Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Executscan Expected more

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Michael Ledo Without a doubt this is the best film made about the New Jersey Devil. And just for the record I have seen others and reviewed them on Amazon. Richard (Stephen Moyer) decides to drag his family camping in the Pinelands where his dad would take him camping as a child. Richard plans to scatter his dad's ashes on the trip. His family is not eager about the whole thing.As the film progresses, we discover, as does his family, that Richard has serious issues. Unfortunately by the time the family realizes what is happening, they are located deep in "Devil" territory.I liked the scare factor in this film. The story flashback at the campfire was well done. Stephen Moyer played a convincing role as a man becoming....you'll find out. Allie MacDonald plays the moody 17 year old daughter. 9 stars might seem overrated for a film that has a high amount of predictability. In spite of that, the acting, direction, and script were done well, something I would like to see more of in "B" horror films.Parental Guide: F-bombs, no sex or nudity.

hermon-663-324436 I think the Story of this movie is great! But the movie is a slow starter and one of those movies that you literally have to be stupid to put yourself in this situation. I barely finished it because i was so aggravated how stupid people were and all that just to make a movie? It is very rare nowadays where there is a movie that without a doubt in your mind you still think "Damn that could have happened to me too!" This movie the whole time has you like. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!! Watch it yourself and see for your self. Just bare through it :)I would love to produce a movie or be a thought in making it. You would get that type of movie from my script that makes you feel helpless and full about your attempts to survive.

mdnobles19 The Barrens took a promising premise and did nothing remotely interesting with it. The film had some suspense, grisly but off screen deaths and a likable cast. The result though came up very generic, slow moving, underdeveloped and dull. There were absolutely no scares, terror or entertainment value to this picture, making it one of the weakest horror films of 2012.The film stars Stephen Moyer from the True Blood series and Mia Kirshner from The Black Dahlia. They play Richard and Cynthia Vineyard who go on a camping trip with their kids, but soon their trip takes a sinister turn when mysterious vanishings and death follows them. Richard is convinced that it is The Jersey Devil that has been after him since he was a little boy and paranoia soon takes over when no one believes him. I thought the performances were lackluster and has a botch script that brought the flawed film down even further. The characters were underdeveloped and didn't make me give a damn about their story and what happens to them. It's a shame because they are likable actors in an unlikable film.Director, Darren Lynn Bousman is becoming a hit and miss filmmaker, although it's not as bad as 11-11-11, The Barrens is by far his weakest effort. I did not like his filming style in this movie; it came off as uninspired and amateurish compared to his many superior efforts such as Mother's Day, Saw III, and Repo! The Genetic Opera. He is capable of so much more than this flat, made for SyFy channel movie. The writing and filming was just lazy to me. Hopefully it's a hit next time because he definitely has it in him.Overall, the poster is more interesting to look at than watching the actual film. The premise and leads alone may keep you intrigued for the most part and has a twist or two towards the end, but The Barrens is as tedious as they come. Disappointing addition to the horror genre.

Argemaluco Inside the colorful bestiary of cryptozoology, the Jersey Devil is an interesting but not very popular creature, maybe because the isolation of its supposed habitat (the dense woods of New Jersey) make it a regional curiosity, instead of being an omnipresent phenomenon such as the hairy hominids which abound in the folklore from many countries. Or it may be because the supernatural origin of the legend sets it into the superstition field, instead of the pseudo-science focused on evolutionary whims. In spite of that, the Jersey Devil has been the monster in turn in various films and TV series, including an excellent episode of The X-Files (where he was portrayed as a proto-human descendant of the Neanderthal) and the film The Last Broadcast, which might have been the first horror pseudo-documentary (yes, it was made even before The Blair Witch Project). Now, the film The Barrens shows us a cerebral and reflexive version of the Jersey Devil, which questions if the creature is a living being...or the manifestation of the mental traumas suffered by a man under extreme pressure. The result is moderately interesting, but not very satisfactory.The Barrens employs the main character's frail condition in order to make us doubt about the reality or fiction of the events we witness. It's not an original strategy, but it works during the first half thanks to the screenplay and the competent performances. The problem comes on the second half, when the story is well established, the characters have their course well defined...but screenwriter Darren Lynn Bousman (who was also the director) insists on repeating us what we already knew over and over again, unnecessarily braking the story and delaying the increasingly predictable ending. Nevertheless, The Barrens doesn't get boring because of the solid work from the cast, starting by Stephen Moyer and his honest performance as a man who is increasingly disconnected from the reality, but without losing the common sense which makes him question his own perceptions. Mia Kirshner rescues her generic character by credibly expressing contradictory feeling, while Allie McDonald and Peter DaCunha are quite credible, despite having worked with unidimensional characters.I think The Barrens would have been a much better movie mainly if it had offered more story in order to fill in those long passages in which nothing significant happens and we have to see repeated fights between members of the family, walks on the woods or febrile scenes showing the main character trying to rationalize what he is living. However, I think I can give The Barrens a slight recommendation, mainly because it didn't bore despite not having left me very satisfied.