This movie had the potential to be better but was really just okay. I didn't like the premise very much and the way the events unfolded was pretty lazy. I think there should have been a little more backstory on the family and the cult itself. Also why make one of the characters a marine and then not utilize it? You would think the Marine would be the bad ass but he was pretty much as easily expendable as the rest of the characters. Spoiler alert: the family was killed off so easily it was borderline boring. It reminded me of so many movies that were better from the obvious You're Next, The Strangers and even The Purge. Also the beginning of the movie was never explained and the ending was just weak. In other words if this movie were a soda it would be watered down and flat.

I deserve a pat on my back - watched the entire movie in one go. Having said that, this is a seriously dumb movie.It is a low budget cabin in the woods kind of a flick, but instead of supernatural antagonists, what we have here are a group of men dressed as jackals - and they have absolutely no motive, no background, no character, no nothing - they are just as meaningless as the movie.The acting in the movie is okay, for a change, nothing amazing since the movie doesn't require anything amazing, but, it does seem like the cast can easily do better -> should be signing better movies. The background, cinematography are amateurish (or worse). Screenplay is non-existent. Storyline is intermittent, meaningless, flawed and boring. Character building seems to have been an absolutely no-no, since, even if every single person on screen died a horrible death, it would have absolutely zero effect on the viewer.2/10

Starts off with some plausible story telling then goes down ill rather quickly.The family hire a marine to rescue their boy from murderous cult. We are lead to believe from the marines tattoos that he may have has some prior affiliation with the cult, however he must have been a marine in teletubby LA LA LAND.. because the MARINE seems to have forgot all his basic combat training!Dad and marine take CULT FOLLOWER to the cabin in the woods for de programming with the help of his family. With no plans for the future at all.I'm no trained marine but even I know if you rescue a person from a cult they will try to get that person back.Whilst Marine is rescuing the boy from the cult I'd have been back home making sure the cabin was fortified and there were weapons hidden around the outside ready to help later.Also say let a family member know if you have not called an outside member of family by says 17:00hrs they automatically call police and tell them cult has invaded...FILM LOST THE PLOT, how did they give the director money to make this......so may plot holes it GAPING GILL..Rule one if you rescue some one from a cult don't take the said person to a cabin he new as a child.. you take him/her to some where neutral the person and family don't know that way the cult have no way of knowing from prior memories from the disciple where he would be going etc.So why didn't the GI JOE have the cabin in the woods protected or have perimeter booby trapped for when the cult turned up. Not to mention wouldn't a GI JOE have other merc's/marines to watch his "SIX" to help him!Then we have a family that have no form of common sense.. they kill cult intruders one by one and go out of their minds not knowing what to do and all they do is chat about giving the brother/son back to the cult.Now if it was me they have three dead cult members/people in the house, work the maths out - they could have taken some clothes off the cult who were dead put their masks and walked out the front and back dressed as members of the cult.Now I can guarantee that would not have only confused the CULT but would have got more people dead than the father going out to try and rescue his wife or son and resulting in father being stabbed to death.other thing is they could have dressed one of the cult dead up in the lads clothing who they rescued. Then slashed the dead cults persons face slung him out side and burnt him in front of the cabin.The cult for a few minutes would have thought the family had gone nuts and terminated the lad because the cult was hell bent on murder. That small window of opportunity might have been enough to have got to the FATHER of THE CULT/CULT LEADER and tried killing him before he worked his way through the family.End out come with a murderous cult will always be all people DEAD no matter what so what do you do.. button down the hatches and wait for intrusion and kill the cluster one by one, or take things under control and work a plan that's just as gross and murderous as the cult would have done..Like I said all a little lack lustre.... it loses depth and any thought of semblance as soon as they get to the cabin with a GI JOE Marine that has no back up plan when we all know Marines always have a back up.I gave it 3 out of 10 and that was because I enjoyed the sound track which was the best part of the film.I hope the director filled the lottery ticket in - he hoodwinked some one out of a lot of money to do this... lol

Admittedly my expectations were low from the outset. Therefore, I was initially (the operative word here, alas) pleasantly surprised as the film capably and intriguingly set up its premise. Wayward son rescued from creepy mask-wearing death cult and taken to isolated family cabin in the woods for deprogramming by tough-talking ex-marine, divorced mum and dad, resentful older brother and girlfriend and baby daughter.Carpenters "Assault On Precinct 13" springs to mind as the cultists lay siege to the homestead and the motley troupe prepare to fight back with limited resources. I mean, if you want a classy blueprint, they don't come much classier than the classics (Rio Bravo, Night of The Living Dead, Assault on Precinct 13, Straw Dogs, etc). The set-up is a good one, the characters are portrayed by mediocre but to some extent competent actors, the script is a bit tawdry and clichéd, but what the hell, in the short term it looked primed to entertain. Until about twenty minutes in. Then it fell apart. It soon became transparently obvious where it was headed by signposting the foregone conclusion that our intrepid good guys were not going to win or put up much of a convincing fight. Why? Because there was no point, they were going to lose. The ex-marine was mind-bendingly dumb and useless, walking straight into an obvious trap that stopped his clock, making him the first to fall. What a delight he must have been in a war-zone. The brainwashed son is portrayed as almost completely beyond redemption from the outset, a fact confirmed when he bites his brainless mother in the cranium, coming away with a snarling mouthful of wig. Everyone bickers and argues about what to do next, what course of action to take. This process burns up most of the running time and provides with only a sense that here is a bunch of delusional idiots who are doomed. The result is the nullification of any suspense or any feeling there may be a smart twist to the proceedings at some point.Pop quiz. You're inside and a gang of homicidal cultists are outside wanting to get inside and slaughter you. Do you:A. Run around outside in the dark woodland, blunder about looking for help that isn't there, try (and fail) to take them on single handed with a knife on a broom handle, wander up to them unarmed and snivelling just to make it easy for them, or B. All stay inside, batten down the hatches, arm your group as best as possible and get ready to kill the living bejeezus out of anyone who tries to get inThe hapless bunch make something of a half-hearted stab at plan B, but soon reach the conclusion that plan A is the way to go. And as the audience can see the train-track trajectory after the first twenty minutes – especially if they have the most meagre familiarity with the modern horror flick - what could have been a taut and chilling little repel-the-borders home invasion thriller disintegrates hopelessly into a by-the-numbers plod to an inevitable "evil triumphs" conclusion.Some might argue that because I didn't get to see what I would have liked to see in the film I therefore didn't like the film. To some extent that is true. But it wasn't that the good guys lost as much as how they lost. They lost because the poorly conceived script made the characters dumb, mindless and irrational. If they'd gone down swinging and thinking, or thinking and swinging, then at least the outcome might have landed with some impact. As it is, what we got in the end, was jack all. Wasted potential is always a shame. This is no exception.