D4 (2010)

This low budget movie grabs your attention as there are two bloody individuals sitting outside of a room. One has a knife in her chest. There is a commotion in the room as the woman with the knife in her chest pulls out two hand guns and appears poised to enter the room guns blazing (something I would have done before I got in her condition). After the hook scene we go into a one week earlier flashback which in turn uses more flashbacks as a subplot and to feed us information.It seems the son of a billionaire widow (Vicki Askew as Vicki Lark) has been taken captive and she employs the mercenary Sloan (Eric Berner) to rescue him. Their initial meeting was a lesson in bad acting and bad dialouge. Sloan assembles a roadhouse team of people we know by nicknames: Smoke (Darrin Dickerson who wrote, directed, and edited this film), Cutter (Jeff Hime) who provides us with some bad tanning bed humor, Brocker (Clay Brocker) apparently the writers couldn't come up with a clever nickname, and Snipe (Jaimee Gray Simon) our token eye candy. Two of these individuals we recall from the opening scene. The son is being held at D-4 which doesn't "exist" and is part of the same experimental group in our subplot.The subplot flashback involves a 6 year old boy being experimented on by horrific MST actors pretending to be doctors. The boy was in the care of his old geezer grandfather (Ted LeGarde), who at times is talking to the doctors and other times is in the woods recording himself on a rescue mission. The editing was as horrific as the script and acting almost to the point of being unintentionally comical. The movie credits read like the Dickerson family tree.The film has a nice little twist at the end, which shows some writing talent in the basic plot outline. The details in executing the plot were substandard. The script dialouge and acting needed to be more animated. If you are going to have two guys get off a helicopter and walk to swagger music, it needs to be slow motion for the full effect. Who doesn't know that?No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Blood, killing, p-word.

Dickenson created a great movie with limited funds. I meet him at a Full Moon Horror Fest and took a chance buying his movie. I was glad I did. This is his first and the budget was tight. He created a great film that won't disappoint. If you are a fan of horror movies, especially the classics you should watch this movie. I promise you won't be disappointed. The movie keeps your interest with action and interesting story line. The camera work and effects are also good for a limited budget. Did I mention he wrote, directed and starred in this movie. He is a triple threat of indie movies. I can't wait to see his next creation.

THIS is how you maximize a minimal budget and put out a product that looks like a million bucks.D4 tells the story of hired mercenaries on a simple search-and-rescue mission in the woods that goes quite askew when they are beset up on by a very big, very angry monster of a man, a product of science run amok. On the surface, this appears to be a fairly straightforward tale. However, the filmmakers' choice to tell the story non-sequentially adds layers of ever-deepening mystery and nail-biting suspense to the proceedings. Just how deep does this conspiracy go? Well, let's just say, just when I thought I had it all figured out, I was wrong.Very wrong.Dickerson manages to elevate D4 miles above its micro budget with excellent camera work, a talented ensemble cast, and pulse-pounding action helped out by tight fight choreography and stunts (believe me, I'm a stickler.)I hope D4 gets the attention that it deserves, because the love and care and attention to detail that was put into it really shine, and it should be held up as a model for other low-budget movie makers to aspire to.I have spoken.

So, I watched this film, largely because all of the reviews claimed what an indie masterpiece this was. I'll admit is was a piece of something. The acting isn't too bad, but the editing sucks. There are large unnatural pauses in dialogue that grates on my mind like nails on a chalkboard. The story is OK, but totally unbelievable. A man's grandson is kidnapped and he doesn't call the cops? Because some guy in a stairwell told him they wouldn't believe him? Come on! I can't believe I wasted this much of my life on such a crap movie. They keep referring to a "beast" as an it, like it were a non-human animal, but it clearly was human. I also loved the lack of muzzle flashes on the weapons. All they did was play the sound of a gun firing. In fact most of the audio was like that. Just clearly added after the fact with no visual cue to associate it with. This is a typical B movie. Nothing more, nothing less. I guess I was just hyped into believing it was better than it was.