Spoiler Free Review Of Indie Horror Film 'Director's Cut'
Image Source: One Ten Crew Films
Don Capira makes his feature-length directorial debut with Director’s Cut. The film pays homage to the style of slasher films from the 80s and 90s, but the result was less than exciting. While there are a few great aspects to the film, I was left feeling bored and underwhelmed for the majority of the roughly 90-minute runtime.
The film starts with a title card informing us that rock/metal band The Suicide Disease went missing in 2024. We then see someone pull up the band’s last Instagram post as well as doing Google searches about the band and a young girl’s overdose that is apparently linked to them.
The movie then jumps back in time to show us the band right before they went missing. As we get to know them, we learn that they have been struggling to perform after the overdose of their friend, and because of this, they are at risk of losing everything. The band wants to film a music video, but they don’t have the money. Two of the other members suggest performing again, but the lead singer shoots this idea down. They decide to work with a director who has been messaging them on social media for weeks and is willing to do the video for free in exchange for using it in his professional reel. The band, their manager, and girlfriends drive hundreds of miles to an abandoned mansion, which they feel is the perfect location for their video shoot. Unfortunately, they quickly learn that while the director is there to make a video, it isn’t the music video they were expecting. The kills all come in quick succession of each other, and they are creative, especially considering the twist and the director’s motives. The twist comes at the end of the film, and it is perfectly placed to help pick back up the pace when it is desperately needed.
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Image Source: One Ten Crew Films
The acting, directing, and pacing of this film are terrible. The film is just over 90 minutes long, and yet the kills only occur in the last 30 minutes of the film, and the other 60ish minutes aren’t interesting or exciting. There are also a lot of plot holes within the movie. On their drive to the mansion, they are tailgated by a truck that is driving aggressively. We see this truck later in the film and learn that there are three terrifying men inside, but after this, we never see them again. The band’s manager, AJ, seems to have played a large role in connecting them with the director, yet he disappears right before the killings begin, never to see him again or learn what happened to him. It is also made clear that there are three people inside the mansion aside from the group we are following: the director, his assistant, and then a mystery person that we first see in shadow and then see attack one of the members of the group as they are escaping. We never see the third person again, not even when the survivor is running away.
The beginning of the movie made it seem like there were no survivors, but we see a survivor who is supposedly rescued by a person who is coming to work at a church that we were previously told was abandoned. There are so many holes throughout this film that leave you more confused than invested. The story for this film, though, is really good, and I hate that it was so poorly executed. Rock/metal band horror films are nothing new, but this film introduced an interesting idea to the genre and added a great dose of revenge. I also have to throw in a quick praise for how great the effects were for this film! The effects and story are the only real positives in the film. This could have been a film that breathed fresh air into the genre, but instead, it fell flat and resulted in a disjointed mess.
Rating: 4/10
If you would like to check out the film for yourself, it will be hitting theaters on Halloween nationwide!
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