Review of Cub (2014) by Brett H — 04 Oct 2015

A noble effort for a crowd-funded, Belgian flick, but this film tries to be too many things at once and as the saying goes, "Jack of all trades, master of none". Cub or "Welp" (which was my gut reaction after it was over) could've been great, but the story never pans out, we're left with so many questions at the end, and it's literally tension-less.

The story is a group of cub scouts go into the woods for a retreat and they're being stalked by the local legend of a feral boy who preys on people in the woods; cool, with it so far. Then we inexplicably get another villain, a grown man who has set Saw-like traps in the trees for god knows who, and you're never sure what their alliance is or what the hell is going on and just for fun they decide to make him invincible like Jason Voorhees or something.

Some of the kills were gleefully creative (one involving a beehive was a lot of fun) but the film also chose to include a violent and wholly unnecessary scene involving animal cruelty that went on way too long and I didn't see the point.

Then we reach the ending which contains a "surprise" reveal that even the most novice of film-goers could figure out and they try to play it off like it's this SHOCKING reveal, and I sat there dumbfounded.

It gets creativity points, but the lack of terror from the villain(s) and complete cluster-fuck of horror concepts thrown into the bag didn't work and this was a real missed opportunity.