks can continue. It's up to Jon to save Susan but he has to come up with a plan first...This seemingly home-made amateur British production was edited, written, co-produced & directed by Peter Stanley-Ward who also played one of the Scarecrow brother things the same few names keep popping up during the opening & closing credits signifying that a small group of people did multiple jobs to get the thing finished, apparently filmed over a period of four years on a budget of about £4000 which was totally funded by cast & crew you have to admire their determination & commitment but that doesn't guarantee a good film & doesn't mean I want to see any old crap they end up with & certainly doesn't mean they or this rubbishy film is exempt from criticism. First of all the script is just various ideas & themes culled from other much better horror films, it appears that the makers wanted to make a backwoods horror film in the style of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) & Wrong Turn (2003) but only set in England rather than the US & it fails horribly on every count. For a start I assume that the supposed attempts at comedy were intentional but even if they were they are just not funny in the slightest (a crossbow that fires Horse shoes?), the horror is lame with nothing more than the usual slightly mutated dirty freaks chasing a couple of people through some sort of isolated location , there's zero atmosphere or tension as it looks like it was filmed in about three fields (how can you just run into someone who wants to kill you in the middle of an open field exactly?) & the plot is as thin as any film I have watched. Basically a group of killers want to kill a guy & use his wife for breeding purposes (why didn't they use any of the other two young pretty girls killed earlier on?) & that's it, no that really is it as there are no sub-plots or diversions away from this one single plot thread. Boring is the word I would describe Small Town Folk, even at just over 80 minutes it feels like a lot longer & the dialogue is terrible, the character's barely say anything let alone get anything approaching character development & the whole reason Jon & Susan are there in the first place is because they wanted an adventure, yeah right that makes sense.As often mentioned it seems that Small Town Folk was shot largely against a green-screen & really fake comic book style backgrounds were added in post production & although distinctive it's also distracting & really cheap looking. Apparently Small Town Folk started out as a short feature but grew into a full film & I wonder if the scenes with Jon & Susan (a lot of their scenes are green-screen) were added to bump the time up as the scenes with them & Marcus look & feel different & I am thinking that maybe director Ward started filming with his brother but then expanded things later on. The gore is tame, there's some blood splatter, a few sickles through people's bodies, a stabbing & a decapitation but nothing memorable & the effects are pretty poor. There's no nudity either. The climax seems to rip-off Indiana Jones but with less than a tenth of the excitement (how can Small Town Folk & Indiana Jones get mentioned in the same review?).Shot here in Hampshire (I've been there...) in the UK the production values are rock bottom with poor effects, bad cinematography (overlit scenes, out of focus scenes...) & a really raw amateur look & feel about the whole thing. The acting is uniformly bad & is Jon really meant to be that laid back or is it simply actor Greg Martin doesn't do emotion of any kind?Small Town Folk looks like it was an achievement to get made by a group of dedicated & enthusiastic friends but that doesn't meant I want to watch it or want to spend my money on it, lots of films have been made this way before (The Evil Dead (1982), Bad Taste (1987)) & not been this bad. Nice DVD cover, horrible film inside.

It's true, I have quite the inclination for b-movies. Just like every genre or budget, there are the gems and the duds. 'Small Town Folk' falls in the former... It's true I just can't get enough. I actually bought this film just because of the box, I know - never judge a book by it's cover, and have watched it 3 times already. 'Small Town Folk' is bad... but it's so bad that its good... not just bad, bad - which I know makes a lot of sense to some of you.What makes this film so intriguing is the characters, the costumes, and believe it or not the cinematography... Yes it's actually done quite well. The acting is, of course, atrocious... but if the movie took itself seriously then we wouldn't have ourselves a shining little diamond in the rough, a cult classic if you will.The premise is simple and fun... Two lovers on holiday are looking for an adventure... Of course the find it, in a small village that no one would want to be stranded in. When the small town folk find out that the female is pregnant, they take much interest because the baby would mean another edition into their blood thirsty, dirty hick stricken village... And who wouldn't want that?A lot of people will hate this film, but those who have a deep appreciation for the bad will see 'Small Town Folk' for what it is... A bloody & entertaining ride into the deep depths of terrible cinema.