Friday, October 26, 2018

October Horror Challenge 2018 #75: "Sendero"



I chose this movie poster, even though it kinda gives away one of the best shots in the movie, because it's so gory and cool looking. The best thing about this movie is its gore, so I might as well showcase that right away. I've wanted to watch this movie for so long that I was really happy to get a chance to check it out. Ah, several hours ago, it was a simpler time. I'm nostalgic for a time before I'd watched this movie.

Ok, so the movie follows a group of friends (well, kinda, they don't seem to all like each other) who go on a road trip to get out of the city, and when they stop to help someone who appears to be in trouble, they are abducted by some messed up people, and they get tortured,  and they have to escape with their lives.

Now, I say that, because the obvious course of action when you're abducted is to try and escape, but it doesn't seem like they really want to escape, because they have multiple chances to disarm their captors and escape, but instead they stand around and argue, or cry. I get that the situation is upsetting, but you really should try to get away. And even after they escape, which happens multiple times,  they split up, and one of them doesn't follow but instead stays in the house, so it's confusing and annoying and hard to care about people who act like such idiots.

The gore isn't splattered over every frame, but it's well done, and when it shows up it adds to the scenes. That's one thing the movie did right. That might be the only thing. The plot isn't really even clear. At one point an old man shows up seemingly only to deliver a reason for the abductions, but it really doesn't make much sense. Plus, if they've supposedly been doing this for years, why are they so bad at it? And if the big goal here is to keep the abductions secret, why do they run around with guns so much killing anyone who tries to help? I counted seven separate times they randomly killed possible good samaritans who try to help our stupid protagonists escape. Way to keep things on the down low, folks.

The thing is, this movie is bleak and depressing, and it seems that the message of the movie (if I'm going to pretend it has a message) is that life sucks and there's no hope, and people are animals that are often led to the slaughter. The thing is, you can throw all the depravity at me that you want (here, I'm going to rape this person. No, stop doing that, I'm going to rape you now as punishment, let's all rape each other, woo-hoo, rape party) and sever all the body parts and kill a bunch of people who were only trying to help without showing us their faces, because people don't really matter, or some shit. I can name several movies that do these things but we still care about their characters because there's an actual plot and character development, and people try to help each other and rise above the terrible things that happen to them. No one is going to think you're cool for making a movie like this if you do a shitty job. There are better movies out there that have a lot of gore and depravity, and you're actually going to CARE when it happens because those movies give a shit. Watch one of those instead.

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