My Review Of "Hoax"

Directed by Matt Allen and starring Adrienne Barbeau (Escape from New York), Brian Thompson (X-Files), Ben Browder (Farscape), Cheryl Texiera (Girl Meets World), Shoshana Bush (Dance Flick), Hutch Dano (Zombeavers), Matt Reidy (The Judge), Anthony Ray Parker (The Matrix), Christopher Soren Kelly (Infinity Chamber),Ryan Lee (Qi: Spacetime Warriors), Max Decker (Muse), Brian Landis Folkins (Bodies), Karen Slack, and Shawn Rickel.

An investigative team travels deep into the remote Colorado wilderness  after a group of young campers are viciously murdered by what may be  Bigfoot. While the highly specialized crew  searches for evidence, they find themselves in a fight for survival  against the legendary beast. What they encounter turns out to be more  unexpected and dangerous than anything they could have ever imagined. 

"Hoax" is part slasher, part creature feature and all backwoods horror. The story starts of strong, with slasher heavy events that are very reminiscent of the beginning of 2009's "Friday The 13th".  The overall arc is paced a little slow after that strong opening, it is filled with unnecessary exposition and character building. The focus becomes more about attitudes and drama. 

The story does pick up just after the hour- fifteen mark with a return to strong creature inspired horror to finish things off, and a cool twist that leaves things open to be explored later. The acting is pretty decent, several cast members are recognizable genre actors, the development of the characters is pretty decent. Some of the dialog is passe, and empty, creating a bit of a drag on the gravitas. 

Now the horror elements are a blend of CGI and tight practical effects that offer up a bit of indie grindhouse. A lot does happen off screen before letting us in on the results. So the film never dives full-length into splatter territory. Still, I liked more about the horror in this movie than I didn't. At to that the cool cinematography and atmosphere created by the locations and Hoax is a fun flick for creature feature fans.

Now there is a twist that comes in the end that pulls in backwoods horror ground that was a great surprise. I didn't see it coming but I loved it. "Hoax" does have some flaws, a few characters are weak and lack substance. At times the dialog that seems to dominate the breadth of the film's story at times seems to do more to stretch film length than to add to the movie's plot. Overall though it is a fun indie horror some quality moments. (3.5/5)