Movie Review: Munger Road (2009)

[pendamuse]

2009

PG-13, 84 min­utes

A group of thrill-seeking teens deter­mined to find out whether para­nor­mal activ­ity exists on remote Munger Road uncover secrets of a deadly vari­ety. Mean­while, local cops race to con­tain the hor­ror the teens have unleashed. (Netflix)

Star­ring: Bruce David­son, Ran­dall Batinkoff, Trevor Mor­gan, Brooke Peo­ples

Writer/Director: Nicholas Smith

Pro­duced by: Insom­nia Pro­duc­tions

Dis­trib­u­tor: Freestyle Releas­ing (2011) (USA) (the­atri­cal), Arch­stone Dis­tri­b­u­tion (2012) (Non-US) (all media)

(cour­tesy IMDB)

Trailer

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I wanted to like this movie. I really did. It com­bines the urban leg­end of The Ghost Chil­dren (San Anto­nio is a pop­u­lar one) and your typ­i­cal Ser­ial Killer is Loose in a small town. So far it was push­ing just the right but­tons. I was will­ing to sit through the trite begin­ning because that’s how you get to the good stuff.

Four teens go up to Munger Road telling sto­ries of doomed chil­dren hit by a train and their ghosts that push you to safety, and a nearby spook house that was the scene of mul­ti­ple killings. Mean­while, one chick is preg­nant and mad at her boyfriend (because it’s clearly ALL HIS FAULT) and acts as the wet blan­ket for most of her scenes.As the teens have their scares with the baby pow­der, you know to see the wee fin­ger­prints of the ghost chil­dren, they run into car issues (O NOES), their cell phones stop work­ing (GASP) and they split up to find help (DON’T DO IT). What could pos­si­bly go wrong?

(As an aside, mak­ing a teen preg­nant so she has a rea­son to live in hor­ror movies is becom­ing stu­pid and stale, because sur­viv­ing for the sake of sur­viv­ing isn’t enough any­more. It’s a pro-life mes­sage that loses all sense and appeal - your life isn’t impor­tant, but save the unborn baby respon­si­ble for all of your mis­placed aggres­sion not fif­teen min­utes ago!)

If you think it’s a lot going on, you’re not far wrong, and there’s still a loose ser­ial killer. The two whole cops (the wasted Bruce David­son and Ran­dall Batinkoff) sent to look for him are hav­ing zero luck, so *they* split up  - “you take the long, point­less tun­nel and I’ll take the house where the killer used to hold nefar­i­ous court and hope­fully nei­ther of us is hor­ri­bly murdered!”

dun Dun DUUUUUUUUN!

Here’s where you get pissed off. As both sto­ries con­verge and things finally start to get com­pelling - the story ends with a big old “TO BE CONTINUED”. If you’d like to see more, like how it ends or who the killer is, you’re out of luck since there is absolutely no word on whether or the rest of the movie will be filmed, and con­sid­er­ing this movie two years old - sad trumpet.

In other words, we have essen­tially two unfin­ished movies jammed into one hor­ri­bly unfin­ished movie with zero chance of any­one actu­ally fin­ish­ing it. Now I’m not sure what com­pels any­one to only film half a movie and then not have any con­crete plans to release the sec­ond half. I wouldn’t con­sider this artsy, or exper­i­men­tal, but very lazy with shades of fis­cal mis­man­age­ment. Munger Road is essen­tially a waste of 84 min­utes, because noth­ing actu­ally hap­pens - when you think you’re about to get the big reveal, which was prob­a­bly one of the teens killing off their friends with help a la Scream (oops. Spoiler Alert!), we get a black card and credits.

Here is some­thing Mr. Direc­tor failed to learn in film school - “leave them want­ing more” doesn’t mean giv­ing your audi­ence half a movie and hop­ing they pay you to make the rest. They won’t, in case you were wondering.

This movie is the equiv­a­lent of invit­ing some­one back to your place, putting on soft music, spread­ing out the appro­pri­ate bed­ding, get­ting naked, excus­ing your­self to the bath­room, and then dis­ap­pear­ing out the bath­room win­dow, get­ting into your car and dri­ving back to your real apart­ment across town.

Lose my num­ber, Munger Road.

1 - Wow Fac­tor - I thought it was going places.

2 - Wan­der­Lust - None, but you should have seen me burn up the inter­webs when the movie ended.

3 - Rewind - A few moments were filmed well, but for­get it, I don’t want to talk about them.

4 - Rec­om­mend - No. Never.

5 - (Fin­ger­prints + (Twist to Scream + the back­story of Night­mare On Elm Street)) - Any Film With An End­ing = Munger Road

6 - Net­flix Rat­ing - One Stars, because there is no Zero Star rating



haha­ha­haha: - suck­ers!
Photo Credit Planet of Terror