hired this movie with a bunch of mates when having an all night movie night and the cover looked like a zombie movie whereas the blurb on the back didn't indicate it. so we were like what the heck and hired it.we found this movie quite boring and one of my mates joked about what the ending was and he happened to actually be right.i don't know if the movie was supposed to be scary or what, but basically we all found it boring. save the hour and a half of your life and don't watch this movie.the acting was cardboard, very unconvincing. laughable really.the idea was the only pick up of the movie, but not enough to give it a two star rating, it could've been done better i suppose.

The Locals starts as Paul (Dwayne Cameron) convinces his best friend Grant (John Barker) to join him on a trip to the West Coast for some surfing & fun, however en-route while looking at a bus of Japanese girls (!) they take the wrong exit from the motorway & end up at a rickety old bridge in the middle of the Aussie outback. Then a car pulls up & two birds get out, Lisa (Aidee Walker) & Kelly (Kate Elliott), who invite them to a party they are heading to, sensing some 'action' Paul & Grant agree. Unfortunately things take a turn for the worse when they crash the car in a ditch & while searching for help witness a guy (Peter McCauley) slash his wife's throat, they run as fast as they can but the guy rounds up his mates & they go after the two boys. Over the next few hours Paul & Grant witness various strange occurrences which seem to have no logical explanation until the shocking truth is finally revealed...This New Zealand production was written & directed by Greg Page & for my money didn't quite work in the way that it wanted to. The script tries to be really clever & I think that's one of it's problems because it isn't, clever that is. For a start the film as a whole is just to predictable, I doubt any horror fan will have much problem in working out where The Locals is going & probably won't have much fun waiting for it to get there either. There are to many unanswered questions like why is the land in the film so special? What's all the nonsense about the ghosts not being able to cross the river? What significance do those bones have? Why do the living have to leave the land & cross the river before sunrise? If everyone is dead & can't be hurt why is everyone so afraid of Bill? He can't hurt anyone so what does he have over them? Why can these ghosts sometimes see & speak to the living while at other times their completely oblivious? All these questions & more aren't answered in the deeply unsatisfying film that is The Locals. Then there's the fact it rip-offs various other films, it starts out like some backwoods brutality film where city types run into unfriendly local psychos but quickly turns into a The Sixth Sense (1999) rip-off with the twist ending in particular resembling the Hollywood flick, there's even the romantic mush of Ghost (1990) & a plot device taken right out of Groundhog Day (1993). I will admit it tries, it's not too long & it's sort of watchable but it just never came together for me & I thought the two main character's were both awful & annoying which didn't help.Director Page doesn't quite get things right here, it's been mentioned before but it's extremely noticeable that the lighting is just way off. I mean it's set in the middle of nowhere with no artificial light yet everything is so well lit, it feels extremely staged & kills any atmosphere. It looked like the filmmakers just shone a huge spotlight on the area where they were going to film, subtlety wasn't in their vocabulary when they lit this! I don't think he handled the twists that well either, they just don't work & are way to easy to second guess plus there's all the things that happen that are never explained or expanded upon & considering Page wrote & directed the thing he gets the blame. Then there's the fact there's no blood, gore or violence in it whatsoever which doesn't help. I wouldn't call it scary, it lacks any real tension or atmosphere & it just looked too fake.Technically the film is alright, everyone on here seems to claim that The Locals was low budget but I ask myself how do they know exactly? What low budget is to one maybe modest to another, I actually think The Locals looked like it had a reasonable budget. It's well made although the special animation effects are awful. The acting is OK but nothing special.The Locals was a good effort at something different but ended up feeling just like another The Sixth Sense rip-off anyway, personally speaking there's not much here by which I could recommend it. Wait for the DVD to hit the bargain bins...

Paul (Dwayne Cameron) convinces his best friend Grant (John Barker) to travel to go surfing in the weekend. They meet two girls, Lisa (Aidee Walker) and Kelly (Kate Elliot), and they invite Paul and Grant for a party. They take a short cut over an old blocked bridge and Paul loses control of the car and hits off-road. They decide to ask for help to the locals, and they find that they are in an evil place."The Locals" is a promising story, but with many flaws in the screenplay since the beginning. For example, Paul and Walker leave the city early in the morning (Grant is sleeping) for a weekend, and they reach the shortcut in the night. Therefore, they should return on the next day to come back for the next week. Why the ghosts are trapped on that county? There is no explanation in this regard. How did those two punks die? It seems to be with the explosion of their cars, but before or after chasing Lisa and Kelly? Why Lisa and Kelly went to the party again? Why none of the ghosts destroyed the bones of the evil spirit, if they have capacity of shooting and interfere with the life of real people? Why the evil spirit have followers? Anyway, I like this type of movie and it is a forgettable entertainment. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "A Cidade Maldita" ("The Dammed City")

I couldn't even get through the first half of this movie. I love watching good b-horrors, almost as much as I love watching bad b-horrors for the laughs. This movie fell into neither category, as it was boring as hell and badly done, but not "funny" bad. Just bad.This movie pulled out all the stops. The "road trip adventure". The "car that breaks down". The "cell phone that won't get any reception". The "crazy goings-on with the backwoods folk". That's about when I shut off the TV.The two main characters in the film are supposed to be best friends, they pal around and make jokes at eachtother, etc, but it seems very unnatural and like they just met that morning.It seems as though the only people who enjoyed this film are patriotic Kiwis.