one-nine-eighty While being annoying at times, racist at others, and up its own self-righteousness at other times - this film ended up being mildly decent actually - but only mildly decent mind you. Some of it has been done better elsewhere but some of it is annoyingly fresh and decent. A good reminder of how simple and raw a horror film can be without the need for a bloodbath or CGI monsters. It's all about how a journalist's trip to Poland goes horribly wrong. In actual fact the story should never have gotten off the ground. A young journalist cons her boss into paying for a trip to report on a story. Instead of going to Oregon, as intended, she kind of misappropriates company money and lies in order to go to Poland; her intention is to investigate the disappearance of an American backpacker. Her theory is, writing a great story will make her boss forgive her, but also might get her moved to reporting big stories instead of writing stories on bees. In reality she shouldn't have needed to go, there's police, detectives, investigator - a whole host of other people who should have done the investigating. When the 3 people get to Poland they are treated as outsiders. The Polish people are portrayed as backwards, culturally inept people who practically live a Mormon lifestyle. The American friends actually find this as intimidating as much as they do the language barrier - FFS, did they not expect a language barrier, did they expect they can just wander around anywhere they want without being questioned, wandering into gardens, farm houses, stables, cursed forests - FFS - one of the many reasons they deserved to die! There are no subtitles in the film, which is done on purpose to make the audience feel as detached as the 3 friends, it's easy enough to figure out what's going on though so threat not. Things start going bad. They are hounded by locals, the find a cursed statue in the permanently foggy forest; they bump into religious cult extremists. I don't mind spoiling this film on account of it being pretty obvious - people who see the statue get cursed by an ancient evil and turn into killers. The Religious extremists are actually doing humanity a favour by killing anybody who sees the statue.This gets a 4 from me. It was a decent attempt and would be amazing if this was a final year film student's production. There's lot s of room for improvement though - it had potential and just stayed on the side of not fully using that potential.

krycek19 Polish people are not living in medieval times. Contrary to what stupid bigot Americans, that has never been outside America, much less in Europe might think, polish people are just as modern as the rest of us. Al though not as stupid as Americans who believe something like this actually takes place in real life.The lead is an incredibly stupid woman who gets what she deserves at the end of the movie.Do not watch this, unless you're a stupid retarded American. To us Europeans and people with a normal intelligence it's sheer torture to sit through this crap.Do not believe the crap either, where people are comparing this to Hostel. Hostel is a lot better and has a good story, good acting, real suspense and horror. Everything this load of crap lacks!!!

lathe-of-heaven I wasn't going to write a review because I felt that the ones here pretty much give a good idea as to the type of film it is. However, as I read many of the comments, I could see how VERY polarized the reviews are.So, I thought it might be helpful to TRY to give a general description to help people to determine whether they would enjoy it or not. Basically, this is the kind of movie that is ultimately rather simple and mostly ambiguous until the end. Some people here found it kind of boring, stupid, and confusing and really hated it. However, if you notice, it seems that most people here did like it; at least that is the way it seemed to shake out to me. I think the basic vibe and atmosphere of the film grabbed a lot of people and resonated with them, thus the strong positive reactions. But, apparently, not with all... So, what is the dividing factor?I liked the film and found it to be very creepy and suspenseful. But, I am the kind of person who REALLY likes atmospheric, ambiguous movies, probably because I have an EXTREMELY vivid imagination. So, my mind quite easily fills in all the supposed 'empty places' with more Horror and mood, even when things are not being explained very well. Also, you are VERY much left in the dark as to exactly what is going on right up until the end; so, if you are easily intrigued by this kind of Mystery, then you would be more likely to get caught up in it.Please note, the movie takes place in a foreign land. So the people pretty much ONLY speak their language and there are NO subtitles. This was clearly done DELIBERATELY to UP the Mystery quotient and to keep the audience guessing and wondering what the HELL is going on. And it REALLY works! You may or may not like that.So, all in all, this film is pretty much a simple, although effectively made, Old-School Horror film, made with kind of an Old Fashioned atmospheric style, not unlike some of the old really Gothic Hammer films, but more contemporary. Also, VERY importantly, it is religiously themed; some people either really love that type of film or they really don't, so keep that in mind.It is kind of difficult to explain this in a way to help others to see whether they would enjoy this movie or not. But, I would say that IF you are the kind of person who VERY EASILY AND QUICKLY gets caught up in a mystery where you DON'T really quite know what is going on, AND if you do like kind of Old-School, atmospheric, religiously themed Horror stories, THEN you have a good chance of enjoying it.I hope this helps...

rake-linggar The story had some mystery, good plot, and of course, the scare and chill you would want see from a horror movie. It certainly was not the kind of movie that just mindlessly rip and tear someone's inside. This was the kind of movie that made you curious about what is going on, about the origin of the evil that is plaguing the village. It certainly gave me the kind of scary atmosphere that enjoy from a horror movie.Unfortunately, the reason I didn't give a higher rating for this movie is because many scenes contains polish scripts which kind of makes you care less about what is currently going on in the story. But, don't worry. In the end, they made the entire story quite clear and made those dialogues feel less important to know.