Episode 50 (2011)

Episode 50 (2011)
Directed by: Joe Smalley, Tess Smalley
Written by: Ian Holt, Joe Smalley, Tess Smalley
Starring: Chris Perry, Josh Folan, Natalie Wetta

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDcOxLuBE5M[/youtube]

Episode 50 (2011): Out now on DVD

(15) Running time: 76 minutes

Director: Joe Smalley, Tess Smalley

Writers: Joe Smalley, Tess Smalley

Starring: Josh Folan, Chris Perry, Natalie Wetta

Reviewed by: Matt Wavish, official HCF critic

I read a synopsis of this and thought, “hey that sounds like a complete rip off of Grave Encounters”, and you know what, it tries very very hard to copy it, even better it. However, what we are left with is a complete load of twoddle, a messy, crappy, embarrassing excuse of a horror film which should see the makers themselves locked in a mental asylum for making such nonsense! Grave Encounters worked, Episode 50 doesn’t, simple as that. The actors should all have wonderful careers ahead of them in something other than acting, as they will not get snapped up after such shocking performances, and I doubt we will hear anything from the directors ever again.

Episode 50 follows two rival TV crews who investigate paranormal happenings, one of them to try and prove the existence of ghosts and save people, the other are religious nuts. Both crews are unlikable, and as they come together on the ill fated Episode 50, the actors do their best to try and make a point of the tensions between the two groups and the whole thing turns into a comedy sketch. The film opens with one of the crews on one of their episodes as they help a couple having poltergeist issues, and then we quickly move on as dying man asks for them to enter “the most haunted mental asylum in the world” Oh yes, here is yet another film which has the most haunted blah blah blah! The catch? “There is no catch” says the painfully crap actor trying to be all sinister and scary as he talks as if on slow motion.

The mental asylum looks mighty clean for an abandoned one, and the film decides to jump through different times from the past to the present which do nothing but confuse and irritate. Since I kind of lost interest, I became lost as to which timeline I was supposed to be following, however none of them were scary in the slightest. The film moves at a snail’s pace for the most part, and considering the already short running time, this is not good at all. The actors seem to get worse as the film moves on, and once the special effects start to show their ugly, piss poor faces, all you can do is cry at how shockingly bad this film is. There is even some handheld camera work for the all important realism, but there is horror movie music playing over it, now how would that happen?

The scares, (what there are of them) are poorly timed and badly executed, with not one ghost being even remotely scary. There is a sort of Demon at one point, and blimey its shit. The whole film is rubbish beyond belief, and don’t even get me started on the daft religious teachings that also rear their ugly head as the religious crew get all high and mighty. Avoid this dribble like the plague!

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