Get this... the movie is like a cross between The Evil Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the Jersey Devil myth thrown in for good measure. It stars horror veterans Felissa Rose, Edwin Neal, and Ellen Sandweiss. Sounds like the recipe for a really superb horror flick, right?...WRONG!!!!! Satan's Playground proves that a great premise and good cast will only take a movie so far and not save it, in any way, from being a stinker. Absolutely brimming with horror cliché's and cheap thrills, this movie took a lot of good potential and tossed it out the window.
The film is about a couple who are headed out into the woods for a nice little camping trip with their mentally-challenged son and the wife's sister in tote. While on the road they, OF COURSE, have car trouble. After getting stuck in the mud, the man goes for help and finds an old, creepy house out in the woods. The house, OF COURSE, belongs to a family of bloodthirsty devil-worshiping killers.
Do I really need to continue further?
About the only good thing this movie had going for it was the atmosphere and cinematography. It was genuinely creepy and evil. The set-pieces were great, too. The director could have taken that and run with it a lot further. It was prevented by bad writing, bad acting, and all those annoying stereotypical situations. It reminded me of a cheap horror movie that would be made around the early-mid 90s before horror started to self-realize a lot.
Overall, it's a very trite and lackluster effort.
The film is about a couple who are headed out into the woods for a nice little camping trip with their mentally-challenged son and the wife's sister in tote. While on the road they, OF COURSE, have car trouble. After getting stuck in the mud, the man goes for help and finds an old, creepy house out in the woods. The house, OF COURSE, belongs to a family of bloodthirsty devil-worshiping killers.
Do I really need to continue further?
About the only good thing this movie had going for it was the atmosphere and cinematography. It was genuinely creepy and evil. The set-pieces were great, too. The director could have taken that and run with it a lot further. It was prevented by bad writing, bad acting, and all those annoying stereotypical situations. It reminded me of a cheap horror movie that would be made around the early-mid 90s before horror started to self-realize a lot.
Overall, it's a very trite and lackluster effort.