I did a lot of promotional articles for Muck as it approached its March 2015 release date. I even went as far as to coordinate a free movie/prize-back give away with a representative from Anchor Bay Entertainment. When all was said and done, though, I was on a little bit of a Muck overload and decided to let the movie circulate for a while before I attempted a review. With October being the one month out of the year where I spend hundreds of dollars on horror movies, Muck was at the top of my list. I was anxious to check the movie out after working so hard to promote its release, despite the fact that I had already seen several nasty reviews. Is my review going to be similar to the others? Read on to find out.
Muck is written and directed by Steve Wolsh. Cast members include Lachlan Buchanan (“The Young and The Restless”), Puja Mohindra (“All My Children”), Bryce Draper (“The Haves and The Have Nots”), Lauren Francesca (“College Humor Originals”), Stephanie Danielson (Paranormal Whacktivity), Laura Jacobs, Grant Alan Ouzts, Gia Skova and Victoria Sophia. The film also features appearances from Friday the 13th‘s Kane Hodder and Playboy Playmate Jaclyn Swedberg.
“After narrowly escaping an ancient burial ground, long forgotten and buried underneath the marshes of Cape Cod, a group of friends emerge from the thick, marshy darkness, tattered and bloody, lucky to be alive. They have already lost two of their friends in the marsh, presumably dead. They stumble upon an empty Cape Cod vacation house alongside the foggy marsh and break in to take shelter. Whatever was in the marsh is still after them and soon after one of them goes for help, the rest of the group learns that the evil in the marsh is not the only thing that wants them dead. Something worse, something more savage, was lying in wait just outside the marsh.”
Ok, I’m going to be honest here… Muck had all the components to be a hit direct-to-DVD title. It had a major studo backing its release, which meant tons of eyes were on the product. The film had a talented crew, capable actors, eye candy, the backdrop for an epic story and lots of anticipation coming off a successful fundraising campaign. Then something came along and blew this title to shit… and that “something” was the script. Man, oh, man. The script really did a number on the quality of this film and I think, even with another draft or co-writer in place, revisions needed to be performed. It’s almost sad to think about the promise, the means to an end that Muck had… only to be shot to shit by a lousy script. Will you care about the characters? No, they’re extremely unlikable and aren’t unique enough to tell them apart; hence you’re not going to care when they get slaughtered. Are you going to be scared during your viewing? No, because you’re going to be too confused to actually comprehend what’s going on. I could keep going, but I don’t want to be too disrespectful. I’ll put this whole paragraph into the perspective that the characters inside the movie will understand: metaphorically, Muck is like throwing a hot dog down a hallway. Just think about it.
I’m not championing the cast in any way, because they weren’t phenomenal, but they weren’t nearly as bad as other reviews made them out to be. I’ve seen a lot worse, and at least all of the cast members were attractive in their own way. Again, Muck had such a sucky script that the actors never had a chance to show off any potential acting chops. Instead, especially in the case of the women, they had to rely mostly on good looks and nudity. Basically, Muck is like watching softcore porn. You get a good, long look at big boobs about every ten minutes. Sometimes it’s coupled with sexual assault scenes so – at least in my case – it wasn’t that erotic. Here’s the thing, though. You need a lot more than attractive women and buff men to really sell a movie, especially in a genre of film (horror) where people are so easily judgmental. I appreciate that the cast gave so much of themselves to this production, and obviously they had a lot of fun doing so, but in the end – to the viewer – it comes off as a big wasted opportunity. Fun, but nothing to write home about. It was almost like watching a movie of supporting characters with no real leads.
And that sends me back to the point of a lousy script. Muck feels like a three part anthology flick where all three stories collide into one another at the very end. New characters were introduced at random, forced to become important to the plot, butchered and killed and then replaced with another crop of actresses who were willing to show off the goods. There was just too much going on at once for a feature length feature. I mean, normally I applaud a large body count when examining death scenes, but in this case it was confusing. Again, relaying back to my wasted opportunity point, the special effects in Muck were the best part. Bloody, gory, brutal and they looked realistic. Different deaths were explored along with exciting stunts and non-fatal injuries. Absolutely top notch special effects and choreography from all department. Hell, even the camera and audio work was top of the line. Steve Wolsh is a capable director, he just lacks direction in his own script.So much hard work only to be wasted and ignored by toilet tissue turned into a screen play. It’s frustrating, really, for me as a reviewer to see so many potential positives and get garbage at the end of every thought.
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to rate Muck pretty low. I disagree with a lot of the reviews who tare every aspect of this title to shreds when in all honestly, the only thing that killed it was that script. Man, it was horrible… Final Score: 4 out of 10
