"Strawberry Estates"

Reviewed By: Shortstick

(1 outta 5)

Strawberry Estates seems to be a movie that you will either love or hate. From the reviews I have read (to get a little more info on the film), there really hasn't been a middle ground in the way people feel about the movie. It's no secret if you look at the 2/5 rating we gave this flick that we aren't fans of the film. My initial draft of this article went so far as to quote Dr. Laurel, a character in the film, stating at some undetermined point in the movie "It's fucking crap". Sure, the quote is lifted out of context a bit and it might be a tad harsh, but the movie was crap.

Perhaps my biggest complaint with Strawberry Estates is that it tends to be dialogue driven. Under normal circumstances, I enjoy a good dialogue driven film. Kevin Smith happens to be one of my favorite directors/writers mostly because he writes dialogue really well. What does Silent Bob have to do with horror? Nothing really. (he was in Scream 3 though) In fact, it would probably be wise for me to get back to my point and say that dialogue is good as long as it is done well. Since you already know that I didn't like the movie a whole lot, it would probably be easy to guess that I didn't find the dialogue very interesting or well-written for that matter. There are several other problems with the movie and we'll get to them later.

For now, it would probably be a good idea to describe what this movie is about. Strawberry Estates is a mockumentary, ala Blair Witch. A group, including a professor of the same subject that Venkman taught in Ghostbusters, a film maker, a student of the wannabe Venkman, and a psychic chick (a very religious psychic at that) descend upon a haunted house to check out the paranormal activity contained within the house of horrors. In typical haunted house fashion, it is built on a mass grave of some sort. Seems like it might be a little bit scary at this point right? That's what we were thinking too, but the film decided that lengthy theological debates were more important than actually trying to scare us.

I've droned on long enough and this review has been far too serious up until this point. I am almost ashamed of the serious tone I have used thus far. It just doesn't seem like a Youngmanridge review. Perhaps getting to the visuals will solve this problem!

The first character we meet in the film is Jason, the "film-maker" for this little project. I've trashed the movie a bit, but I must say that Jason is actually a decent character. He's the type of dude that lies to chicks to get in their little thong panties and it works.

"Man, we used to go down to Strawberry Estates and smoke rocks. It was fucking cool dude". Of course he didn't say that, but he should of. His IQ musta been about 12 or something like that. This dude really plays no important role in the flick other than to fill us in on why "Strawberry Estates" is so damn spooky. I just liked the look of utter stupidity on this dudes face and had to include in the article somewhere.

After getting the lowdown on the haunted estate from Jason's idiot friends, we meet Sarah. She is a student of Dr. Laurel and informs us that Dr. Laurel is a great man. No where in the film is there any hint of his greatness. Perhaps Dr. Laurel was giving it to Sarah like no college boy could. There is no other possible reason for her to believe in his greatness.

Ah, we now meet the "great" Dr. Laurel. We know that college professors aren't the most exciting people in the world (just play along with the stereotype). Even the most boring teachers I have had in my long and still unfinished college career have been more engaging than this fellow. I think Giggles musta said it while we watching the movie and it bears repeating - "If the professor on Gilligan's Island was this boring, the castaways woulda killed him before the end of the first episode".

Even though it wasn't exactly this scene (it was earlier, but I couldn't capture it), we hear the professor perfectly fine but they sub-titled the scene causing Giggles to wonder aloud "Why are their sub-titles here? We speak English and so does the professor". Maybe it was funnier when we said it, but just think about it for a bit would ya?

Finally, we meet the ultra-religious psychic chick, Jennifer. I have never, ever heard of a religious person that leads séances, but I guess there is a first time for everything. I'm sure some asshole is reading this and saying "gawd, this Shortstick guy is an idiot. All psychics are christians and talk to the dead".

The Sarah-Jason dynamic in this movie provided the only interesting scenes in the whole film. We actually thought for a while that the movie would be decent since they dominated the first few minutes of the movie.

Sadly, these two fools had to come along and ruin the movie. Some other reviews have criticized the actors and while they are right, I just don't think these characters were that great to begin with.

Does the setting for this haunted house look that scary? I mean, look at the pink cabinets. They look like they would fit into a haunted house from Candy Land. Aside from the pink cabinets, the setting for the movie in general wasn't foreboding. It was quite benign actually. I think the "set" was actually an abandoned college dorm.

What does this scene have to do anything you ask? It's just a chick washing her hands! I captured this scene at about the 50-minute mark of the movie. Up until this point, we had a few generic scares, but nothing interesting had happened. This scene was pretty typical for the action that had occurred.

There is always more room for the professor and the psychic to come along and ruin the movie a little more. In this scene, the good Dr. and the religious psychic are having a debate about theology. Debates about theology seem to be very, very important in this movie. Important, but very boring.

It's about fucking time that something interesting happened. Of course, we can't see anything cool, but the psychic can. I'm all for the "less is more" philosophy in film making. Sometimes, describing something is better than actually showing us, especially if the effects are gonna suck. Less dialogue and more action might have helped this movie out though.

Looking at the background of this picture, I swear the tagging looks like "Pinky the Ghost" from Pacman. From this point forward, whenever the professor went on and on in his documentary style speeches, we made up our own ghost stories involving Pinky. Our Pinky stories amused us and helped us get through the movie. Besides, we wouldn't have been able to come up with this philosophy that not only fits Pacman but also life:

"Sometimes, you eat your power pellets too early..."

Again, not a funny or witty description of this pic. It was just something that bugged Giggles and myself about the movie. See those hickey looking things on the back of Sarah's neck and near her ear? Whatever they are, they made her sick. We never find out what caused them. Why even complicate the movie with stuff like this? Ugh! Maybe she got them from fucking John, the man-whore, and he passed something on to her. Your guess is as good as ours was.

Towards the end of the movie, we are subjected to this black screen for a good 3 minutes. Shit, 3 minutes is a good session of nookie for some folks. Anyways, I guess this scene was supposed to be scary with shit crashing around and all, but it just wasn't. Like most of the movie, it was just too long and lost effectiveness.

Since this is a Blair Witch style of movie (footage found at the scene of the crime) where everyone dies, I don't feel guilty in showing the ending of the movie. Actually, if we hadn't already seen an ending like this in Blair Witch, this ending would have been pretty cool. It's sort of like a been there, done that kind of an ending. Not that I was expecting anything cool at the end of the movie, but you woulda thought they would have changed it up a bit just to avoid comparisons.

I'm not sure if I can dissuade anyone from seeing this movie. With the wide-range of opinions, someone reading this review might end up renting the movie and end up liking it. My opinion is to stay as far away from "Strawberry Estates" as possible.

I'm sure some people are reading this review thinking that Youngmanridge just didn't get the movie. If you liked the movie and think I am totally of base, voice your opinion. E-mail me or visit the forums and let me know why you liked the movie. If you do let me know, at least be rational about it. Don't pull some "you suck cause you didn't like this movie" kind of shit. I'll gladly ignore such comments.