The Task is Startlingly Reminiscent of the Reality Show ‘MTV’s Fear’
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In The Task ‘contestants’ perform a series of tasks in a haunted prison to win a prize. Unfortunately the evil warden isn’t done.
Written by The Horror Czar, Don Sumner
July 24, 2011
Movie Trailer
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Release: July 26, 2011 (U.S. DVD)
Directed by: Alex Orwell
Written by: Kenny Yakkel
Starring:
Alexandra Staden as Connie
Victor McGuire as Big Daddy
Adam Rayner as Taylor
Antonia Campbell-Hughes as Angel
Ashley Mulheron as Shoe
We begin this adventure by watching a number of people going about their daily lives on city streets, only to be abducted in broad daylight and gathered into a windowless van filled with people wearing pig masks. After a long and ominous drive the abductees are brought out of the van to find that they are handcuffed together and standing outside a prison with an evil past. Surprise! Killers looking to dismember their bodies and leave them as food for coyotes didn’t abduct them, they are contestants in a new reality show! I guess they all forgot about the fact that they auditioned for a reality show recently.
After we get through the wimpy guy who pisses his pants, the stronger and greedier of the bunch are informed of their challenge: they must spend 24 hours inside an evil haunted prison and complete a series of tasks to win a large sum of money and become reality TV stars for all of 15 minutes. Every one of them agrees and ventures into the prison to seek their reality TV fame and fortune.
Things progress according to plan as the group makes their way to the warden’s office to find keys to unlock the handcuffs and a video monitor which will inform them of their required tasks. So far the scares are nothing more than recordings of barking dogs and the inherently creepy setting of an old prison. This is gonna be a piece of cake. But… the very first task involves a ritual consistently used in Satanic cults, and this particular ritual seems to work.
The Task is one of the After Dark Originals, a series of films that came to prominence with the “8 films to die for” series from 2007. The premise back then was that independent horror films that were too extreme for prime time were being brought to horror fans via DVD. This was not necessarily true at the time, but often the films were pretty good nonetheless; Kind of like SyFy original movies with a bit less formula and a lot more gore. There was another batch of “8 Films to Die For” in 2008 and another in 2009 – but it appears that as of today this particular promotion has, well, died… but for the sake of context, that’s the history. One of the things that I always noticed about the films from After Dark Films is that they often fall apart at the end.
In most of the films from this production company the stories were
strong, the build-up great, but
the climax was hurried and goofy,
making no sense. The Task displays a similar element of “the
wheels fell off” at the end”. That’s unfortunately not the only issue
with this film. The characters just don’t seem natural. The smart chick
spouts off big word sentences in a stereotypical way, the “not afraid
of anything” chick is unnaturally aloof, the gay guy just a bit too “in
your face” – these are caricatures of characters. The allure of reality
shows is that we get a dose of reality, at least theoretically… but the
performers in this film are clearly B actors with scripts, playing
characters that we str supposed to recognize. Kind of like a cartoon.
The other trouble here is with the surprise twist… and then the next one, and the next one. None of them are believable, surprising, or less than dumb. In a strange way I get it, though, because the concept depicted in The Task is one that sounds good in theory, but it’s hard to know where it’s supposed to go in practice. The feeling that comes from this film is that the concept was sold to everyone who would be involved in the film, but once the film was being made nobody knew what the fu*k to do with it. So, they just made some stuff up that seemed like clever horror after a bong hit, and left it at that. This film is very unsatisfying in the way everything feels thrown together.
The Task is ultimately a cool concept that falls down in the execution. Has anyone ever seen a movie star fall down on the red carpet? That reminds me of The Task. Similar to the woman who has great hair, dresses well, has perfect make-up and a wonder bra, yet still is the only girl not dancing, The Task has elements that should work, but just don’t. High hopes are just not satisfied with this film, no matter how much hope I might have had.
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