After researching serial killers and movies about them, its hard to find something unusual, original and brutal. This is a piece of work ... so it might work better if you HAD rented it, but ultimately you are left with something special. Kevin Howarth is brilliant, leading us down one false path after another ... building the tension, before giving us humorous respite. And death. The killings are realistic and at times vicious ... and all the time Max is taunting us - why do we want to watch? How much is a human life worth? Max is unflinching, unrepentant, unremorseful, he is doing something he enjoys ... are you? The ending, well ... I wondered how they would solve the problem of exposure and even that was done in a quaintly genius way. Hats off to the team behind it ... I am impressed.

The Last Horror Movie is a 2003 horror, the premise of which is that you the viewer have rented a "video nasty" from your local Choices, only to find that a serial killer has recorded over it with some of his sadistic killings.That's right: in 2003, you haven't made the switch to DVD yet.It might seem like a minor gripe, but it highlights the larger problem with The Last Horror Movie - that it graces us with its social commentary roughly 20 years too late. The theme of viewer-as-passive-participant is one that's been knocking around the horror genre for decades now, and whether or not it's still interesting, it's works best when it sneaks up on you. Subtext without the "sub-" leaves the audience feeling lectured, patronised and preached at. The Last Horror Movie takes this once-intriguing idea, waits til 2003, and then proceeds to bludgeon you over the head with. You're on the receiving end of a darned good telling-off for taking vicarious thrills in the suffering of others before you've even dunked your first hobnob. And that's the problem. The horror fan is being framed for a crime that, for the most part, he does not actually commit. The idea that anyone who watches a murder is on some level a wannabe murderer is older than Freud and as hamfistedly simplistic as the moral outrage leveled at The Simpsons back in the day for failing to provide good role models (seriously kids, that actually happened!). Of course, our protagonist only tells us to ask (incredibly leading) questions about ourselves, rather than outright calling us sickos. But there might as well be a banner reading "WE ARE DEALING WITH ISSUES, GUYS" scrolling along the bottom of the screen the whole time for all the nuance in this. It's ironic really that, of all the genres that might actually deserve this kind of treatment, it's horror that gets it. Horror has always had to fight to justify itself, sometimes with good cause. As a result, there's probably been more academic analysis of the genre than any other, and it _does_ filter through to the film-maker and to the viewer. Most serious horror fans (and those are probably the only people likely to "rent" this "video") at least have some inkling as to why they watch horror movies. Despite our intrepid serial killer host's assertions, it is a self-aware genre loved by a self-aware audience. A movie in which a trite Jennifer Aniston romcom is cut off after ten minutes by the twin video diaries of a couple who are horrifically mismatched and incapable of articulating even their most basic of feelings to one another might have been a much more interesting prospect, and possibly a lot more frightening.All postmodern ramblings aside, what really undermines the movie is not the trite, misguided social commentary or the lazy misjudgment of its likely core audience, but the fact that, really, it's not a very good horror film. The real art behind even the most lunkheadedly depraved "torture porn" is to repulse just enough to fascinate - to have the viewer peering out from behind his fingers. The fact that The Last Horror Movie is intentionally written to be watched on video just highlights how very very easy it is to stop watching the movie, long before the first smug "if you don't like it, why are you watching?" comment from the protagonist. But then, given the analysis of the horror fan on display, they probably thought that just half-showing some murders was enough. After all, you like watching murders, right? =D The short version is that this is a movie which is hampered by an implausible and dated premise from the word "go", and which does very little to redeem itself. If you want a tortuous unappealing slog through the ill-conceived mind of the serial killer, you could watch The Poughkeepsie Tapes. At least that guy knew how to point a camera.

If you watch the movie on TV,it loses at least 80% of its frightening power,so take my advice and rent it.You will find out why.You can call it bad taste ,cynicism ,but this movie is more ABOUT horror movies than a horror movie.Many people may be disappointed .Something like Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" -which is anyway highly superior to this one and which in 1960 was already a horror movie which made the viewer ill-at-ease - revisited with a faux cinema verite treatment.Kevin Howarth is excellent as the killer who makes all the peeping toms like us feel guilty.And "the last horror movie" could really be your last one!

The is one of the most boring films I've EVER seen! Its got a good premise and would probably have been mildly entertaining in a shorter format (would have made an okay episode of Urban Gothic) but as it is its just one yawn-some killing after another. Max is one of the most unlikeable characters I've ever encountered (even for a serial killer obviously). The 'twist' is heavily signposted throughout and can be figured out by about fifteen minutes in. Max's speech implying that we the viewers are as bad as him because we have watched the killings didn't really seem relevant when we had been talking through most of them they were so dull.