American Weapon (2014) Directed by Cliff Vasko

This is a weird one. It looks look a decent genre movie, with a good atmosphere to it but the movie itself is actually terrible!

Of course most modern slashers aren't all that great or original but at least the majority of them are still somewhat watchable. This movie however really isn't! Nothing about it works out. The story is abysmal, the killer an absolutely terrible one and the movie never gets exciting, tense or original to watch.

The premise of having a bunch of friends spending a couple of days together, somewhere in a cabin in the woods is of course far from anything original or very promising sounding but that hardly is the biggest problem of the movie. Problem is that nothing in this movie ever gets handled or executed very well. There basically is no good tension or mystery present throughout the movie, which is really due to its writing and the way its character behave.

Even though friends go missing, nobody seems to be all that worried or too concerned about anything and they rather go smoke some more weed and have sex, instead of go looking for their friends, or try to warn the authorities. There is never a sense of danger or urgency present in this movie and all of the horror/slasher moments happen very randomly, without a good build up to it. It truly all makes this a far from effective or very engaging genre movie.

But a big problem for the movie as well as that its killer is an absolutely terrible one. Not that he's terrible at killing people but there is absolutely nothing scary or even threatening about him. Just an 'average' guy, who's on a killing-spree for no good reason really. the killings themselves also hardly are anything that creative or memorable and there isn't even all that much gore present throughout the movie.

Also incredibly weird and annoying to see how this movie tries to throw in a political angle as well. It doesn't suit the genre and also really doesn't work out at all for the movie. It seems that the movie was really trying to make a statement but just as everything else; it falls incredibly flat.

If I still have to say something positive it would be that most of the acting isn't anything too bad and the characters themselves also aren't as stereotypical and formulaic as normally often is the case for a movie of this sort.

Other than that, it's way worse than just the average genre attempt and it most definitely isn't worth your time!

3/10

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