Feral starts on Highway Forty-Five where a lot of animals have been disappearing recently & their mutilated bodies turning up shortly after, the local Sheriff (Louis Dupuy) is on the case. Willing to help him are a young couple named Stacey (composer, producer & director Merill Capps) & Michelle (Sheena Dodds) who live on Highway Forty-Five in a glorified shed but their help turns to desperation when their own baby daughter Sarah (Elizabeth Poirrier) is abducted herself without a single trace of who or what did it...
Co-directed by actor, composer & producer Merill Capps along with editor, writer & producer Britt Pitre I thought this was pretty bad. The script by Pitre which takes itself extremely seriously isn't what you might expect, if your looking for a straight froward horror about something nasty in the woods then forget it because Feral isn't it. Almost the entire running time of Feral is devoted to Stacey & Michelle & their attempts at getting their daughter back & the emotional strain of the situation which leads to Stacey accidentally shooting someone which starts a chain of events which include lies, kidnapping & murder as they will do anything to stay together as a family & find Sarah. As far as the 'thing' in the woods go we never see it, we never find out what it is & is almost inconsequential. Oh & if that wasn't dull enough there are loads of shots of people walking around the woods late at night, there is barely any dialogue to speak of, probably a few conversations throughout the entire film which gives it a gritty minimalist feel but also means you never feel like you know these people or care for them as we learn next to nothing about anyone & there seems to little or no reasoning behind the odd decisions made by Stacey & Michelle. It goes on for too long, not enough happens either & who the hell was that old guy with the beard who had that video camera set-up?
Director's Capps & Pitre obviously haven't made a film before, I'm not exaggerating when I say half this film is spent outside in the woods where it's so dark you literally cannot see a thing. I watched this on VHS so maybe a DVD release would be clearer but even so there were many occasions where the entire screen was black. There are no scares although to it's credit it has some tension & atmosphere but that doesn't save it from being rubbish. There's no real gore either, there are some puddles of blood, some bones & skulls with gore still attached & a scene when Stacey & Michelle supposedly cut someone up but this is achieved by using joints of meat from a local butcher & you never see anything graphic.
With a supposed budget of about $65,000 this actually looks alright, I can't believe I just described a film as looking alright when half of it was so dark you can't see what's going on but when you can see what's going on it does indeed look alright if you get what I mean. The acting is actually pretty strong although the lack of dialogue or character development meant I never really cared for them so it didn't matter in the end.
Feral is a total waste of time, there is no horror here & feels like a drama more often than not & that's when you can actually see what's happening on screen which isn't as often as it should be. I don't know who Feral would appeal to, I didn't like it & wouldn't want to watch it again therefore I can only give it 2 stars out of 10.
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