Review of No One Lives (2013) by Matt S — 13 Sep 2013

No One Lives is a pointless and mindless slasher that takes huge steps back from the genre and brings nothing refreshing to the game, making the film a tedious and senseless exercise of hack them up. Not a single character was really worth rooting for and sure it was entertaining to have the tables turn on the crooked criminals and the main villain was pretty badass and his killings were very brutal. This movie though has no real reason to exist because there are tons of better slashers at there that will bury it in comparison. No One Lives is quite an idiotic title as it states basically how predictable the film is and maybe that was their intentions to show how weak this genre has become, but they still should of broke through those clichés and surprise us, but it just fell victim to them so the joke is on them. There isn't even a good chase scene and nothing was suspenseful or even entertaining, it's just stale leftovers.

The acting wasn't horrible, but no one really stood out to me. The final girl Emma played by Adelaide Clemens was semi interesting but nothing makes her stand apart from other final girls, thanks to a weak script, even though it could be entertaining to make a sequel with her character getting revenge. Adelaide seems to be in some pretty weak genre offerings as of late, which is a shame because seems like she is a talent to watch out for but the movies she is in is for from it. Luke Evans steals the show in this movie, as he seems to be having the most fun and has more interesting things to do. Luke plays Driver, a seemingly harmless man on the outside but holds a sinister hobby on the inside, which is a skillful and ruthless killer. Luke gave the most decent performance here but again the movie has a weak script that didn't go in a refreshing direction and had absolutely no back-story, making the experience a numb one.

Director, Ryuhei Kitamura has some solid efforts in the past including Versus and The Midnight Meat Train and seemed to be climbing up the ladder to even better films but he definitely fell off that ladder and landed at square one with No One Lives. Nothing in this film was inspired and was like a quick paycheck for everyone involved, there were no passion, no effort, just a cardboard cut out of a slasher from the late 1980's or 1990's and not a good one. First time writer David Cohen doesn't seem like he ever watched a horror movie before to know what to do and what not to do in these films as every character made asinine decisions. Maybe David is new to this genre and I hope this is a lesson learned and will make his next story more suspenseful and less predictable. I just don't really know what their true intentions were in making this film.

Overall, No One Lives isn't the worst horror film I've seen but it sure as hell is the most pointless and forgettable one to date. Gore hounds might find some enjoyment here but if you like your horror movies smart, suspenseful, scary, entertaining and with at least some speck of originality LOOK ELSEWHERE!