GET GONE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL THOMAS DANIEL / STARRING: LIN SHAYE, ROBERT MIANO, RICO E. ANDERSON, WESTON CAGE COPPOLA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
When an Internet ‘fake video’ team investigate a legend about infamous freaks living in the Oregon woods, their plans quickly go awry. In fact, a weekend that should have involved some harmless myth bustin’, weed smokin’ and team buildin’ turns into a night of head smashin’, throat slashin’ and body manglin’. Apart from the two female team members who are kept alive and intact for… umm… other purposes.
Because here’s the real skinny on that family of backwoods psychos: they’re called the Maxwell clan, and they’re already mighty fired up because an oil drilling company has bought the land they’ve spent the last 30 years happily squatting on. Now the company’s coming to evict the Maxwells, and they ain’t beyond gettin’ rough about it. However, Ma and Pa Maxwell and their sons ain’t goin’ nowhere, and their sons ain’t freaks, neither. They’re just victims of contaminated water that’s turned their skin white and transformed them into homicidal lunatics is all. The oil drillers were in for a heck of a nasty fight, but the Hoax Busters got here first and paid the price for it. Can brave Ranger Rico singlehandedly save the abducted women before hillbilly hulk Patton Maxwell (Coppola) uses at least one of them to give his Mama (Shaye) a grandbaby? And what’s with the Maxwell sibling who’s scuttling mutely around the barn lookin’ for fresh flesh to gnaw on? The DVD box cover says ‘Terror is Here’ and that’s the biggest horror of them all, because it’s downright false advertisin’. What’s actually here is a tepid, bloodless rehash of almost every Chainsaw Massacre and Hills Have Eyes rip-off ever made, and not even a barely-there subplot about the environmental (and human) damage caused by oil drilling and fracking can inject any interest. That’s a shame, because this is a film that could have been a lot better if it had taken the Nightbreed route of ‘the monsters are not the ones to be afraid of.’ As it is, the ever-reliable Lin Shaye is Get Gone’s only saving grace, and even her presence isn’t enough to lift the movie out of the swamp.
Also, don’t be fooled by the creepy masked killer on the poster art. The producers obviously figured that if Get Gone was a hit that mask will be all over the stores in time for Halloween. It won’t be, although if you’re one of the few people who enjoys this film it might be worth wearing a mask to protect your anonymity.
