It’s that time of year again. For the third year in a row After Dark Pictures goes on the hunt to find some of the scares movies, or so they claim, in what has become known as Horrorfest. However, of the 24 movies this festival has given us, only a small few are worthy seeing. Sadly Perkins 14 isn’t one of them – a fan inspire movie where hundreds of filmmakers pitched their ideas and selected the cast. Similar to last years Mulberry Street the movie attempts an original stab at the zombie genre but ends an uninspiring heap.
In Perkins 14, a man named Ronald Perkins (Richard Brake) kidnapped fourteen children in the small town of Stone Cove. Ten years later Officer Dwayne Hopper (Patrick O’Kane), whose son was one of the of the kidnapped, shows up for duty and is told that in the holding cell is Ronald Perkins. Dwayne beings to question him and becomes suspicious of Perkins when he see he is missing a finger. Dwayne visits Perkins’ home and confirms he is the kidnapper, but what has become of the children? Perkins has create zombies out of them to exact revenge on the town. Now Dwayne is face with either killing his zombie son or trying to save him.
The best actor here is probably Perkin since he has the right level of creepiness. Sadly we don’t see much of him once the movie gets going. All that we are left with are less than stellar performance by the rest of the cast. However, the biggest flaw is that this movie is just another re-hashing of the basic zombie formula and it is not even a good one. Once the movie sets up the premise, it just becomes a race to kill or be killed. As for the scare factor the movie isn’t that scary either and intense scenes are so dark I could barely make out anything. For those who like their horror with blood and gore there is some of that here, but without a decent plot I just lost interest in the whole thing.
Review By Brad Peterson
Release Date: March 31, 2009
