Dying Breed

Dying Breed (2009); directed by Jody Dwyer

Instead of studying for exams I decided to take in another movie on a sunny Sunday afternoon. If I can't go outside because I'm supposed to be studying I might as well watch a horror movie. Yeah, I know that logic doesn't make any sense so shush.

Dying Breed was part of the 2009 8 Films to Die For (After Dark Horrorfest) lineup. Which basically means, don't get your hopes up (my overall consensus on the After Dark movies is that they deliver some good moments but no movie has really been amazing). The basic plot is that a group of 4 friends, Nina, her nice boyfriend, her boyfriend's jerk douchebag best friend, and his quiet girlfriend (victim number one!), go on a trip to the Tasmanian forest in search of the Tasmanian Tiger. Nina's sister was the one who started the search but was found drowned in a lake and missing all her teeth a few years back. Because that sounds normal to Nina, and not at all dangerous and creepy, she wants to finish what her sister started. Douchebag guy thinks that if they capture the Tiger they can make a lot of money. Instead, they encounter a cannibalistic group of crazies who are descendants of Alexander "The Pieman" Pearce, an escaped convict back in the 1800s when the island was a maximum security prison for the British. He had to become a cannibal to stay alive, hence his family tree = cannibals. 

So off they go. First stop before the forest - a creepy ass local shack bar filled with creepy ass locals (duh, inbred of course). Basically every character has something happen to them that makes them think, "hmm, something's not right here" but they all ignore it, because then how would we get some of that tasty human meat pie?! We get some character development happening here, and by character development I mean horror movie character stereotype development, Douchebag guy is all i'm-stupid-faux-macho-beat-chu-up, his girlfriend is all i-had-sex-with-douchebag-hence-i'm-going-to-die (hello, don't have sex if you are in a horror film), Nina's boyfriend is all i'm-very-polite-and-nice-but-am-useless-in-most-life-threatening-situations, and Nina is very i-miss-my-dead-sister-i'm-smrt. 

Into the forest they go. More scary things happen. Then the shit hits the fan! Oh, it's too late for you, victim number one. Mmm human.

I do love me some no-thinking-involved horror movies sometimes, chock full of crazy inbreds who love dismembering and eating tourists. Maybe a sunny Sunday afternoon isn't the time for one, but I just didn't feel like Dying Breed brought anything exciting. And by exciting I don't even mean plot - give me a good death scene! For a film that has a gross looking human pie as the poster, it's pretty tame. I didn't once find myself smiling at a good death scene. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds.

The positives. It's not badly paced. The forest they go into is kind of nice (minus the cannibals). The acting isn't bad. Hence, I managed to get through the movie without thinking, "damn, I should study instead of wasting my time with this." The backstory and legend of Alexander Pearce is also pretty neat - the movie only introduces you to it very briefly at the beginning, but when I later read about Pearce I was like "ew, cool!"

Basically, if you are avoiding something you don't want to do (filing taxes, studying, cleaning, etc.) Dying Breed can provide you with some sort of distraction for an hour and a half, just don't expect much. Maybe you should just read about Alexander Pearce instead.

Overall: 5/10

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Gore meter: 5/10

Scare meter: 2/10