Nailbiter (2013)

Director – Patrick Rea
Writers – Patrick Rea, Kendall Sin
Production Company – Ministry Machine Productions, SenoReality Pictures

Stars – Meg Saricks, Erin McGrane

IMDB PAGE

Nailbiter is an independent film made with a low budget. I can’t seem to find how much of a budget, but the Internet never lies so I’m going to go ahead and believe it. So in believing that the Director and all involved had very little to work with as far cash, I can say that I see a lot of promise in Patrick Rea.

Nailbiter has a simple story that blossoms.  A family is forced to hide for safety in a random storm shelter, during horrific storms that are taking place. The family is trapped by debris.  While trying to break free they encounter scary creatures in many forms.

 

Now that I have that out of the way I have to say this movie has a fantastic premise, but the script and acting were mediocre.  I took some notes during my movie watching.  I’m not the best at reviews so I thought for now on I would share my random notes, and perhaps discuss a few key points.

Spoilers in Notes

I really liked the intro to Nailbiters, you get lots of TV Newscasts and EB messages warning of crazy weather.  The only thing is - with such stern warnings on impending doom, you'd think the family might decide to wait on driving to go pick up their father from the airport.  However with watching horror movies, I've come to realize that sometimes if you accept a few faults it won't damn the rest of the movie for you.

Now the biggest fault in this movie to me was the actual script, not the story, but the dialogue that conveyed the story.  The lines that people utter are just really dry and super conventional, and the acting - well it's hard to say if the acting was really all that bad with what the actresses and actors were working with.  To me most of the performances come off as first time tries.

There's some really cool characters in this movie that I didn't expect.  Let's just say that there's more monsters than you think.  This was the coolest part of the story to me, super original - or maybe I've just not seen enough movies to know if it's a rip off.  This is the part I enjoyed the most.  You go in thinking it's one maybe two pesky creatures, and then the actual story gets really big.  

But again while the story is super cool, and they even manage to make things look really great on a small budget - the dang script and acting go and mess it up.  I think what I'm really trying to convey here is that this movie could be really awesome, but it just wasn't.  I want a re-do, with a re-write of the script!  The worst lines come when the mother actually utters these lines to her scared daughters "We're all going to die here!!". Actually that whole scene is just terrible with a capital T.

I thought the creatures, during their very brief screen time, looked fantastic.  There were some other effects that didn't work out so well - can you said Moonshine bomb?  No, well neither did this movie - very well at least.  

So this whole story ends with quite a bang, let's just say that the whole town joins in at the end. Were even left with an ending that can lead right into Nailbiter 2.  I probably have come off like a seriously disliked this movie, but that's not the truth.  I think this movie has a ton of potential, but hey, it's done and it's made - so that's that.

Don't watch this movie if you can't handle a bad script and questionable acting, do watch this movie for a little breath of fresh air in the story department.  And do watch this movie if you're into low budget flicks with a little heart.

So basically this is what it is - great story with poor execution.  I have to rate it fairly in comparison to other things I've seen.  So I'll give it a 4 with a strong heartbeat, though the overall story I would rate much higher.