Horrorfest 2009 - Part One - Dying Breed

Maybe I will start a series of reviews over the Horrorfest (8 Films to Die For) for 2009.  The first one I chose (with Mom and Dad, naturally) was Dying Breed.  A lot of familiar faces in this one.  First of all, we have Leigh Whannell; that is, Adam from Saw.  Alongside of him we have Nathan Phillips, who starred in Wolf Creek.

"Shit."

The premise is pretty simple.  Four people go off looking for some extinct cat or something out in the wilderness of Tasmania.  The story, however, is pretty convoluted, and I was left with a kind of "eh?" reaction by the end.  The Last Girl is obviously the blonde.  Her sister lived out in the wilderness for some time about twelve years ago, but she was found dead in the river.  Of course, blondie must finish her life's work, which is finding  a creature that no American has ever heard or cared about.  They live out in the bushes, but something else lives there too.  The "Pieman," who apparently makes people into pies.

Poof!

Anyway, things start to go bad once they're actually out in the woods, as things are wont to do.  Not that things were much better in the little town they stopped at first, which is full of dangerous inbreds wielding banjos (kind of).  None of them have real teeth, but it's actually plot point.  Because, you know, they eat people.  So their dentures have been sharpened.  Yes, that's right.  Even the creepy little girl's.  (OBVIOUS SPOILER: the girl is blondie's sister's kid).

Besides dining on these backpackers, they seem just as intent on screwing them to deepen the gene pool.  So, all around bad time for these people.  This movie is basically a hybrid of Wrong Turn and Deliverance (but in beautiful scenic  Australia!)  There's a gratuitous scene of puppy slaughter in which some haggard woman smashes the heads of inbred puppies in.  Foreshadowing?  Yes, indeed.  Anyway, this movie rushes towards a confusing climax.  The Pieman is apparently still alive (after about what? a hundred years?  But to be fair, one of his eyes is wonky) and he's chasing them and the villagers are chasing after them, so they have a show down on a bridge.  Not wanting to be raped and have her teeth ripped out, blonde tosses herself off.  Adam-from-Saw is naturally upset.  The police show up and the entire thing is "busted," but not before the puppy-killer kills herself for some inexplicable reason.  So Adam-from-Saw is drinking to tea, and, surprise, it's drugged.  He wakes up in some shack somewhere and is molested by some guy, and for a tense moment, it seemed he might get Deliverance treatment.  But no, they reveal that blondie is still alive and in the same predicament as himself.  The door closes on her screaming while the creepy little girl gets all up in his grill.  If you know what I mean.

So, overall: poor gore.  There's an intestine scene and someone gets shot in the face with an arrow (and survives).  It's not scary and the rape thing just kind of makes it awkward.  Would I watch it again?  Probably.  The production values are pretty good, and the acting is decent.  Low nudity, but there's also a low victim pool, so at the halfway mark in the film I start to ask, "Can these people die already?"

If I had a rating method, I'd give this a three, because I know the rest of the Horrorfest is going to be terrible.  Anyway.