The Hamiltons

source: The Hamiltons

The Hamiltons tells the story of the four Hamilton siblings, teenager Francis (Cory Knauf), twins Wendell (Joseph McKelheer) & Darlene (Mackenzie Firgens) & the eldest David (Samuel) who is now the surrogate parent in charge. The Hamilton's move house a lot, Franics is unsure why& is unhappy with the way things are. The fact that his brother's & sister kidnap, imprison & murder people in the basement doesn't help relax or calm Francis' nerves either. Francis know's something just isn't right & when he eventually finds out the truth things will never be the same again... Co-written, co-produced & directed by Mitchell Altieri & Phil Flores as The Butcher Brothers (who's only other film director's credit so far is the April Fool's Day (2008) remake, enough said) this was one of the 'Films to Die For' at the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest (or whatever it's called) & in keeping with pretty much all the other's I've seen I thought The Hamiltons was complete total & utter crap. I found the character's really poor, very unlikable & the slow moving story failed to capture my imagination or sustain my interest over it's 85 & a half minute too long 86 minute duration. The there's the awful twist at the end which had me laughing out loud, there's this really big sustained build up to what's inside a cupboard thing in the Hamiltons basement & it's eventually revealed to be a little boy with a teddy. Is that really supposed to scare us? Is that really supposed to shock us? Is that really something that is supposed to have us talking about it as the end credits roll? Is a harmless looking young boy the best 'twist' ending that the makers could come up with? The boring plot plods along, it's never made clear where the Hamiltons get all their money from to buy new houses since none of them seem to work (except David in a slaughterhouse & I doubt that pays much) or why they haven't been caught before now. The script tries to mix in every day drama with potent horror & it just does a terrible job of combining the two to the extent that neither aspect is memorable or effective. A really bad film that I am struggling to say anything good about. Despite being written & directed by the extreme sounding Butcher Brothers there's no gore here, there's a bit of blood splatter & a few scenes of girls chained up in a basement but nothing you couldn't do at home yourself with a bottle of tomato ketchup & a camcorder. The film is neither scary & since it's got a very middle-class suburban setting there's zero atmosphere or mood. There's a lesbian & suggest incestuous kiss but The Hamiltons is low on the exploitation scale & there's not much here for the horror crowd. Filmed in Petaluma in California this has that modern low budget look about it, it's not badly made but rather forgettable. The acting by an unknown (to me) cast is nothing to write home about & I can't say I ever felt anything for anyone. The Hamiltons commits the cardinal sin of being both dull & boring from which it never recovers. Add to that an ultra thin story, no gore, a rubbish ending & character's who you don't give a toss about & you have a film that did not impress me at all.

When I saw this at a shop I thought it looked really good and original. Like Wolfs Creek meets Texas chainsaw massacre, and I mean it only cost three quid (around $6). To be honest I don't think it was even worth that. It seemed like the directors- the 'butcher brothers' couldn't decide whether wanted to do a artsy sort of horror or a gory slasher horror. It ended up with a cliché ridden gory sadistic hour and fifteen minutes with all the characters being one dimensional and you couldn't care less what happened to them but to try to make the audience care about the characters they added a useless monologue at the end and the beginning of the film which to be perfectly honest wasn't needed. The only good part really was the middle/end- I won't ruin it for you. But that was the only "good "part. Overall a pointless watch. It felt like a two hour film but was in fact only 75 minutes. If you want an artsy film-don't bother. If you want a slasher movie- don't bother- The film moves so slowly with nothing ever happening.

This is so bad, so very very bad. The acting is the biggest joke in history. Don't even bother to see it, i did ff it after 20 min and it was just as disappointing in the end as in the beginning... I really don't understand peoples taste, I'm a horror movie fan and I'm not fastidious but I DO HAVE A LIMIT! Maybe it was a quarter of a star better then the beginning of The Hoast but that's it. So I recommend you don't waste the 15 minutes you'll be able to watch. I mean the acting is better done by monkeys. And the big brother with the parental role is just awful. Don't they pay characters in C-movies? No I must say it's not the first time I think a horror movie is bad but it's absolutely one in my down ten movies and it will be charing places with Portrait of a vampire, Cabin by the lake, The Hoast!

It's always a bad sign when the director of the film turns out to be "The _____ Brothers." Personally, I blame the Coens for starting that particular obnoxious Hollywood trend. Another is having utterly gratuitous lesbian scenes in your movie. Hey, if you want to shoot porno, shoot porno. If you want to shoot a film about a teenage Psycho Family Robinson, then do it. But then again, The Hamiltons lingers so lovingly over every blood spurt and flying glob of flesh that I suppose simple lesbian * comes as a welcome relief from the gore *. The Butcher Bros. certainly try to go the Chan-wook Park route, but replaces Mr. Vengeance's strict attention to detail with a sloppy TV sort of good-enough-for-Dawson's-Creek approach to composition that quickly grows tiresome.

This is the first film of the Horrorfest I have watched and after Im almost thinking I don't need to see any of the others. I was told its a "thinking mans horror movie" and have to say that if this was supposed to make me think I shutter to think what the splatter/gore films in the collection will be like. Don't get me wrong not even the gore in this film is worth sitting through. The plot is very washed out with way too much art for arts sake. The camera effects and music are out of place most of the time and the characters are banal to say the least. Several characters and scenes seem worthless in the end when they start to reveal some of the hooks of "The Hamiltons". I figured out who Lenny was about half hour in when I figured out the movie. I was so visually under whelmed and confused by the Lenny reveal that I completely felt ripped off. I expected what I got but they could have gone so much further, in fact all the gore falls completely flat. With movies out there like "Hostel" and "Saw" you need to come a little better for a film that is "considered to graphic or too disturbing for general audiences".

Terrible acting, lame plot, stupid story and just all around terrible movie sums up this piece of junk. It was excruciating to sit through. Just awful. Do not waste one penny on this. The movie theaters should feel bad about actually putting this movie out there for people to watch. This "horror" film was not even in the least bit scary, creepy or disturbing. It was in no way visually appealing. The acting was so terrible by all of the actors that any attempt to draw you into the movie through dialog are completely destroyed within moments of the actor/actress opening their mouth. Plus the entire story, i don't know why someone would make a movie with this story AGAIN. Do not waste your time or money. Even if it's a free ticket don't waste one moment viewing this movie. You will feel dumber for watching it.

This is the second movie I saw for Horrorfest this past weekend, The Gravedancers being the first. Gravedancers was better. I can only guess from watching this that the production must have been quite limited. I will admit the story started out interesting but really fizzled for me in the end. We weren't really given time to sympathize or understand any of the characters which only made each of their erratic characteristics even more annoying. I have to mention that there was also a bit of mis-casting with a 12-year-old boy acting as Sheriff. The only reason I sat through the whole film was to find out what the big secret was, which turned out to not be all that interesting. Some more background about the family would have helped but they didn't really seem like a family at all to begin with. To me, this film is so amateur that I couldn't even see putting it on DVD. The four rating is for the initial potential the story might have had. This was one to skip for horrorfest.

Without effective indulgence of the supernatural or the poetic motivating nuances of humanity, all this creative team has to hope for is effective usage of its middling, unoriginal elements. 'Party of Five' gone maniacal then genetically unescapable there's little rooting interest because the singular non-homicidal element is a second-rate bland awful-acting 'Wes Bentley' mopester. In fact, all of the acting is skin deep. Even though the dark-haired women appeal, the salaciousness is kept to a minimum. No nudity here. Also lacking are sufficient buckets of blood. All sensations are kept at a teasing, safe distance...an unfortunate fact considering the given name of the directors is 'butcher.' Only the soundtrack, the droning angsty alt-country and the tense fluctuating score provide any palpable tension. Sometimes some static storyboarded compositions add appealing low-angles that adds to the malaise...but for a film that calls itself horror, I did not even get close to flinching once. Perhaps a greater emphasis on societal rejuvenation through blood intake, scenes directed with varying geometric shapes outside the square, and a sustained focus on playfulness through the family's maliciousness or traps sympathetic characters need to escape in order to escape their dilemma would have improved my opinion, but this was not a good start to my excursion through horrorfest.

The Hamiltons is one of the best independent horror films since Saw. More of an intense character study than anything else, this disturbing creep show takes a tired concept and successfully gives it a refreshing, and even humorous, twist. If this film is any indication, The Butcher Brothers are a pioneering duo who should be watched in the coming years, whose ability to tell an engrossing and twisted story is bold and unique. The Hamiltons are just like every other family. Or so it would seem. How well do we really know our neighbors? And all that goes on behind closed doors. After their parents die, the four children are left to care, and survive, for themselves. There's David, who has taken up the fatherly role and does the best he can at providing for his brothers and sister. Frances, the high schooler who - just like every other teenager - is still discovering who he is and how to fit in and cope with this strange and confusing world. And the twins, Wendell and Darlene, who are more of the outcasts and have a relationship with each other that may raise a few eyebrows. Every new town they settle into - they've lived in 6 different houses in two years - a dark secret surrounds their existence. A secret they'll kill to keep, and kill to survive. It took me by surprise to see how The Hamiltons worked on many different levels, and not just as another generic horror flick. Quite profoundly, it puts our society and culture under scrutiny. It plays off that always thought-provoking idea that though we may put our best foot forward to the outside world, it simply acts as a mask hiding who we really are behind closed doors. It poses questions about what it means to be happy, to be content, even normal. Questions that don't have any answers, but by which we define ourselves both to ourselves and to society. Could The Hamiltons be nothing more than a study of a quintessential dysfunctional family? The condition that plagues the Hamiltons can simply be seen as a masquerade to mask the film's social commentary. It's worth a thought. Hamiltons also stands as a great psychological film. It takes advantage of its low budget by making a movie that is told by its fascinating characters, rather than relying on cheap tricks. And though the actual amount of thrills in the film may be shortly numbered, it has no problem maintaining its creepy and atmospheric undertone. It's a disturbing film that captures an element of horror that isn't seen very often anymore. Whereas today the trend continues to drift towards providing films that are over-stylized and gimmicky, The Hamiltons is raw and gritty, but powerful. It's not a graphic film by today's standards, but plays off of the viewer's imagination, which at times is scarier than anything the film may show us. And ultimately, your reaction to the film may depend on how you like your horror served. If you're not looking for subtly rather than gruesome gore, you might as well skip this one and look elsewhere. The Hamiltons is an eerie film that'll catch your attention and never let go. It takes a concept that isn't necessarily original, but is executed in a way that's unique and vastly entertaining. For a debut film, The Butcher Brothers prove their writing and directing abilities in a way that's superior to most of what's out there today, their eye for terror both refreshing and innovative. And with a crop of rising actors whose talent holds great potential, The Hamiltons is outright one of the best and most enjoyable horror films to come out this year. It may give you reason to take a second look at your neighbors next time you see them. Two-Word Review: Brooding Darkness Review posted by Burtonesque on www.boxofficefanatic.com