User reviews

I was not expecting much but the coming to theaters March 3rd post gave me some hope and I also thought it would be kind of like "The Ring", but this is just another DTV ball of crap. The acting was harsh and the characters were so random and extremely hard to care for. Half the time I could barely even recognize who was getting offed so the empathy scale is a 0. So many questions are left unanswered and plot points unexplained. The adding of Christian Slater's character just cheapened the entire film, when is the last time one of his movies hit the big screen? I really usually love & enjoy horror/thrillers but this one seemed really forced with very little thought in the direction area. Of course the ending is just another cheap horror cliché, with their intent for a sequel already primed I'm sure. If you have nothing to do go for it , but I warned you. This is a VERY generous 5/10

Just to be fair, movies I watch on the net I add a extra point to just to put things in the right prospective.

First pet peeve with movies like this is 30 year olds playing teenagers. C'mon! Furthermore, don't get fooled by the reviews written by people of the production company or "friends of the director", this movie really isn't worth anything more than a 4 to 5.

A federal law should prevent any more Japanese style horror movies. It's done! Go sit in the corner with the found footage films and the creature features and if you ask me, the highschool road movie.

So here it goes again. Mundane, predictable, the copy of the copy of the copy. It might be nice as a background movie while you are cleaning your fridge don't spend a Saturday night on it.

The only thing great about this movie is probably the over rated movie poster. The movie itself was absolute crap with glitter wrapping on it. i hope to never ever come across another load of crap again. The plot was none existent, the characters where incredibly watered down to the point where you will find yourself not caring about them at any level and the scares where just loud noises like a loud truck or dog suddenly barking. This is not even a movie you consider if you where bored. Majority of the time i found myself looking away from screen and just wondering how the directors can get away with releasing movie like this. At the end of it i felt i had wasted over 1:30 minutes of my life for no reason. Do your self a favor and don't bother watching this crap.

On 21 October 1994, the deranged Harlan Diehl (Luke Bonczyk) kills his family in their farm and only a baby survives. In the present days, the teenager Julian Miller (Johnny Pacar) borrows a camera, tripod and other equipment from his friend Quinn (Toby Hemingway) that works in a TV studio to make an amateurish film about the infamous Harlan Diehl with his girlfriend Riley (Ambyr Childers) and their classmates DeeDee Baker (Jennifer Missoni), Nate (Jonathan Keltz) and Brianna Baker (Alessandra Torresani).

Quinn sells footages of DeeDee and Brianna in the change room in the high school to the sick police officer Frank Lyons (Christian Slater). When Julian inadvertently unleashes evil through the playback of videotapes, Quinn is possessed by Harlan Diehl and begins a violent crime spree.

"Playback" is a noisy, lame and messy horror movie recently released straight on DVD in Brazil. I am a fan of the genre, but this film is a complete waste of time, with a terrible and senseless story. My vote is one.

Title (Brazil): "De Volta ao Terror" ("Back to Terror")

When a group of film students attempt to document the brutal history of their town's past, they unleash the evil spirit which inspired the rampage and must stop it's current rampage before it exposes the secret behind it's existence.

This is overall a pretty lame and barely worthwhile effort. The only true sense of credit that this one really has is it's plot line about the body-hopping spirit that can only be transfered through video, which is pretty creepy and doesn't get used often-enough as a concept since it generates some really impressive moments here and there of the possessed beings out and about with their unknowing victims. Otherwise, this here is a gory, low-budget boring mess that seems to fling itself around in ten different directions without any sort of inner compass to determine what it wants to do, a low-budget feel that never lets it's full scope become apparent despite the feel it's going for and a laid-back pace that rarely lets on it's a horror film and never really goes for any sort of excitement or enjoyability. A true let-down and not really worth it.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity and underage drinking.

Ill start off by saying,if your the kind of person that's always looking for connections in movies(Most people on IMDb who think their intelligent, but just young) then you may not like this one, but if your old school like me and have seen everything already and don't care too much if movies draw slim similarities to others as long as they're good then I would say have at it.

There's some great gore, naked girls, and a twisted little story line that doesn't steal 'too' much from other movies, but taking just enough to get the troll's panties in a bunch. The similarities are sparse, trust me.

What really bugs me is not one of the fake reviewers, the "Changed my life" review along with the griper who yells at people with fake reviews(due to only one review history) when he himself is a shill. And thats the flaw in IMDb voting system. The fact that any nitwit can make multiple accounts and trash any movie before it even has a chance to get out there. This makes even more stupid people run around saying, "Oh yeah I heard that movie sucked!"

Well, I actually SAW this last night, I was expecting nothing good after reading reviews here. I have to say was surprised with the movie's pace, acting, and GORE! Storyline, Basically 15 years ago a kid murders his family. Fast forward to today and another kid decides to unravel the mystery for a school paper. Yes it has that familiar sound, but no this is no "The Ring part whatever". This borrows from a few movies while keeping its own individual style. We have Christian Slater playing an "interesting" part to say the least along with a creepy kid who likes to go through old film in his spare time. Again sounds like Chinese Ghost stuff, but this actually has Gore, Nudity, things Chinese cinema lacks. Basically it earns its R rating which means a lot to me in Horror.

I for one will admit that this will win no awards, nor will it become a big block buster. Its a genre movie aimed at genre fans. Nothing too great, but not bad at all either..

I gave it 7 out of 10 because of the sh%*storm of idiots who will undoubtedly ruin the rating/reviews of this movie(as they do to so many) all because one person left a good review before everyone else did so everyone assumes there part of the crew and its their duty to make 3 accounts and post fake reviews..how sad peoples lives must be. In reality this movie is a Solid 6.

Another thing, don't run out and buy this, wait till its on cable or Netflix.Its worth a watch when you put it up against the crap that true Horror fans have to sift through to get a decent watch, but its not a must see.

Avoid this movie at all costs.

On watching the trailer, I thought this might be decent. I was wrong. About 5 minutes in I felt a burning sensation in my nostrils. About 10 minutes in, I realised the foul stench was emanating from my screen. I had to throw the screen in the trash, such was the damage incurred.

The synopsis for this movie at the top of this page is all wrong.

The cop, played by Christian Slater, isn't investigating anything at all. In fact, he's a full blown paedophile and, creepily, he plays it well.

The same can't be said for the rest of the cast. They're supposed to be portraying teenagers, yet they're all in their thirties. It must be only so they can get away with showing a bit of boob.

In conclusion, this movie stinks.

I went into this movie expecting to be a bit disappointed. I'm truly a stickler when it comes to horrors and thrillers. I will say that the only reason I even went was because one of my closest friends practically forced me into it.

What I found was that I could not be happier with a movie. After his work in the batman franchise, Christian Slater did a wonderful job keeping me on the edge of my seat. In fact, if I had to guess, I'd say his work in this film might be the most realistic, believable acting job in recent history, far surpassing Christian's former costar, Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight.

My only beef about the film was that it was sometimes hard to follow the intricate movements of the actor's index fingers, although I suppose its not fair to deduct points for something that I assume is a rare fetish that is only shared by complete sociopaths and a large percentage of field mice.

If you read some of the reviews for Playback, you may notice it receives more than its fair share of negativity. In some ways it deserves it, in others it doesn't. A lot of the criticism comes from how it's been sold. If you read the blurb, you'll see it mentions an 'ex cop (played by Christian Slater) investigating a mysterious killer.' This is simply not true. For a start, Christian Slater's part in this film is little more than an extended cameo and it seems to be a blatant attempt by the studio/promoters to do their best at cashing in on the one and only (semi) big name attached to the project.

The film is actually about a group of teenagers who are trying to make their own horror film when they stumble on a particularly nasty supernatural force that links back to their town's past. In many ways, Playback is little more than a (supernatural) slasher film that loosely borrows from superior works like The Ring. You may even forget that Christian Slater is in the film because his character has so little to do.

Playback is okay. If you can ignore its miss-selling and are just looking for a run-of-the-mill horror to fill an hour and a half, then this one will probably do. Yes, there are a fair few unexplained bits that may leave you with a question mark or two over your head, but, like I say, it's far from perfect, but it just about makes the grade.

http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

Playback – TRASH IT (C) Playback is a horror film with very little potential. The whole story of devil transforming from generation to generation via screen is little too much even for this indie horror. First thing first I still cannot believe that Christian Slater will take a role of pedophile in a C graded movie. It's better to not do anything rather than shaming his name (whatever is left after "Alone in the Drak") into dirt. It stars some of the not very famous yet good looking tween stars Toby Hemingway, Jonahtan Keltz, Johnny Pacar, Jennifer Missoni, Luke Bonczyk, Alessandra Torresani and Ambyr Childers. Overall, it's a gruesome time passer but bad lighting and not very impressive story and performance makes you bore. Simply ignore this one.

First - with regards to the previous reviews. Lets try and get one thing straight. The Christian is Christian Slater - not Bale. Mel Gibson was in PAYBACK not this film. Robert Downey Junior was not in this film. Some of the reviews seem to have their films mixed up. JJ Abrams had nothing to do with this film. If you are going to leave a review at least get the film right, the actors right and the story line right! There is no gay janitor!

Now - for this film. Well, it's slow, only one true jump moment, very little killing, poor storyline, weird random storyline involving Christian Slater and generally bad acting. I've seen scarier adverts than this film. There are so many scenes which added nothing to the storyline and were pointless. The camera action was lazy and thoughtless. Character development was non existent, no relationship or connection was created. You just don't care about the characters. Overall don't waste your time - there really is nothing going for this!

I don't usually do this, but some of you might stumble upon a review by IMDb username tlsmith-569-716188 as the visible review on this film's page. Aside from mistaking Christian Slater for Christian Bale, it's obviously biased and written by either someone who took part in the making of this film, or someone to related to such a person. Do your part and click "no". We deserve more integrity.

Having said that, let's get back to "Playback". I must say that while I did enjoy watching it, I couldn't help but finding the screenplay and story lacking. The idea is nice while not all that original (The Ring has already given us "evil from a videotape" and this was simply too similar), but the twist was too obvious and predictable. A good plot twist is one where the balance between the hints given and the element of surprise upon the discovery is kept. In this case - the hints were too thick, and the surprise was gone. That might be because I'm a Horror freak and have watched many Horror and Thriller films, but I can't help but expect more.

The second thing, which was really sad for me, was Christian Slater's roll. Oh my, how the great ones have fallen and been humbled to a shady background role of a semi-pedophile creep. I'd hate to think that after his illustrious career Slater has been degraded to his role here. Depressing.

However, while not being the best film ever, Playback is far from being bad. The effects and cinematography were very impressive, the original indie-rock soundtrack was great and is in my opinion good enough to purchase if available, and the way some of the scenes shot by the kids in the movie end up realized by the killer was very nice. But the best thing about this film is for sure Toby Hemingway's acting (and a great job by the make-up department). Hemingway was superb, and I look forward to seeing him in other films!

All in all, like I've mentioned, Playback wasn't the best film ever, nor the worst. It had its moment, and while it could have been a lot better - it could have been a lot worse too. I personally rate it a 6, but recommend that you give it a shot.

This is my first review here on IMDb,

I saw this movie yesterday and it was so stupid but so stupid! It was full of clichés and a predictable story! Some things didn't even make sense. I won't spoil anything if you want to see it, one thing that made me want to watch this movie was slater but not even him could save this movie! Seriously I knew how the movie was going to end when they started doing investigation.

And they changed the camera angles from some shots when they showed them a second time, you'll see what I mean towards the end. If you see it try to catch all the clichés... I actually wished that I would have decided not to see it! There is actually one part on the movie that he is supposed to be filming with his phone and the screen turns black and he just keeps going.

The only good thing about this movie is the girls that's why I gave it a 2/10. I'm 19 years old...

I'm a humongous horror fan. Hostel and Saw are amazing. So when I saw this at family video, I thought why not? I absolutely love Johnny Pacar, so I knew it had to be decent, right?

Right I was! The acting is solid, the gore is realistic, and the plot twists are believable. I read all the reviews beforehand and expected a stinker, but do NOT read most of the reviews. They're either making fun or they were expecting something else.

Yes, there are plot holes. Yes, the ending is predictable. But it's fun, it made me jump a couple times, and the gore doesn't look ridiculously fake like most B movies!

Will I watch it again? Heck yeah! Will I buy it? Possibly. Do I recommend it? Absolutely.

The whole time watching this movie, I was wondering how they got Christian Slater is take part of this. Not that I'm a fan of his work, I just thought he still had a tab bit of dignity in him. The plot sounds like it came straight from a Japanese horror film, the only problem is that this film doesn't even bother to attempt to elicit any scares. To me, it was just a cheap excuse to have bare breast and gore. The acting and writing in this film is quite poor. I was disappointed with this film due to the fact that this film was released by Magnet, who have released good films such as Rubber, Hobo With A Shotgun, Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, Outrage, and so on. By the time the film got to the plot twist, I was already unengaged with this film. This film is worth no one's time. Even if you like Christian Slater (I'm not sure if anyone still does), just avoid this at all cost.