It's hard to believe that the third annual After Dark Horrorfest movies are already being released by Lionsgate on DVD. The yearly collection of "8 Films To Die For" has become a perennial favorite, offering horror fans particularly visceral independent fright flicks (and admittedly some duds too) in a festival presentation. March 31, 2009 saw the most recent octet of films arrive in stores, and this time Lionsgate provides some rather nice art in the form of lenticular slipcovers.

Perkins' 14, directed by Craig Singer (who also helmed the first Horrorfest's retro slasher flick Dark Ride), has one of the more clever concepts of the Horrorfest collection. Its creepy story by Jeremy Donaldson can be almost evenly divided into two halves.

The first half deals with the Perkins of the title. Dwayne Hopper, a veteran police officer, is haunted by his son's abduction a decade ago - the 14th and final unsolved kidnapping in the quiet town of Stone Cove. Hopper's wife is cheating on him and his punk daughter is about to make "a big mistake" with the local guitar-playing loser. Things are about to go from bad to worse, however, for our morose hero as he encounters Ronald Perkins in a jail cell. Through some conversations, Hopper begins to suspect that Perkins is responsible for his son's kidnapping, and he turns to progressively illegal methods in order to wring the truth out of Perkins. And thus, the first half is a dialogue-heavy exercise in foreboding, a sort of low budget version of Silence of the Lambs.

Given the film's title, it's probably not spoiling anything to say that the second half of the film deals with the 14. Perkins has indeed hidden away the 14 children for the last decade, and after so much abuse, they're not quite . . . human . . . anymore. Hopper sets in motion a chain of events that unleashes these 14 onto the community of Stone Cove, and the movie then transforms into a kinetic explosion of bloody violence. The 14 are reminiscent of the fast-moving zombies in the latest Dawn of the Dead and the plague victims of 28 Days Later, and they're just as hungry as those monsters were. The resultant violence is filmed quite similarly - and effectively - to those two films.

While there are echoes of better films here, I still appreciated the originality of the premise - and the script handles it okay if rather unbelievably. The acting isn't bad either. Patrick O'Kane is well-cast as Hopper; his portrayal convincingly presents the character's darker traits while still preserving his humanity, which helps make the character a credible hero. Richard Brake is suitably creepy as the child-abducting Perkins.

However, the movie does have its faults. Two primary issues are the editing and the score. Several sequences of the movie, especially ones involving flashbacks, involve rapid edits that are too clever for their own good and disrupt the film's pace. The score, at times, is far too aggressive and / or abrasive, especially during the opening credits and the first extended sequence in Perkins' house.

Still, by the time the credits rolled, Perkins' 14 won me over despite its faults. It's entertaining enough for horror-goers to justify a mild recommendation.

The DVD

Video:

Lionsgate gives Perkins' 14 an anamorphic widescreen presentation in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The image quality looks very sharp, though some film noise is present in dark scenes.

Sound:

The lone audio track is an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 affair. The track sounds fairly good - despite my quibble over the score itself - with dialogue always clear and sound effects presented dynamically.

Optional subtitles are available in English and Spanish.

Extras:

No fewer than eight(!) trailers and ads precede the main menu: The Haunting in Connecticut, Crank 2: High Voltage, After Dark Horrorfest: 8 Films To Die For III, Punisher: War Zone, The Transporter 3, Weapons, The Midnight Meat Train, and Saw V. There doesn't seem to be a link to these in the menu system, however.

Other extras on this disc include Miss Horrorfest Webisodes (57:45), a collection of fan-produced videos. Unlike The Broken and Voices, Perkins' 14 does have a movie-specific extra in the form of 10 Perkins' 14 Webisodes (44:06). These 10 webisodes comprise a fairly in-depth look at the unusual production of Perkins' 14 in installments. Both collections of webisdoes are in full frame format.

Final Thoughts:

Perkins' 14 is a tale of two movies: the first half presents a grim psychological portrait of a police officer suspecting an inmate of his son's disappearance while the second half devolves into an aggressively delirious zombie-style horror romp. The film has a clever premise; however, its execution leaves something to be desired. Still, the film's novelty and energy won me over. Recommended to the fright film crowd.

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