Barricade (2007) (V)

User Rating:

3.9/10   

Director:

Timo Rose

Writers:

Ted Geoghegan (writer)
Timo Rose (writer)

Release Date:

9 February 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Welcome to hell

Plot:

A group of friends are terrorized by a cannibalistic family while camping in The Black Forest of Germany.

Plot Keywords:

Germany | Vacation | Slasher | Jungle Man | Torture

Cast

Raine Brown	...	Nina
Joe Zaso	...	Michael
André Reissig	...	David
Manoush	...	The Mother
Thomas Kercmar	...	Dermot
Timo Rose	...	Marc
Andreas Pape	...	Sean / The Freak
Sebastian Gutsche	...	Goliath
Tanja Karius	...	Marcy
Ellen Tanumihardja	...	Tamara
Dirk Glücks	...	Andre
Michael Hoppe	...	Victim in Cabin
Mike Holmes	...	Victim in Cabin
Ramon Kaltenbach	...	Camper
Ray Estevez	...	Victim

Also Known As:

Barricade: Welcome to Hell (International: English title) (promotional title)

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

Germany | USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:Unrated | France:-18 (original rating) | Australia:R | France:-16 (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Germany

Company:

Rosecalypse and 9 Films International

Movie Connections:

Featured in Fearmakers (2008)

Ze hills haf eyes!

A group of friends come face-to-face with a family of hideous cannibals whilst camping in the beautiful German countryside.

The 'mutant cannibal family' concept is almost as old as the hills that the inbred freaks often call home, so any director attempting to breath new life into the genre needs to come up with something pretty darn special in order to impress. With Barricade, Timo Rose tries to give the well-worn routine a Teutonic twist, by transplanting the action to The Black Forest and giving it the German low-budget splatter treatment. The result is a very bloody, but totally unoriginal effort that is made almost unwatchable thanks to some dreadful directorial decisions—in particular, the non-stop use of fancy filters and irritating editing techniques.

Had Timo Rose not opted to utilise every naff trick his editing software offered him, then Barricade might have been a reasonably entertaining gore-fest: his inexperienced cast do reasonably well; the bloody effects are suitably stomach churning; and there are one or two scares and even some well conceived creepy moments. All of this, however, is completely ruined by the awful camera-work, choppy editing, and overwhelming barrage of visual gimmickry used to give the film the distressed look that is so inexplicably popular with today's film-makers.

I give Barricade 3 out of 10 purely for the outlandish gore, which includes a nifty scene where a guy is forced to drink acid, loads of nasty wounds caused by a variety of sharp implements, and some pretty decent shotgun damage.