Nine Lives (2002 Video) User Reviews

Not Bad Enough to be Enjoyable

[nikmaack · 1/10 · 30 July 2008]

It's bad. But it takes itself very seriously, and it's not bad enough to be enjoyably bad. When will someone let Paris Hilton completely loose, so she can make a truly abominable film? I'm talking something of "Glen or Glenda" caliber. That's why I rented the flick -- I was hoping for a true abortion of cinema. Instead, this film is merely born brain damaged,

Things get close to deliciously terrible when one of the characters begins to piece together parts of the puzzle. Without spoiling the plot, it goes a little like this:

"Wait a minute! Maybe the Titanic didn't sink! Maybe it was a ship from outer space! That would mean the iceberg is still out there, trying to get revenge!"

"It's crazy! But it's the only thing that makes sense!"

And then it turns out that this really is the plot of the movie.

You get that here, only the premise of the film is so incredibly bland, you couldn't care less. People wandering around in a mansion, being chased. Whoopee. If only they would die faster.

I Have Returned

[claudio_carvalho · 3/10 · 19 December 2006]

In Scotland, the wealthy Tim (Patrick Kennedy) invites eight friends from school to celebrate his twenty-first anniversary in his isolated mansion. After a dinner party, his friend Tom (Lex Shrapnel) finds an old book written by an old Scottish that has been tortured centuries ago in the house with many pages written only "I Have Returned" and somehow his spirit is unleashed and possesses Tom. He hits Tim and kills Jo (Paris Hilton), switching bodies among the friends and threatening everyone in the house. From this moment on, suspicion rules the relationship of the friends that do not know who might be trustful.

I did not believe in IMDb rating and reviews and bought a couple of days ago this DVD on sale. Unfortunately, the flawed story that mix "Fallen" with the usual clichés of "slash movies of people trapped in a house" is really very bad, with a terrible screenplay and awful and ridiculous dialogs. Most of the young cast shows strength, but the script really does not help. The greatest attraction, Paris Hilton, with the name highlighted on the cover of the DVD, has a minor participation and her character is the first one to die. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Nove Vidas" ("Nine Lives")

A horror they say, I've seen scarier episodes of Dora The Explorer

[partingtonred · 1/10 · 11 October 2005]

If you like your movies with no plot, a very weak story and acting so poor is it's like being back in drama lessons at school then watch this.

None of the characters are enjoyable and you just everybody to be killed off in the first 1/4 of an hour, just to put you out of your misery.

Farmers shovel this on the land to make things grow and this film is that shovelling substance.

The best thing about this DVD is that it prevents you from getting coffee stains on your living room table.

The worst film I've seen in years.

[cbarclay99 · 1/10 · 11 March 2005]

Stereotypic characters which made me ashamed to be British (I was watching the film abroad), hackneyed premise, unbelievable plot. Horror films work when you want people to survive. My final regret, therefore, was that they didn't all die. Only good news was that Paris Hilton gets killed off quickly, not I hope because she had another film set to go to. By the time she dies, Paris has stripped to her knickers, (shot from the back), and therefore exhausted her acting ability.

As for comments such as those of the guy, who wrote 'the return of British horror?' all I can say is 'don't agents ever feel shame'? Sure 'Nine lives' was a horror, but only to those people who still dream of a British film industry that makes good films. When will the people who finance British films realise that we don't all want to see films made by public school boys about their old school mates?

Even Lions Gate Has Some Flaws

[gavin6942 · 2/10 · 20 November 2006]

Nine friends celebrate at a mansion in Scotland. After a little dinner and drinking and too much conversation, one friend stumbles upon a curse and one by one the guests are faced with the threat of death.

This film has so many problems with it, I don't know where to begin. First, the film "stars" Paris Hilton, even though she has the smallest role in the movie. I suspect her presence is the only reason the film was picked up at all, even though she serves no purpose and cannot act in this movie to save her life (she's worse in this than in "House of Wax").

When the Lions Gate logo came on, my friend and I thought we might be safe. Lions Gate makes some great films. Well, they make bad films, too, it seems. What possessed them to put their name on here, I don't know. With all due respect, I hope they lost money.

The first half of the film is a dinner scene with people sitting and talking about literally nothing. Nothing of interest, nothing related to the plot, nothing. A brief philosophical debate arises, but goes nowhere. As my friend says, this film was very innovative for a horror film: it might have been the first one that tried to kill the audience.

The death scenes are horrible. Basically, all deaths consist of a stabbing in the stomach: a magic stabbing! Shirts are never torn, but somehow a small blood stain appears and the victim becomes quite dead at a rapid pace.

None of the actors are worth caring about and the whole film is in shambles. Most annoying for me (besides the utter boredom) was the tendency to remind us we were in Scotland (the words "Scotland" or "Scotish" were repeated many times... for no reason. And there was a golf club).

This film is even too slow and pointless for "Mystery Science Theater 3000", so if there is a way to make something blink out of existence (like a memory hole), someone please make this your first target.

I'm not sure what I can say is good about it

[shattenjager777 · 1/10 · 14 July 2004]

As I begin to write this comment, I have nothing jumping to mind as being good about this movie. Perhaps something will come to me, but at the moment I have only negative comments.

This movie has a TV-movie opening followed by a long, slow, drawn-out attempt to show us the characters--who are not interesting in the slightest and most of whom are not even likeable. The first fifteen minutes, which are the most important part of a script, are this stupid, too-fast beginning followed by absolutely nothing interesting, which makes me wonder how on earth this script was sold.

And as the plot unfolds, I wonder even more! It's a tired, boring plot of *SPOILER ALERT* a group of people trapped inside a house with a centuries-old evil spirit killing them off by taking over their bodies--it's been used a thousand times and the only time it's really been pulled off was with "Fallen" (1998). *SPOILER OVER*

Now, the acting was hampered by a lack of character, yes, but was still inadequate. These people absolutely could not decide who they were, it seems. The awesomely talentless Paris Hilton didn't even stand out as bad (and I frankly found her the least attractive woman in the movie) next to the other "actors."

Next up: the music. The music was absolutely terrible. After the shameless pilfering of the "Halloween" theme in the opening, the music was constantly overdone and/or the wrong emotion (for example, many times, it takes on a heroic sounding trumpet theme when there is nothing heroic happening or about to happen). If the music can't heighten the experience, the least it can do is stay out of the way, but it didn't do that here. For the second time in my life (the first being with "Vanilla Sky" (2001)), I found myself being distracted from the movie by how bad the score was.

I do have one almost positive comment now: the direction was not spectacularly bad. It wasn't good, certainly, but it was better than the movie's other elements. The director cannot be blamed fully for terrible actors and a terrible script.

All in all, "Nine Lives" was an absolutely pathetic attempt at a movie--boring and slow despite clocking in under an hour and a half; badly acted; with terrible dialogue; with worthless, unlikeable characters; and one of the worst scores I have ever heard. Don't waste your time with this--you'll need nine lives to survive all the deaths of boredom that you'll suffer.

I've seen worse, but how do films like this even get made?

[tenten76 · 5/10 · 26 August 2002]

I saw this at a film festival, with the director (and apparently, the cast) in attendance - and I can't have been the only person who wondered how they felt, having the entire audience laughing their heads off at the acting and the dialogue!

So, nine mostly upper-crust school friends reunite at a Scottish estate, and before you know it they're all being killed off (which is no great loss, unfortunately). If you've seen Shocker (1989) or Fallen (1998) you'll already know what sort of thing I'm alluding to.

And now, some thoughts:

The story is not particularly original, and the dialogue (above all else) is, occasionally, the most appallingly fake I have ever come across.

I don't like to single people out, but (here I go, obviously) Paris Hilton somehow fails at playing a ludicrously wealthy and vain socialite WHICH IS WHAT SHE IS IN REAL LIFE! Astounding.

All of the characters get their fair share of atrocious lines, but only one person figures out what's going on - and then (out of nowhere!?) comes up with a set of 'rules' of what's going on, and spends the rest of the movie explaining them to the others.. It's as clumsy as as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

I could go through what's wrong with almost every scene, but the one that really sticks out (and had everyone screaming with laughter) was..

*SPOILER* ..when the trainee doctor hears the bad guy trying to break into the drawing room, picks up a poker from the fireplace (as a weapon) and hands it to the girl dying on the couch!! It's much funnier than it sounds. And while I'm here - how come nobody remarked on the book pages changing from all saying 'I am returned' to having a burned hole through the middle (?) and being full of illustration? And where did the staff go!? And was there a single person in the audience who didn't know (after the first five minutes) who was going to survive?

*END OF SPOILER*

Was there anything I did like? Well, to be honest - the special effects were fine (although the fake snow was awful). I liked the decor in the house. The cast are quite attractive. And the opening credits are quite cool (although most thriller opening credits are starting to look the same to me - with the notable exception of Panic Room).

The climax was fairly run-of-the-mill, but the terrible Epilogue (on the porch) had us all in fits of laughter again. Stepping out of the cinema just afterwards, I heard one of the Festival guys chatting to a small group of people say "..but I promise, all the other movies are better".

And finally, to revisit my summary - how does a terrible script and a poorly contrived plot ever get to this stage without someone saying "you know what, we really need to re-write this rubbish before we can shoot it." - before the entire audience says it for you? There are all sorts of reasons for terrible acting to sneak through (budget, nepotism, that sort of thing) - but no excuse for such an awful screenplay to begin with.

Horror/Thriller fans who can get this on cheap rental - there's a good chance you'll find it hilariously bad.

Non-Horror/Thriller fans - stay away, because you won't see the irony and you'll think they're all this bad.

Save you cash! Rent something else!

[SammySpazmo · 1/10 · 17 July 2005]

I've seen LOADS of slasher films in my time. I've also seen loads of low budget British films. This is the worst example of either that I've ever seen! First off, there was a HUGE picture of Paris Hilton on the cover. It said it was a horror film on the back of the box. "Wow! This could perhaps be a kitsch laugh" I thought as I went to the video store counter. How wrong I was.

Paris is only in the film for 10 minutes - she's the first to die. Which leaves it to 8 really really terrible British actors to end up getting chopped up. To give you an idea how bad this is I have never seen any of these actors before or since - they haven't even been on the likes of The Bill of Hollyoaks. Oh! And they're all very posh! They're probably pals of the writer/director! The plot is so tedious that I had to fast forward through the majority if this film - even though it was only 80 minutes - because it was so flaming tedious! Steer clear viewers! It's not worth it!

The Hilton is closed

[Dr. Gore · 5 June 2004]

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

In many ways, "Nine Lives" is the epitome of B-movie horror. It grabs some name actress/model/eye candy/blonde of the moment to stick on the front of the video box. It places all of the action in one setting. It has a very cheap monster attacking a lot of clueless dolts. Yet all of these elements fail to coalesce into a satisfying B-flick. "Nine Lives" is such a shamelessly cheap rip-off you can't possibly derive any joy from it. All I wanted was to check into the Paris Hilton and get some room service. Instead, all I got was Murray the Scottish Cookie Monster.

"Nine Lives" was interesting up until the point Paris Hilton checked out. That point was twenty minutes into the movie! Get me the front desk! I want to complain! The rest of the movie was lame and tedious. Murray the black-eyed beast attacked the rest of the cast while Paris left the set for better things. I should have shut this movie off the minute her body went thud. The whole movie dropped dead after she left. No blood, no nudity (!), no nothing. All you get is Murray.

All the fuss surrounding Paris Hilton should've made this a hit. Unfortunately it couldn't have been a bigger miss...

[LuisitoJoaquinGonzalez · 1/10 · 11 August 2005]

Whilst staying at my cousin's house recently, he showed me a film starring Paris Hilton that left me overwhelmed by her talent. What a performance! From start to finish she was totally convincing, and she certainly had feelings for the, err, part. No it wasn't Nine Lives. Actually it was her starring 'roll' in that 'other movie', which probably grossed a damn site more worldwide than this British slasher flick ever would. Now I'm no expert on porn actresses. I never really went through that whole top-shelf magazine/video phase. Perhaps it was because ever since I can remember I've been in one relationship or another? Or maybe it was because I got married at the tender age of 21? Now I'm 24 and still haven't got much knowledge on all things X-rated. But I do have a fairly good eye for talent, which has served me well throughout the years of enjoying cinema. I soon realized that if this feisty young heiress could show that much conviction, dedication and (ahem) experience when the camera is concentrating on her face…well…who knows?

I first learned about Nine Lives from an extremely generous preview in Empire magazine late 2002. After that the movie mysteriously seemed to vanish and I heard nothing more until I came across the DVD in Amsterdam under the alias title The Terror in summer 2004. To the best of my knowledge this wasn't released in Britain until June 2005, which seemed like a long delay for a homegrown movie. In fact it graced American shores at least a year before it hit UK shelves. I couldn't track down any information anywhere concerning the belatedness of Andrew Green's debut feature. I can only assume that not many distributors were rushing to pick it up for release?

Nine high school pals head to their friend's remote mansion in Scotland to join him for his birthday celebrations. Emma (Rosie Fellner), Lucy (Vivienne Harvey), Jo (Paris Hilton), Laura (Amelia Warner), Linda (Maureen Turner), Tim (Patrick Kennedy), Andy (Ben Peyton) and Damian (James schlesinger) are soon joined by Pete (David Nicolle), who was late arriving due to a hazardous snow storm that is crashing against the secluded house. (British weather, eh?). The group is pleased to be together again and they spend hours drinking and reminiscing over old times. As the evening gives way to a severely weather beaten night, the drunken youngsters decide to retire and sleep off all the alcohol. Before they have even had the chance to turn out the lights, the tranquillity is shattered by an ominous scream. On exploration, they find Jo's mutilated corpse sprawled across the bathroom floor. It seems that there's a maniacal killer amongst the group and he's intent on making this the last reunion they'll ever share. But these 'friends' have known each other for years, surely there's no motive for mass slaughter amongst them…?

In all honesty, Nine Lives starts really well. The location is fairly alluring, the characters interesting and Green manages to pull off a decent early shock. It's somewhat ironic then that as soon as Madame Hilton checks out twenty minutes into the feature things go down hill…DRASTICALLY! It seems that Ms moneybags' on-screen demise starts a chain reaction of bad-movie-syndrome that doesn't take long to completely engulf the entire feature. You'd think that nine victims is more than enough to pad out an eighty-minute runtime. But the murders are so poorly constructed that it doesn't take too long for things to start feeling tediously humdrum. The embarrassing lead performance from Amelia Warner didn't help, and the rest of the cast seems to spend too much time staring blankly at the camera as if they're thinking, "What do I do next? What's going on? Why am I here? HELP!"

I'm going to give away the crux of the plot, which isn't really a spoiler, but if you don't want to know then stop reading now. OK it seems that the spirit of an ancient Scotsman that was tortured by the English when they evaded his homeland has taken possession of one of the kids in order to get revenge on the three lions. So we have a deranged Scotch killer that wants to bump off the English. So why does he kill Paris Hilton – a blatant American – first? Perhaps he had seen what Mel Gibson and Randall Wallace did with Braveheart? When it comes to plot holes, Nine Lives is the cinema equivalent of a kitchen sieve. You'll laugh out loud when Warner manages to work out the killer's methods and motives from nothing more than a couple of scrappy pictures. The closing dialogue is no less than hilarious and sounds like an ambitious seven-year-old wrote it for a homework project. There's no gore, suspense or attempts at building tension and by the 45-minute mark the whole movie has pretty much fallen apart.

It's a shame, because Andrew Green is a fairly talented director. You also have to give him credit for managing to get Paris Hilton to come all the way to Hertfordshire for a cameo, just a few months before 1 night in Paris was about to make her a superstar. He certainly picked the right time to offer her a contract. But with that said though, his screen writing abilities are non-existent and next time that he's hired to direct a feature he should make sure that the scrip is someone else's. Unfortunately Nine Lives is yet another British horror-failure to add to the list. Maybe one day someone somewhere will make a good UK slasher. Hitchcock was English, so why have they failed so since his demise? I guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer to see if Hilton can match the skill of that (ahem) breathtaking breakout performance

Commentary of a dull film

[a-twetman · 2/10 · 17 May 2012]

This review will contain spoilers! I am going to do this a bit differently, I will simply post some notes i jotted down while watching.

00:16 Why does the film start with a screaming girl with a knife in her hands?

1:11 So, they are all driving black Scodas to the house with plenty of "scary" background music for no reason.

05:40 These people are all utterly unsympathetic.

09:04 This is completely engaging.

13:11 they are trying to establish some characters - and failing, the dialog doesn't get through to me at all.

16:17 He is leaving the group in a horror film, he' so dead

16:39 Will there be blood coming out of the faucet?

16:52 Nope, but there was a jump scare in the mirror.

23:17 Unnecessary nudity, my favorite kind.

32:55 Whatsherface has been killed but I just don't care. Im just bothered by the murky lighting, why don't they turn on the lights?

34:53 It took them this long to think about looking for the staff?

42:05 The scary killer ghost is doing almost nothing so the filmmakers are trying to establish some secondary conflict - which comes off as too forced.

42:35 Doorknobs are not interesting enough to warrant being zoomed in on.

43:36 Dark hair girl (I guess her character has a name but I don't care) is a real jerk.

43:57 The doctor guy is such a wuss.

48:50 Wait what, if all the lights are out, how come that one is still on?

49:17 Unnecessary dramatic sound effect

52:31 Hw does she suddenly know so much?

1:02:12 They are actually managing to build up some tension, also they've got a god Schrödingsers cat thing going on.

1:06:54 This pep talk is lame.

1:10:50 There is surprisingly little snow for a snow storm.

1:14:38 Dramatic moment fails due to lack of investment in the characters.

1:16:24 I never knew getting stabbed in the shoulder could be deadly.

1:19:24 Movie is not worthy of summing up monologue

So there you have it. Generally speaking, Nine Lives is an engaging film about unsympathetic characters.

Better than I expected by a long way

[mw3654 · 8/10 · 27 March 2005]

OK, Why did I watch this film? -Simple Paris Hilton. What was it like ?- It was like National lampoons meets Blair witch project- But was funny in places and scary in others. Would I recommend it?- Actually yes i would, Paris was not that bad an actress at all. She does pull off a believable character.The basis of the film is that 9 friends have reunited for a birthday party in the Scottish Highlands. The drink flows and relationships are rekindled, everyone relaxes for the perfect weekend.it starts to snow and soon the group is entirely cut off from the rest of the world. Soon some uninvited guests join the party. Obviously one by one they start to die. Paris lasts about 24 minutes or so. I will not spoil it but only one person survives. I will not tell you who.

This film does not have the big stars but it does exactly what it says on the box. I enjoyed the film and would watch again.

All in all a good watch.

Quite disappointing and meandering

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 6/10 · 11 May 2015]

Arriving at a friends' secluded house, a group of friends partying for the weekend find themselves killed one-by-one by their friends possessed by a murderous ancestor and tries to stop them from continuing the rampage.

This was quite a decent if flawed effort. One of the better elements within this one is the rather enjoyable setting here, with the increasingly elaborate layout in the different floors, overflow of rooms and snowbound setting all creating an absolutely phenomenal setting for the events here that not only plays into the isolation of the group but the disorienting nature of the house makes the stalking even more chilling. That also becomes another big part of this one in that the pretty-tense stalking here throughout the film comes off rather nicely with the tension starting with the initial attack in the bathroom and the discovery of the body that affects the group rather deeply being a fine start here. There's a couple of rather intriguing assaults here based on the knowledge acquired from that attack comes into play for them, as scenes of the group going through the halls or down into the basement that follows up the film's best part in the fun chasing in the final half as the impact of the storyline and the layout makes for some really fun action scenes with a sense of tension from the feeling of who's who in here as the possession really takes hold for a frantic, enjoyable time. There here are enough to hold this off somewhat from the flaws within here. The biggest issue with this one is the fact that the film never manages to go all the way with anything in here, as the gore is simply non-existent relying solely on knives impaled in places which is just quite dull both in concept and execution as the same, continuous death scenes just get old after awhile. Likewise, the lack of action here from that low-key nature really stands out by managing to drain the tension out from a large portion of the film by never going all out the way its premise provides the potential for. That as well is the film's final flaw which really stands out here being the rather puzzling premise which certainly allows for a great time here with the possession and stalking angle yet never does anything really interesting or original with it. These here are what keep the film down.

Rated R: Violence and Language.

Paris Hilton Appears

[whpratt1 · 1/10 · 3 February 2009]

This picture is about nine old friends who are gathered in a Scottish Manor and everyone is happy to meet each other after so many years. Gals and guys join in and have plenty of booze and start renewing past experiences with each other.

Paris Hilton looked very happy in the role she played and I can understand why, she had a very small part and was the first person to disappear very early into the film.

The wind howling through this creepy old mansion and snow falling made this a very scary film until you find out the reason for all the murder and stabbing. The plot goes completely no where and I must say that most of the actors tried their very best, but the story stinks.

Bad... but not _that_ bad

[Unicorn-9 · 3/10 · 27 September 2002]

This is a typical low-budget British movie: in other words, it's a fairly competent idea rushed into production without much thought on the script. While there's little original in the storyline (in fact, the whole plot felt very similar to 'Sorority House Massacre 2', even to the extent of the flash-forward at the start... except that unfortunately the hot girl from 'Quills' doesn't spend the whole movie running around in a nighty), it does have a couple of scares and some laughs, a few of which even seemed intentional.

I was impressed with the first minute or so, since I thought for once that there might be a new British director with some sense of style; but then it went into ten minutes of tedious, annoying reminiscing by ex-public-school yuppies which was irritating at best and left me just wishing they'd hurry up and die. It also exposed the limited acting abilities of some of the cast who were unconvincing even in such simple roles. Once the main character actually arrived, which seemed to be around fifteen minutes into the movie, things started to move and the rest wasn't too bad until the monologue at the end which basically invalidated most of what had gone before.

So there's not a lot that can be done to salvage the plot or the often predictable 'surprises' (there's a killer in the house, someone very obviously sits by a large window, guess what happens next?), but cut out that monologue and the boring fifteen minutes and it could be a half-decent late-night Channel 5 movie.

And _any_ movie with that girl from 'Quills' is worth watching at least once...

The best parts of the movie

[cgtony2000 · 1/10 · 23 June 2006]

This movie was terrible, but I enjoyed myself. Because it is unintentionally HILARIOUS!!! I'm going to list all of the things I loved, in no particular order. The things that made me laugh hysterically. If you've seen it, you'll probably know what I mean, and if not, you'll just have to see for yourself

1.The pointless handoff of the cell phone by Paris to the other chick. "Is this yours?" *holds phone like she's doing an ad for Motorolla* 2.Paris making a line like "you're scaring me" sound like "boo hoo hoo". 3.The amazing way that the main girl figures out what is going on so exactly and so quickly, without any real direct evidence. 4.The scene where the med student guy thinks his dying girl was killed, he's all sad, then her eyes open, and he stabs her as if to say "Oh well". And it all happens in less time than it takes to read that. 5.Why was that guy in the bathroom for 45 minutes. It's like the writer saw that in another movie and just HAD to have it in their story too. Even if it didn't make sense. 6.Of course, the ridiculous voice over at the end. 7.The Scottish guy sets the book on fire, and then throws it in the POURING RAIN!!! 8.The Scottish guy just hangs out at the house after all of his friends have been murdered, changes clothes, steps over his friends corpses like they are so much garbage, sits out on the porch and has a smoke. 9.Med student guy sits by the big window that seems to be just big enough for, say, a killer to crash through. 10.girl dying on couch- "I don't wanna die" med student- "You're gonna be fine. I'm gonna go try and make it through this snow and find help" amazingly intuitive girl- "You can't. The snow has made the roads too dangerous." med student- "She's gonna die if I don't" girl dying on couch- "what?" med student- "Shh. You're gonna be fine." (I'm paraphrasing the dialog of course, but that's like how it plays out)

10 is enough I guess. Just avoid this movie unless you like MST3K type flicks.

Apparently any knife stab will kill you

[ma_spec · 3/10 · 7 October 2021]

Aside from the bad acting, horrible script, and super lacking storyline, you think someone in/during production would have made sure the kills were at least somewhat more believable. Shallow gut stabs will not kill. And as soon as blood is shown, character dies. It was interesting enough and that's why I gave a couple stars but would have been extremely upset had I paid to watch this movie.

To say that this film was bad is an understatement!

[Sherazade · 2/10 · 13 March 2006]

But Paris Hilton wasn't that bad in this one, she was actually more decent that any of her other roles. The only reason I managed to give it two stars is for the wonderfully talented Amelia Warner who somehow found herself trapped on the set of this film. Amelia, how could you let this happen to you? It's the story of 9 friends who go to spend the weekend celebrating the birthday of one of their friends in his father's countryside manor, a legendary haunted estate where they all begin to disappear one by one in the middle of the night. With every body that turns up, each other believes that the next person is the killer and so they all set out trying to kill each other before the next person is killed. I know, even I can't wrap my head around that.

Ten Little Evil Dead

[bobwildhorror · 2/10 · 5 May 2008]

I had no delusions going into this. Before I'd read a single review here, I knew Paris Hilton couldn't act. And she certainly didn't disappoint me.

But this picture has much bigger problems than her. In trying to meld TEN LITTLE INDIANS with EVIL DEAD, they've managed to dredge up every cliché possible. The result often plays like a TV movie. In fact, aside from a little blood here and there it played like a Movie of the Week.

Great castle. Most of the actors (save Hilton) were not so bad. Passable lighting.

But where's the originality? Any originality...

Oh this was bad alright...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 4 November 2020]

Sometimes you just wish that you had stopped to look up a movie on IMDb before you actually sit down to watch it. But then again, the fact that the movie had Paris Hilton on the cover should be more than sufficient to raise the alarm signals.

Yet, I ended up watching the 2002 movie "Nine Lives" from writer and director Andrew Green anyway. Why? Well, solely because it was listed as a horror movie, and also because it was a movie that I hadn't already seen. So of course, I gave the movie a shot, even though Paris Hilton was in it.

And as it turned out - as I had dreaded - the movie was a complete waste of time.

The storyline told in "Nine Lives" was just mundane and boring. I mean, there was literally nothing interesting in the entire movie, yet I kept hanging in there, hoping for something of any worth to take place on the screen. I was sorely disappointed and just wasted my time. I am amazed at how it is possible to write such a bland and boring storyline.

And the acting in the movie was, for the most parts, actually fair enough. Sure, it was by no means award-winning performances, and some managed to do better than others, none mentioned, none forgotten. But the actors and actresses were indeed severely hindered by a lack of proper writing, script and characters to work with.

For a horror movie, then "Nine Lives" didn't cut it. In fact, it didn't even make it off of the starting line. This was anything but scary in every part.

My rating of "Nine Lives" lands on a generous two out of ten stars, based mostly on the effort they put into the movie and the production value. Some of us suffered from a movie such as this so you don't have to. Take heed, and don't waste your time, money or effort on this one. I guarantee that once you make it through this movie, you'll only have one life left.

The return of British horror?

[cycomiko_1 · 8/10 · 27 August 2002]

Ten friends travel to a remote Scottish stately home and then an evil spirit is released that starts to kill them one by one. This film may not be original but it packs some good scares and shows that the director has great potential.

A good film and well worth going to see.

OK--no classic but it isn't THAT bad!

[preppy-3 · 7/10 · 6 February 2005]

A bunch of brainless 20 somethings are in a HUGE remote Scottish castle for a get together. One of them finds a book which releases an evil demon that possesses him to kill the others. But when he's killed the demon jumps to someone else. Also there's a raging snowstorm outside, all the phone lines are dead...and then the lights go out.

OK--this isn't good but I've seen much worse. The problems are:

1) They're all British or Scottish (with the sole exception of Paris Hilton). As a result I couldn't make out a word of what they were saying. 2) How did that hole get in the book? 3) Isn't it incredible how one woman figures out everything out of nowhere. 4) After they know there's a killer around--they split up 5) Why don't they TURN ON THE LIGHTS while searching? 6) Boy--does that snowstorm look fake! 7) There are many dead spots with people walking slllooowwwlllyyy through a totally dark house.

STILL I sort of liked this. The castle itself was beautiful inside (incredible set decorations); the cast were actually pretty talented; the guys were cute:); it was beautifully atmospheric; the look of people when possessed (totally black eyes) was unsettling; there were a few nice jolts and the reason for the demon attacking was pretty unique.

There's no sex or nudity here and the violence was not bloody at all. Still I enjoyed it. Call this a guilty favorite. I give it a 7.

Zoolander!?

[sean-chard · 1/10 · 26 April 2006]

Why in the sake of decency does the film cover say "Paris Hilton - Zoolander", like she played a major role in the film...she was only in it for 2 seconds and it was the worst 2 seconds of the movie!! she always looks like she's gonna fall asleep - and lets be fair, her acting causes the same tired look to occur in the features of the audience.....there are a select few who should never be allowed to "act" Paris is top of that list! Along with Ant & Dec Busta Rhymes and Haley Joel Osment (except in sixth sense) please tell me other people agree with me here...Movies as crap as this should not be able to leach positive publicity because of a talentless wannabe having a very short cameo in a good movie....I consider Jesse Heiman more of a celebrity and the guy's just an extra!

Nine Lives.... Really?

[gsndelores · 1/10 · 4 April 2014]

It surprises me that in all these reviews nobody mentioned the weirdness or unrealistic thing of all these people (nine) that they all decided to go car-free? Who does that especially in the middle of nowhere? I can't believe nobody felt vulnerable out there without their cars? And, are we forced to believe that only one person brought a cell phone - B.S.! This story had too many flaws in it. Unlike most people here I had little problem with Paris Hilton's acting. It's not like she's an accomplished actor or anything. She was portrayed exactly as one would expect. People like her and Kim Kardashian are just eye-candy (for people who find them attractive.). I think Kim's very attractive, but Paris Hilton she's funny looking but not ugly though, so she's passable.

It's not as bad as all that...and it's obvious many do NOT like one of its stars.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 12 January 2010]

Ouch! This film co-stars Paris Hilton who has an interesting distinction. She might be the most disliked actress...ever! I noticed that aside from a couple exceptions (such as REPOMAN: THE GENETIC OPERA), the scores on any film she is in are astoundingly low! Here is a brief rundown: in the IMDb Bottom 100 (the lowest rated films), she stars in #16, 26, 40 and 76! In addition, several films didn't make the list because they haven't received the required minimum number of votes or they scored a bit too high for this "hallowed list". With film scores of 1.1, 1.3, 1.6 and 2.0 on films NOT making the Bottom 100, you could safely say that people just don't appreciate Ms. Hilton. You could also safely say that for the the most part, her being in a film is almost a guarantee that it will stink--or at least be rated very, very poorly. I am really surprised with all the money she has that she wouldn't hold off and only appear in more worthy projects...though, it is possible that these projects really ARE worthy of her talents. Plus, while the films are bad, they do give Ms. Hilton lots of attention. While I have no interest in this pampered princess and would never pay to see one of her films, I did take the opportunity to see NINE LIVES on Hulu, as I actually like watching bad films, as they often give me a good laugh. Sadly, this interest of mine doesn't always work out--some of these bad films are simply dull and tedious. So, is NINE LIVES bad but fun to watch or is it a film best avoided at all costs? Read on if you really care.

Hilton plays a rich, spoiled and rather petulant young lady, so you can say she's playing against type (snicker, snicker)! I just kept asking myself why almost all of the nine had British accents but Paris and another did not, but this is a minor complaint. She is the first one killed and you'd think with the public's acceptance of her this might have improved ratings for this film, but it did not. Frankly, she's not terrible in the film--and she' only in it for the first 27 minutes--hardly a starring role despite her getting third billing. And in many ways, the ultra-ultra-low score may just be a case of 'piling on'--in other ways, it's fashionable now to heap scorn on Ms. Hilton.

As for the film, it's a scary house film where the visitors are all killed off one by one through the course of the movie--sort of like HALLOWEEN or Friday THE 13TH stuck indoors. This isn't exactly a novel concept and it's not the sort of film I like (for the most part, you've seen one you've seen them all), but I know some teens love this sort of thing. It's not good and quite derivative, but I've seen many worse films. Frankly I don't think it deserved the Bottom 100 and probably only did get it because Ms. Hilton was in the film--which is not entirely fair.