One of Them (2003 Video) User Reviews

One of Them, Indeed

[ghoulieguru · 2/10 · 1 March 2005]

When they came up with the title, if the filmmakers meant the seemingly endless stock of poor genre films that are being pumped out in the wake of digital film-making, then this is indeed "one of them". This cheap, irritating and boring "horror" film tries to be a combination of Final Destination and the Skulls.

Viewers are treated to horrible lighting and dismal video quality. The plot, such as it is, concerns a bunch of teenagers who are being hunted by other dead teenagers. I wish I could be more specific, but the story was so confusing and badly written that I am hard pressed to tell you what this movie was about. I just wish that I had bypassed this one altogether.

Terrible Screenplay, Lines, Acting and Soundtrack

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 22 July 2007]

The teenagers friends Elizabeth (Kelly Carmichael), her brother Jeremy (Chase Carpenter), Jessica (Jessica Stewart), Rick (Paul Geffre) and the hothead Trey (John Patrick Jordan) have a car wreck caused by a sworn of insects. They wake up in the infirmary of the Marquez Academy, a school for troubled youths. Meanwhile, the also teenager Trina (Marianne Bennett) is drowned by a man dressing a monk cloak in a river in the woods. Her uncle and tutor Daniel (Richard Anthony Crenna) comes to the town nearby the Marquez Academy looking for his niece, and the sheriff tells him that she was found dead and eaten by coyotes in the previous night. Daniel feels that the local fears the Marquez Academy and do not give any information about the place, and he goes to the school, where he meets the headmaster Santiago (Osman Soykut) and his assistant Francis (Bridget Moore). Daniel decides to investigate the school and is informed by the voodoo priest Miss Lorita (Tessla A. Walters) that Santiago and Francis are followers of a cult brought by the slave Erzulie, protecting and worshiping two evil Hudu gods called Amanda (Erin Byron) and Zander (Brian Sheridan) that uses blood shed for resurrection and eternal life. Daniel returns to the school where he discloses the truth about the evil place.

"One of Them" has good special effects but unfortunately a terrible screenplay, lines, acting and soundtrack. The beginning of the story is absolutely confused, without any previous development of the characters or situations, and only after fifteen minutes running time it is possible to begin to understand the plot. There are many characters, and some actors and actresses are hams. There are some lines that make this film unintentionally funny in some moments. The situation of Daniel is incoherent, since his niece is left in a school for troubled youths, and only when she vanishes, he seeks information about the place where she was living. The objectives of the pointless cult and the evil Amanda and Zander in transforming people in "one of them" is never clear. My vote is four.

Yitle (Brazil): "Os Escolhidos" ("The Chosen")

I'm all about bad-horror, but this wasn't even entertaining

[Verona · 2/10 · 13 April 2006]

One of Them was absolutely awful. I am one of those people who scour On-Demand stations for absolutely horrible horror movies. But this one was just plain BORING. And it must have been a nice way to stay on budget by cutting out actors from pieces of cardboard and leftover set...oh those were "REAL" actors??? My bad...

It was boring, stupid and predictable. Lots of loose ends (if you're into that whole "story coming together at the end" sort of thing). I think the most INSULTING thing to those of us "in the know" in regards to the genre, was the BLATANT and may I say, BADLY done corpses stand straight up, Nosferatu style.

If I may point out some of the more questionable things: okay so if they were really worshipping "false gods/demons" then why did they actually end up having power at the end? Where actually WAS the farmhouse that Elizabeth was supposed to lead them to? And why were they going there? And if Trina knew she was going to be killed, why did she go alone into a dangerous area instead of staying in Hollywood, where she was in the beginning? Was that really "Trey" calling from the woods? What of the girl Charlene, with the whole "slitting her own throat" thing? And why was SHE hiding as well? What was with the blinding thing (also a ripoff of Un chien andalou (1929))? Not even entertaining in a BAD way, this is a definite MST3K stinker.

Them equals crap

[movieman_kev · 1/10 · 11 September 2005]

There are a vast multitude of sub-par crappy shot on digital yawn-fests littering videostore shelfs, and this is definitely One of Them. The story of a cult of dead teenagers attempting to turn other teenagers into One of Them is so incompetent in ever single aspect, that just watching One of Them try to act is a daunting task indeed. One of Them will put you to sleep before long with it's inane dull story, it's bad special ed effects, and it's apparent complete disdain for the hapless viewer. Not doubt that One of Them is putrid. If it seems like I've written One of Them too much in my review, you have no clue until you see One of Them. If you were to take a shot EVERY time someone said One of them or asked "are you One of Them?", you'd have to have your stomach pumped before the movie ends, which ironically is a better fate than watching One of Them.

My Grade: F

Where I saw it: Starz on Demand (available until September 29th)

Incredibly lame demon-worshiping movie!

[manchester_england2004 · 2/10 · 13 September 2008]

ONE OF THEM is not so much a devil-worshiping movie; it is rather an evil demon-worshiping movie.

Whilst no one should expect anything novel in a straight-to-DVD movie, few will be prepared to face the torture of being subjected to more than 90 minutes of the garbage contained within this movie. Even if I can successfully warn just one person to stay away from it, I will be able to sleep more peacefully at night.

The low rating coupled with comments made by some other reviewers may fool some fans of straight-to-DVD movies into thinking this is one of those so-bad-its-good movies in the vain of TROLL 2 or CHOPPING MALL. Well, I am sorry to disappoint but it is NOT.

The beginning of the movie actually starts out quite promising. A young woman is walking around a busy city late at night. Many things suggest something is wrong, she is being followed and some strange people are around. Some suspense is created straight away.

The young woman travels to a graveyard and is killed not long after by a figure dressed in a monk cloak.

The story shifts to a group of youngsters travelling down a dark road. A swarm of insects is summoned up out of nowhere and a car wreck ensues. The movie continues to be interesting up to this point.

But, the story takes a turn for the worse soon after.

The remainder of the movie takes place in some stone built academy and the grounds surrounding it. The academy is totally out of place in this movie, and looks more like something from South West England rather than the United States! I kept expecting Christopher Lee or some druids to show up, but alas it never happened.

What takes place in this academy is little more than youngsters sat around dining tables or sat on rocks outside babbling nonsense and there are a few interactions with the creepy people who work there. All of these youngsters are the stereotypical brainless morons who are hardly adverts to become the next Einstein! According to others who have reviewed this movie, the people at the "academy" are dead students. It goes to show how confusing the plot was because I completely missed that element! Anyway, it is revealed later in the movie the dead students worship evil demons that in return give them eternal life. Naturally, the demons want them to kill before granting them their wish. Because none of the mystical demon-worshiping elements suggested by the plot outline are focused on in an interesting way, the movie descends into nothing more than a very sub-par slasher.

The pacing of the middle section is very slow. You never get the sense any of the characters are in danger and all attempts to build up suspense are completely wasted. A few worthless flashy images are placed but provide no meaning to what is happening elsewhere. The villains in the movie do not seem the slightest bit scary. All the young male characters behave like total sissies. And the acting is as bad as one would expect for this type of movie. One guy is attacked with a knife and just lies down on the floor like a complete sissy saying "f*** you" to his killer. The guy playing the teenage brother of one of the main female characters looks as though he'd rather be somewhere else. In every scene he's in, he has this expression on his face that says "what the…". I know how he feels! There are a few sporadic killings done in a variety of different ways but even these killing scenes are very lame and forgettable. One or two funny moments are to be had (such as the guy sucked into the wood chipper), but that's it. The killings are also confusing – sometimes a person killed is seen again later in the movie without explanation as to whether the killing was real or imagined. One character slits her own throat for no apparent reason! As is the case with this type of movie, the youngsters very quickly forget about their comrades after they've been killed.

Just when it feels as though we are going to learn something, the plot becomes more confusing. And there is not even an attempt at a decent twist ending. See the ending for yourself to find out what I mean.

In short, this movie is bad, and not in the good way either. Aside from the interesting 10 minutes at the beginning, it has no redeeming features. The characters are generally annoying or boring, there is absolutely no suspense after the beginning, and the movie is not even funny in the so-bad-its-good way either.

Many of the other reviews here criticise the straight-to-DVD market as being full of trash. I agree with that. But, amongst all such movies, you will find minor classics or examples of the so-bad-its-good calibre (BACHELOR PARTY MASSACRE for example). ONE OF THEM is neither – it is just a worthless piece of nonsense that has probably already been forgotten by everyone involved in its production.

One of them

[Scarecrow-88 · 3/10 · 12 April 2007]

A group of teens have the misfortune of falling prey to hoodoo worshiping occult masquerading as a Catholic school for troubled girls. The town doesn't discuss the place and we see what one villain, underneath a hood and robe, does to Trina, a member of the school trying to get away from her pursuers. Trina's uncle is out to find the real truth of what happened to her and will uncover some grisly truths he might've never expected. Anyone with information regarding the cult often wind up dead. A young male and female are actually the leaders of the cult and commit the violence towards those they want as ghostly minions to serve them. Only brother and sister, Liz & Jeremy might stand a chance against this cult, but leaving appears to be a problem as escape does seem unlikely.

Corny, micro-budget occult thriller with the typical terrible acting and silly supernatural goings-on. The gore effects range from decent to awful according to method of death. The wood chipper death is a howler(it actually looks like the victim throws himself in!)and the hoodoo elements are really cheesy. There's even a voodoo witch and ghostly apparitions throw in the bungled mix for good measure.

Oh Lord

[photoshootstudio · 1/10 · 8 October 2006]

This is BY FAR...the worst movie ever. And that it is on Encore does say a lot about how sad those that do the programing for this cable channel must be. PLEASE....if you see this title...RUN!!!!!!!!!! The direct to video is even bad for this "movie"?? The acting is as bad as it can be. Often in a "b" movie there is at least one person that stands out, in this case..NOT! I have no idea who wrote this or cast it...but they really need to spend more time taking care of the customers at the Drive Thru, and not worrying about making a movie. Please, never see this, and if you do...I am sorry for you! I will say, that some of the special effects are not bad. But that really is all that can be said.

Of One them one them of them one of one them one

[Bezenby · 4/10 · 16 September 2015]

Are you one of them? You know, the type that picks up cheap horror films in the hope of getting something good. I'm one of them. I picked up one of them hoping it was one of them good horror films, but it was only one of them okay horror films. The film I'm talking about is One of Them, one of them 'one of them' films.

One of them starts out with a college kid walking down one of them typical American streets, being followed by One Of Them. She then shortly turns up dead and her uncle turns up in town looking for her, only to be asked (quite a lot) if he's one of them. Meanwhile a group of teenagers are driving about when they're driven off the road (One of them busts his leg up) and they all wake up in one of them sinister schools run by One Of Them. Or rather, a few of One of Them. There's a couple of strange teachers (both One of Them) and a brother and sister team who are all friendly like except, you know, they're both One of Them.

So while Uncle guy is running around being asked if he's one of them, the teenagers are slowly finding out the hard way what's it's like to not be One Of Them. Of course, one of them is our 'final girl' (not One of Them) and the One of Them team square up to whoever's left of the teeny bopper team.

While One of Them is one of them films that takes ages to get going is kind of ends good enough, with some gore (one of them gets sucked into a wood chipper, One of Them blinds a guy with a knife) and what not, it's not quite good enough to make the grade. It's okay though. One of them is also one of them 'surprise ending' films, so look out for one of them.

Unintentionally Hilarious

[American_Dawson · 2/10 · 18 February 2007]

This flick has become a cult classic at my school due to it's uber-stupidity. The plot, or so it is, has to do with a bunch of teenagers on a road trip to who cares when their car gets attacked by a swarm of very phony looking locusts or something (if you watch close enough there is a cut where the characters are swatting and squirming and screaming but there aren't actually locusts in that cut. Ooops)and they get in an accident. When they wake up, they are in some kind of remote school or, excuse me, "not a school. Just an academy for troubled youths". The teenagers spend the rest of the movie either getting killed in hilarious, Sananistic-cult-type-ways or trying to escape, but you won't really care about the plot, you will be too pointing out all of the continuity issues, plot holes, and goofy lines.

Take for instance, two of the characters (their names, like the plot, are inconsequential) are supposed to be siblings, but one has a southern accent (some of the time) and the other one is definitely British. The blood looks like strawberry Gatorade and the gore looks like diced beef--there is a scene where a character gets sucked into a wood chipper thats especially laugh-inducing--and you'll notice that the beginning shots of the movie have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the move.

The closest this movie gets to genuinely creepy is a part were a girl is talking about impaling while sharpening a long wooden stick...but then she cuts a guy's eye open and what looks like jello-o squeezes out and it's back to the laughs.

If MST3k was still going, this would be one of their targets. Rent it with other direct-to-video horror stinkers "Crocodile" and "The Glass Trap" and prepare to laugh yourself dumb and feel your brain cells dying.

Overall rating: 2 out of 10 p.s. "You're DEAD! I SAW you! You were DEAD!"

Hardly Citizen Cane

[dartdan · 3/10 · 21 September 2005]

I flagged this "review" as having a spoiler however I don't think anything I say could possibly spoil this movie. My only reason for writing is to report a "goof" and can't seem to find the proper form for that. So the spoiler lies in my saying this: There's a scene when Santigo and that creepy lady with the Avon lady fake grin all the time do their Hoo-Doo, Voo-Doo or whatever they call it on Charlene and get her to slit her own throat. She falls dead at their feet.Cut to a shot of a kid witnessing it and then to a long shot of the two cult people with the dead Charlene at their feet. Then the camera cuts to the witness running away. Anyway...in the final frames of the long shot before the boy runs away you can see the dead girl move. I'm not talking about an eyelid or cheek twitch either. She moves her arm in a position to push herself up to get off the ground and her head lifts as well. Its as if the director yells "cut" and the actor starts to get up but the editor let about 10 frames of film too much in the shot.

Summaries? We don't need no stinking summaries!

[ferggie18 · 6/10 · 13 July 2005]

For as horrible as this movie actually was, I really liked it. Yeah, it was cheap, terribly written, and badly filmed but that just made it all the better. I honestly couldn't tell if it was made to be a serious horror film and the director horribly failed or if it was meant to be like that, either way I found it's cheesy lines and scenes amusing, so I guess if you like movies like that you'll probably like One of Them.

My interpretation of the plot was that a group of teenagers go on a road trip, get into an accident, are taken in by a cult of some sort that is posing as a school, and their endeavors to get free. (And this is just an added line so my comment meets the minimum number of lines, which is just plain dumb if you ask me, oh well.)

looking for song

[hotsue1104 · 4/10 · 31 May 2006]

I really like this movie,but I am trying to figure out who sings the song "voodoo woman" that was sang at the end of the movie, I can't find it online... I thought it was sung by someone named reed... any help? I really like this song and am going out of my head looking for the dam thing! I also thought that the movie has it's own unique genre, of course I am a huge fan of horror but there are so many different ones out there... too bad this movie was low budget and didn't get a lot of credits... I think it's because when you look up the title of the movie, it comes up with 3 different ones... the title was too common and overused!

Decent entry, if not overtly spectacular

[slayrrr666 · 7/10 · 13 September 2006]

"One of Them" is a pretty mediocre film with a couple decent parts.

**SPOILERS**

While driving along the highway, Elizabeth, (Kelly Carmichael) and her friends Rick, (Paul Geffre) Trey, (John Patrick Jordan) Jeremy, (Chase Carpenter) and Jessica, (Jessica Stewart) go missing around Marquez Academy. Trina Robinson's, (Marianne Bennett) nephew, Daniel, (Richard Anthony Crenna) decides to go look after finding her gone and goes to the academy, which the local community has a strange suspicion about. As they spend more time at the academy, the more they realize that something doesn't quite mix there with the surroundings. As they start dying one by one, the group finds a dark secret at the academy that shouldn't have been uncovered.

The Good News: This wasn't as bad as it could've been. The film really knows how to make an entrance and an exit. It starts out with a girl headed back to her school on the outskirts of a small-town community. She knows that she's being followed. We never find out, and after the girl's boyfriend hangs himself despite her protests and warnings, a very nice stalk scene through a forest that is really creepy. It's a great example of what makes this movie so promising. Mystery and suspense are in great appearance here, as in the previous example and the ending chase through the castle. The mystery isn't fully revealed until very late in the picture, making it even more thrilling as it gets more and more solved as time goes on. A mysterious swarm of locusts also causes a feeling of uneasiness, as it comes from nowhere. It's not exactly clear who the villains are either. While a mysterious boy and girl all decked out in black clothing and a helper are pretty obviously up to no good, there are a couple others who don't make their allegiances too obvious early on. One thing is made clear, though, as it rolls on that there are forces who want to keep them at there for something, but what is never really given until later. There is also some brutal parts mixed in with the suspense. There's a knife through the hand and arm, a knife in the head, a sword through the neck, and several more. It's certainly bloody at the right time and suspenseful when it needs to be.

The Bad News: As much as there was stuff that was good, there was still a lot to not like. The most obvious one is the totally incoherent story. It makes no real sense at all, due to it's two main plots going on at the same time are very poorly done and are distracting at the same time. There was too many shifts between them that focusing on one then changing to another one is a challenge. There was also way too many scenes of just wandering around not doing anything and was basically inserted into it just to keep running time up. The voodoo subplot strung throughout might seem tiresome or overused, and with all the other clichés found in it, it basically builds up to the point where you focus more on finding all the clichés more than the plot. The character who was doing good things all throughout suddenly turns bad for no reason, the teens trapped in a place far away from danger, the initial road-trip that starts it off, the usual in-fighting among the teens, and the reluctance to accept the obvious until it's too late are just some of the few examples of the clichés to be found here. They all come together into making this appear to be something that we've seen before. That's the film's worst quality as it seems like any number of films you've seen before.

The Final Verdict: Far from being a bad film, this one just suffers from a constant feeling of seen-it-before syndrome. It's not the most original film out there, but if looked at on it's own, it's pretty decent. If that doesn't bother you, this isn't a bad film, but take caution if it doesn't appeal to you.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language