Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59133 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-08-09
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

Customer Reviews

Great old-school Horror flick
I'd grown up with horror movies, not only off course, but fell in love with the genre early on. We had lots of fun sessions and most of those horror movie somehow spread that joy the makers must have had during the making. We did that ourselves and really had pure fun times filming monsters and gore stuff. Now there's this new horror film generation in my opinion just as SAW, CREEP, the remake of the CHAINSAW MASSACRE and the latter shows best what I wanna say: take the original and watch the remake afterwards and the point is obvious: there's A LOT more sadism to the new kind of horror movies. While the title and the story of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is by far the most horrifying part of the movie (you never really see dismemberments or killings, it is the most terrifying but least graphic movie) in the remake it is all shown to you: one guy gets hooked up painfully in the neck, both legs get graphically dismembered, the guy stays alive as long as one can imagine. Same goes for CREEP in my opinion. The brutality is just A LOT more graphic these days than ever before while I truly find that the tense isn't so much influenced by it in an all too positive way. Don't get me wrong: I own the Peter Jackson Splatterfests (bad taste, braindead, meet..., even Heavenly cr.), I'm a big fan of ICHI THE KILLER, but with both there's something more to it. In ICHI the violence has a clear purpose that most would never recognise. You can replace the violence and sadism by love (which has violence and sadism to it naturally) and understand the whole movie differently, but the contents will remain the same. With the Jackson Splatter movies, there's a lot of humour and downright overthetop-stuff that is shown to you so uncompromising you can only laugh.

I'm saying this all for one reason: the locals goes back to the old-school-horror feeling. The movie is not really hard in terms of violence and gore and there are some mediocre clichees to it to begin with. The ending turns out to be a bit over-dramatically performed but satisfies nevertheless, a different climax for once. But regarding the many flaws of the general horror flick, this one is on the good side for sure.

THE LOCALS starts quiet similiar like JEEPERS CREEPERS: two buddies are on a surf-trip somewhere and meet two pretty ladies during the search who are looking for a party that should take place nearby. They follow them at hi-speed, but due to an accident get off the way and cannot bring the car back on the street. Their search for help (it's night... it's deserted...) brings them to a farmer house where they witness something very ungood. The less you know, the better it is. I always like the idea of deserted towns, buildings etc., and while they're doing what people should do in those situations (that is running, hiding, praying...) they find all of the local buildings to be deserted and messed up, although the locals themselves are not absent. The answer to the question is nothing all too original. But if you're into simple horror movies like Jeepers Creepers and others, you should check this one out.

I've seen better movies indeed. I'm more into this kind of horror movies while the texas chainsaw massacre, creep and saw is much more of an extremly sadistic apporach to the genre. I could've stomached a lot more gore and blood for sure with the locals, but it wasn't necessary and gave me just enough creeps to be satisfied.

Diverting Antipodean horror
Mention New Zealand horror movies to most people and you will probably get one name thrown at you-Peter Jackson ,whose early movies were vigorous and gore drenched tales marked by frequent gross outs and a deft line in mordaunt humour .
Now ,here is another tale from the twin island state and while its no masterpiece it is well made and never dull.It starts as if we are going to get another variant on the city boys trappped in a bucolic hellhole theme ,when two young male friends setting out for a weekend of sun and surf are stranded in the back of beyond .They witness what appears to be a murder and set out to escape from the killer and his circle of distinctly weird associates .However all is not as it seems -a cyclic pattern is being worked out here ,and it involves two youung women ,a land dispute and a race against time if they are to escape with their lives and identities intact .

The plot twist -and it would be unfair to reveal details -is neatly worked out and ,even allowing for a shoestring budget the production values are pretty fair ,especially the limpid colour photography .Nicely if unexceptionally acted and well written ,with an attention to characterisation rare in low budget horror movies ,this repays attention from those looking for new names and locales in the genre

Surprisingly good
I had low expectations for this one, rented it on a whim having never heard of it before. Turned out to be a really good movie. I thought they did an excellent job building and keeping the tension. Although it is billed as a horror flick, I found it to be more of a suspense movie. It took me half way through the movie to final "get it" as to what was going on. I thought they did an excellent job of giving clues, but making it more obvious as things progressed. If I watched it again I'm guessing I would notice things that I missed the first time since I did not know the secret.

The acting was nothing to rave about, somewhat clunky at times, but the plot was so good it was easy to forgive. Most of the movie takes place at night, but they must have had some powerful lights as the places where the characters were tended to be extremely well lit. An odd effect, but I liked it since you could tell what was going on instead of some horror movies where things get too dark and you have to guess what's happening.

As an odd aside, I believe the director, Greg Page, is one of the Wiggles.