If there's one thing I've learnt from contemporary American horror films, it's that you can't trust foreigners, especially Eastern Europeans, who, at the first available opportunity, will sell you into slavery, harvest your organs, use you in bizarre scientific experiments, torture you for the amusement of others, or in the case of Paintball, trick you into becoming human targets in a ruthless manhunt. Still, with characters as dumb and obnoxious as those in this film, folk who willingly allow themselves to be hooded, shackled and driven to an unknown destination by complete strangers, I say have at it, Mr Johnny Foreigner—by all means slaughter these irritating, whiny, gung-ho morons for sport—you'll be doing the human race a favour!The whole 'survival game for real' idea is hardly original (Nico Mastorakis did the same thing decades earlier with The Zero Boys, which was quickly followed by Masterblaster), but that doesn't mean it doesn't still have the potential to be hugely entertaining; sadly, Paintball blows it in almost every conceivable way, the cocky characters just begging for a bullet between the eyes only being the start of the problem. In addition to making the viewer not give a damn whether anyone lives or dies, the film suffers from lousy acting, a lack of decent action, and dreadful direction from Daniel Benmayor, who opts for a horrible wobbly cam technique and the use of POV for the killer, neither of which work particularly well: the frantic camera-work makes it hard to follow the action while the potentially gory POV kills are seen through some sort of high-tech thermal imaging goggles that display everything in monochrome and negative, meaning that the death scenes are frustratingly short of the red stuff (blood looks like milk!).After much tedium, frantic running around the woods, and screaming, the final survivor (a woman, naturally) is inexplicably given assistance by the people controlling the hunt, and faces off against the killer in a derelict building where the script introduces a dumb 'deus ex machina'—a case inexplicably chained to a wall—that comes in very handy in defeating the enemy. As the winner of the game, the woman is allowed to walk free, but in a very confusing final scene, is seen being pursued down a railway track. Here's hoping she got flattened by a train!

A group of eight men and women are secreted to a woodsy location. Let out of a rickety truck, they are revealed to be in a game of "Paintball". Given assigned roles (called positions by a robotic announcer), they expect to be battling against a like team for warrior fun, but it quickly turns deadly. A wobbly camera follows events, which are not as thrilling as promised. Unlike Richard Connell's similar "The Most Dangerous Game", there is very little story here. Another problem is character development; there is none, so it's difficult to care what happens to any of these people you see being followed around by the shaky cameras.** Paintball (4/24/09) Daniel Benmayor ~ Brendan Mackey, Jennifer Matter, Patrick Regis, Iaione Perez

Think of Eli Roth's "Hostel" meets Nico Mastorakis' "The Zero Boys" and you have the low-budget horror action hybrid "Paintball". What the story sets up should have been a lot better than what actually eventuated, as in the end it was a chaotic muddle of frenetically noisy action and mind-numbing characters running around remote woodlands letting their instinctive and primal urges kick in. At times it was simply a whole lot commotion attached with jumpy hand-held camera-work. This really made it quite nauseating in trying to follow the on-going action and gathering the plot details from its variable script was just as frustrating. The story follows that of eight adrenaline junkies taking part in a game of paintball in a forest, but when one of them ends up being killed by a live round. Now they realise it might not just be all fun and games, but a fight for survival in what is the ultimate rush. But that wasn't advertised!? So by that, I guess it should be easy to track. It pretty much throws you right into it and keeps a fast pace throughout. However what the rushed narrative throws up only seems to complicate matters, opening up plot threads and intriguing ideas to only touch on them with minor insight and then to abruptly close things off with little fulfilment. The hunter is kept unknown, toying with the victims and us only seeing glimpses of the foe as his face is kept hidden from the camera creating a creepy ambiguity. Although we get numerous POV shots in thermal imaging which does take away from the deaths, because it's not clearly shown. Therefore it's kind of brutal and organic, but without being overly explicit. The performances are all over the place, either being annoying or disagreeable but the likes of Jennifer Matter, Patrick Regis and Brendan Mackey do stand out from the stereotypical lot."To live or not live. It's simply up to you?"

How's this for a premise? Set up an octet for a PREDATORS-style survival game aimed at a non-subtitle-enabled English-speaking audience. To save money, pick half of the so-called "Green" paintball team from the ranks of low-paid, English-illiterate European extras. Then dub in some loop group dialog for this extra-expendable quartet and kill them off quickly enough that the movie won't be ruined for viewers too drunk or high to realize that things these four say are lip-synched worse than a Milli Vanilli video. Hopefully, this subgroup of easily entertained viewers also won't notice all the awkward "blocking" caused by rampant miscommunication between cast and cast or cast and crew. While you're at it, put in some garbage footage intended to simulate the "night vision" of the stalker, since this is sure to disguise the fact that PAINTBALL is edited more haphazardly than half-stirred hash. Who cares if key death scenes are missing? Who cares if the climax is lame? Who cares if the post-climactic scene of a girl running down railroad tracks makes absolutely no sense? You've already taken your euros and run--quickly--to the bank. (If you had really cared about us the least little bit, you'd have added some campy songs into this sorry mix!)