Perkins' 14 (After Dark Horrorfest III Review)

Plot
Unbalanced by the brutal murder of his parents, Robert Perkins kidnaps 14 people from a nearby town and brainwashes them into serving as his band of psychotic bodyguards -- who'll stop at nothing to protect their master.

Jason's Thoughts
I was really dreading this film after seeing the plethora of one star reviews from fellow Netflix members.  I was preparing myself for the worst, but I was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed Perkins' 14.  The film, which is a twist on zombie movies, was entertaining enough to keep me interested and featured a good amount of blood and gore to satisfy my horror tastes.

The story itself is pretty basic, to cope with the loss of his parents, a pharmacist abducts children and turns them into zombies.  Ten years later, the children are all grown up and have been unleashed on the city.  There are a few twists thrown in there, but nothing that you wouldn't see coming.  With a horror film such as Perkins' 14, you really don't need more than that.

There really are two parts to this movie that seem to borrow from some of the best horror films made.  The first part of Perkins' 14 reminded me somewhat of The Silence of the Lambs.  The backstory is put together in pieces between a cop and a prisoner.  The second half starts and it turns into a zombie film of sorts in the vein of The Night of the Living Dead.  While these "zombies" aren't necessarily undead and are out for brains, they do share some similarities.  Perkins' 14 isn't quite on par with the aforementioned films, but it does a good job considering it is a low budget horror movie.

The one overall drawback of the movie was the quality of the acting.  There are no stars in this film and I'd be very surprised to see any of the actors in Perkins' 14 to be nominated for an Oscar sometime during their careers.  The acting was very wooden, but it wasn't that bad to distract me from the film.  There was some good lighting and ambiance to help get past the acting, plus the gore was done fairly well.

Finally, Perkins' 14 carries on the tradition of non-Hollywood style endings that have been featured over and over again throughout this batch of Horrorfest films.  Also, it featured finger trauma - which is a plus in my book.

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