Review - The Hazing

College students have to spend the night in a supposedly haunted house overnight in order to join their respective fraternity/sorority, but surprise surprise, the house is actually haunted and evil shenanigans ensue. You've seen it a thousand times before and you'll see it a thousand times to come. The Hazing is exactly what you think it is from it's description, but it is also so much more.

This movie has a lot of things going for it. First let's talk about the script. The story has been told so many times that the problem I generally see with a movie like this an attempt to Shyamalan it, or put a hinky twist that you'll never see coming. Thankfully, they don't try and pull one here and instead work on dialogue. And it shows as the script-writer takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the film, giving us the wink and nod every now and again to let us know that he knows where we are all coming from. These moments are some of the most enjoyable of the film.

The second thing that this movie has going for it are it's actors, most notably Brad Dourif. I'm a big Brad Dourif fan. Ever have been since I first saw him on Tales from the Crypt. And he is fantastic here. I want to say that he is under-utilized but I would be wrong. The best part of his performance, in my opinion, is when the other actors are portraying him after he's possessed them.

And now the bad parts. It's obviously a low budget film and that shows in the quality of sets and effects. Forgivable but it's there. The next big issue is direction. There are a lot of decisions by the director that are absolute killers for this movie. The first 15 minutes of the movie are almost unwatchably bad and I can't even blame the screenwriter for that since he and the director are the same person. There are some very poor choices that seem like filler, like the Reservoir Dogs homage where they obviously couldn't get the rights to "Little Green Bag" so he had a friend record something like it to dub over a completely unnecessary slow walk scene. It's thirty seconds of film that simply makes you ask 'Why?'

This is one of those movies where offering a recommendation depends on the viewer. If you're someone who likes horror movies, this is definitely one to watch. If not, well, it wouldn't kill you to take a pass on it.