Review of 13Hrs (2010) by Intuciic . — 03 Feb 2013

Decent enough British horror movie to lose yourself in for 90 minutes. 13hrs has Isabella Calthorpe return home from America where she is met my snarky half brothers and a jealous best friend. Everything goes pear-shaped when a killer animal shows up.

The film has a lot of drama and tension, even if sometimes the performances don't quite match the material. The idea of setting up complex relationships involving arguing parents, downtrodden siblings, and being left to live in a small rural town, add to the intensity later on.

Unfortunately the horror scenes are anything but terrifying. The action is so hastily and poorly edited it becomes difficult to know what is going on. Rather than embracing the effects work, the camera angles, shot composition, and edits seem as though the film is ashamed of what they have produced.

As such we never get a real look at the beast, which just means that all the secrecy is unwarranted. Interesting at times, and makes good use of its set, turning an attic into a maze. It was also nice to see characters working past their conflicts and trying to think about some actual plans that may work.