THE TASK

What’s it all about?

Something diabolical is taking place on the set of “The Task,” a new reality show in which players compete for a cash prize by enduring a night in an abandoned prison and completing a series of creepy tasks designed for maximum terror. As six college students explore, things start to go amiss. Locked in this decrepit, labyrinthine prison, the contestants and the production staff start to realize that the scary reality show they thought they were taping has become real horror.

 The Hughes Verdict!

Going by the trailers on this DVD, I guess this is the last of this years After Dark Originals.  All the collection of this new horror brand carry all the same trailers and the only time it changes is if you watching the particular film that is missing from the line up, so after the likes of Fertile Ground, Second’s Apart, Husk and Prowl, the last film to enter into my horror juices is The Task, a film that I have to admit I had my eye on because the trailer made it look ever so good!

What we have here is all the ingredients of a sure fire hit, a concept that could not go wrong, a horror film that will pass the time away quite nicely.  I mean a premise set in a rundown prison where a bogyman haunts the corridors is a great one, if you chuck in a bunch of teens who believe they are playing a reality game show but at the end they are fighting for the lives and not the prize money on offer, then you have got a pretty good slash film.  Nothing really could go wrong!

Of course the stupidity on offer brings any hope of the 3 S’s to a minimum.  What are the 3’S’s?  Suspense! Scares! and Shit My Pants Scary!

The Task does not start well and continues in this manor all the way to the dumb ending that you will sigh with despair.  We start with an abduction of a group of teens who are subjected to a horrible ordeal where they think they have been kidnapped and probably on their way to their death.  When the blindfolds come off, they are told that it was all part of a new TV show called The Task in which they auditioned for a couple of months back.  Now I am not being funny, but if I was snatched from the street against my will, with thoughts of “I am going to die, please help me I am going to die!” ringing through my head, then I would not be too happy to find out it was all a prank.  But there are just no complaints from this bunch of thicko’s, they just stand there and laugh it off and then get excited when told they have completed the first part of a chance of winning the prize money.

The lunacy continues when they are told in order to play the game they have to spend a night in an old abandoned prison (Like you do) where rumours of the old warden haunt the corridor and kill anyone who dares enter.  Now if you are told this, would you?  Even if you do not believe in the ghost world you would consider the proposal for a bit.  But these lot, well they just smile, giggle and walk in.

“Yeah no problem me old geezer! Open the doors so we can get butchered like feck!”

Now if that sounds a bit british then its because most of the cast are from the land of Britain where the teens on show have a day off from rioting to actually star in a film.  Those of the older generation, if you ever wondered what happened to Joey from the British Sitcom Bread, then he is in here, displaying the worst Movie fake accent since Dick Van Dyke decided to sing along with Mary Poppins!

The gang enter and get locked in, a freaky clown appears on a TV telling them what “Tasks!” they have got to do, the first being that they have to summon the spirit of the dead evil warden (yes its that dumb) and soon he appears in the shape of the infamous actual prisoner Bronson -not the actual one silly, but a lookalike- a warden who executed, raped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of prisoners which means murder and bloodshed ahead for these poor teens.

The dumbness continues when the film makers spot the “ghost!” on screen but dismiss it because they think the studio bosses are playing a trick on them (seriously I am not making this up) and the lunacy continues when the makers continue to watch while this unwelcome guest starts going to work believing the logic that the teens themselves are in on all the joke at their expense.

Its the stupidity of the script that makes The Task a very hard slog to watch!  Even if the script this bad could have meant the slash element carries the film over the line but it does not even play like a slasher, instead we have the film trying to build tension and suspense but that is a fatal flaw when you do not believe what is going on could actually happen.   What we needed was a bogyman going full mental on his unwelcome guests but The Task is unsure of what its trying to be.  Slasher fans will be annoyed that it does not try hard enough with its inital tease and overall horror fans will find the lack of scares deeply frustrating.

But just when you think the film could not get any worse, we then come to the climax which will have your howling with laughter.  The twist is one of the worst I have seen in a very long time and a turning point I should have seen coming because it follows the dumb logic that the film carries through out!  Just when you think you have suffered enough, we then get another twist which finally got my interest but its so rushed and frantic that we are left with nothing but a bitter aftertaste and a feeling of a wasted opportunity.

If you want to see a proper Horror Reality Show film then check out My Little Eye because this is worse than the awful Halloween Resurrection and that coming from me tells you all you need to know about The Task!

 Rating: