XII (2011)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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

The folks of Blandsville, Blandizona are going missing for some reason (they were on a jury that put away some nutcase). This guy be skinning off'n the faces of these folks for some reason. It takes an awfully long time for people to figure out what's going on.Luckily, on sabbatical after recording 'Chunga's Revenge' with Frank Zappa, Flo and Eddi arrive in town and have brought along Knight Rider 2000 to help solve the case! The film really takes off here, thankfully.You might fall asleep during that bit though, and upon missing it, find the film to be a dull affair with a load of human drama (what was all that crap with the boyfriend about? That led nowhere). You don't even see much in the way of slashing. Way to botch the job, losers.Except that bit where Flo and Eddi turn up in the killer's house and distract him with a rousing version of Sharleena.I'm cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying (over this dull movie)

XII is set in a small American town on the eve of Christmas, FBI agent Naughton (Steven Brand) is on the trail of a killer who likes to rip the faces off his victims, two of his known victims come from this small town & agent Naughton talks to deputy Kent (Nick Searcy) about the case. Kent says he will ask around, while talking to pretty young waitress Claire (Emily Hardy) she mentions that the two victims served together on jury duty. Kent feels this is important information as the juror's verdict sent child molester Leonard Karlsson (Jeremy Fitzgerald) to prison where he was badly disfigured, even more so since Karlsson had been recently released. Claire also manages to piece the clues together & since she also served on that jury assumes that her life is in danger as well as several of her friends, as the twelve juror's either turn up dead or go missing it seems that Karlsson has returned to have his revenge against those who sent him down...Written & directed by Michael A. Nickles this horror teen slasher is pretty typical of the genre & while it's not the worst example out there I wouldn't exactly call it good, a passable time waster for what it is I suppose but nothing more. The script feels like it's an assembled patchwork of teen slasher ideas, themes & images with the holiday event setting of Christmas, the badly disfigured killer like Freddy, the human skin collecting like Leatherface, the plastic mask like Jason & the two main female victims one of whom is all slutty & uncaring while the other is pure virgin material as well as the dumb cops & secondary character's merely there to be killed off. XII is strictly routine & by the numbers, there's nothing of any great surprise, the revenge driven motives for the killer are nothing new (A child molester? Where have I heard that before?) & his filthy basement hideout is standard teen slasher issue. Lasting under 80 minutes at least XII is fairly brisk, despite an attention grabbing opening sequence the script settles down & introduces the character's who slowly release that something nasty is going on before the final obligatory chase & stand-off between the surviving girl & the masked killer. None of it is very original but it's reasonably well staged, the short running time helps & there are a couple of nice moments but otherwise XII is for teen slasher fanatics only.While disfigured & masked killer looks quite good & imposing at times he has virtually no back-story, it's not even made clear if he was innocent of the charges & wants revenge for that reason or whether he's just an evil git. There's a few decent gore scenes including a cool opening in which a guy has his head literally blown off, unfortunately this is the films gore highlight & because it comes so early nothing else lives up to it. There's a also a throat slashing, someone has his tongue cut out, someone's face is cut off & removed & there's some blood splatter. Fairly basic in set-up & execution XII doesn't rewrite any slasher rules & for the most part it's pretty predictable & straight forward.Probably shot on a low budget the production values are decent enough, it's looks nice enough & the special effects are alright but it's not a film that live long in the memory. The acting is OK, the two young female leads look nice enough & aren't too annoying when they scream.XII, or Twelve for those who don't know their Roman numerals, is a fairly average teen slasher. It has a decent villain & one or two good gore scenes but overall I wouldn't say it's anything other than an indifferent way to pass 80 minutes. It could have been better but it also could have been worse.

A man gets out of prison and goes on a killing rampage of those who were on the jury. 12 jury members, 12 people to kill.I was really intrigued by the premise of this film. I think if done right, it would make for a very good thriller/horror film. A killer killing off those who put him away. Those 12 jury members. I'm sure it was probably done before since the idea isn't original, but I haven't seen any films based on that idea. So when I saw XII was about just that, I thought why not, let's give it a chance. It's a shame though because this film lacks anything that would make it interesting or entertaining. The killer is in prison for apparently having sexual relations with a minor. There is only one bit of dialogue that supports this. Other than that, we have no idea who this guy is, why he went to prison or anything else. The film doesn't really set events up well, the opening credit sequence is horribly shot and edited that you don't really don't know what you're watching until the 5 years later text pops up.All of the cast are bland and boring with the exception of Mercedes McNab of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame. She played Harmony. She seems like the only one who knows that she is in a horror film. She plays the blonde bitchy type friend of the supposed heroine well enough to make this not an entire travesty. The kills are non existent. The film starts off with a kill near Vegas where one guy gets his head blown off with a shot gun. Then it is all downhill from there. The killer rips the skin off of his victims face, sometimes while they are still alive. This should make for some gruesome scenes but non of it scares, excites or interests the viewer. The killer is a lame Ed Gein wannabe who wears the skin of his victims as well. Low rent horror this is, but not even the good kind. I can't help but feel what I could have done with this story and budget. Or anyone else for that matter. The guy who directed this played Jim Morrison in Wayne's World 2. Yeah...you read that correctly.

At least the movie lets you know how horrible it is from the get-go.From the first five minutes you get treated to tired clichés, sub-par writing delivered by untalented people playing pretend rather than actually acting, you get to witness cinematography that is on par with a passionate hobbyist who lacks actual experience and the audio for the actors sounds like it's coming out of a shallow can.I understand the fun that can be had from a campy B horror flick but XII misses that classification soundly. No fun can be had here by anyone who is not related to the people involved in making this reckless attempt at film making.From beginning to end you'll grimace at everything but the actual horror.