Blood Creek

Schumachers Karriere erinnert an eine Achterbahn, deshalb war ich anfangs sehr skeptisch gegenüber Town Creek. Zu meinem Erstaunen habe ich jedoch von Anfang bis Ende Spaß gehabt. Die Geschichte ist ein verrückter Trip, das steht außer Frage, aber auf irgendeine mysteriöse Weise funktioniert es halbwegs. Die abgelegene Umgebung der Farm, deren Bewohner ein gruseliges Geheimnis verbergen, hat mich ziemlich gewonnen, besonders wenn man ein paar blutige Flecken und verrückte WTF-Momente wie ein fleischfressendes Pferd in der Küche hinzufügt. Der größte Gewinn war jedoch die Besetzung von Fassbender, der seine Rolle als nazistischer Zombie teuflisch genoss. (15.11.2011)

This is Joel Schumacher's most boring film and an aspirant for the most ridiculous horror film of the year. While the intro still gives us hope, mainly thanks to Fassbender's charisma, the rest just slides further into a self-parodying farce. It’s a sterile spectacle without a decal, which may be appreciated in a few years only by collectors of "guilty pleasure" films. Regardless, the digital horse in the kitchen with the flaming mane is already one of cinema's greatest "WTF?!" moments, and if for nothing else, you have to sacrifice the ninety minutes of your life for this section of the film. :) (08.02.2010)

Town Creek rides the wave of brutal thrillers from the late oughts and early nineties, when the New French Extremity wave was rampant in France (Inside, Martyrs, and Frontier(s), of which the film is in many ways reminiscent) and the vogue for dirty exploitation was at its peak in the US, the banner of which was most successfully carried by the Saw series and by Rob Zombie. Thus, apart from a few gory details, the pattern is mainly one of underexposure, fast editing, constantly changing viewpoints, and darkness. Unlike the canonical works of this wave, it doesn't contain any iconically brutal scenes, but there's a man-eating zombie horse attacking, and that sure as hell counts. (13.02.2020)

Town Creek deals with the Nazis and their experiments, a subject that I personally find interesting and enjoy watching. But that’s not the case here. Joel Schumacher decided that the script wasn't that important in this case, and instead focused on how the scenes would look. Some look really good, but that's about it. (08.02.2017)

I’m well aware of how tragic the script of Town Creek is, that the performances, Purcell’s included, are wooden, that some of the dialogues feel as if they didn’t make any sense, and that the special effects are not particularly good, but I really don’t care about any of that, because I had one hour and a half of solid fun. The topic of Nazi occultism is very interesting and almost tailor-made for horror, so it’s amazing that nobody has managed to fully exploit it so far. Schumacher, thus, neither surprises, nor disappoints. As a viewer, Town Creek left me with a positive feeling, but the critics will have a field day with it. BTW: This film works with the viewer (at least in the first half) in a similar way as last year’s Martyrs, and if the creators had left out the beginning (the black and white part), it would have been even closer to Martyrs, and also better. I don’t understand why they didn’t do it. (24.01.2010)