User reviews

I was intrigued when I heard about 'The Girl in the Photgraphs' because it had an interesting title and a potentially interesting premise, with a chance of some mystery in the story. The synopsis on IMDb reads: "A bored young woman in a sleepy community called Spearfish starts receiving photographs of brutally murdered young women. Are they real or staged? The culprit is either a serial killer or some creep with a sick sense of humour." Sounds interesting enough - that is until the first scene in the entire movie answers the question, which just so happens to be the only thing the film could have had going for it. From then on it is just an abysmal mess, not worth anyone's time or effort.

There are times where this film can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a horror movie or a romantic comedy. There is nothing wrong with taking the time to make your characters charming and likable but do it within the context of the movie. The uneven tone is so noticeable that it becomes incredibly off-putting and takes away any chance the film has to build any atmosphere or tension. In fact I can honestly say in the entire 95 minute runtime I never once felt the slightest emotion towards the movie. I was never worried for a character's safety, or charmed by the dialogue, or even for that matter got a single momentary fright. There is very little good here. Don't be fooled by a nicely made poster and a misleading synopsis. It's terrible.

This film drowns in monotony as it ultimately leaves the viewer in a literal state of "can they please just kill these people so this film can end" for an extended amount of time, mostly the last twenty minutes of the film. Losing patience to such a degree means that all feeling for the cast has been lost or in this case never felt to begin with, this is obviously a big problem for a horror film when even the fate of the innocent young lead(Claudia Lee) loses importance. Nick Simon fails to create any atmosphere throughout as well as suspense and tension. There may have been a few small jolts of electricity, but they dissolve almost instantaneously.

Despite being well produced, shot and acted with lots of pretty faces and even some nice T&A, this film just doesn't succeed in being what could have been a more engaging horror flick had some serious editing and script adjustment been applied.

But in the end I'm still a horror junkie and I have to judge the overall package against it's fellow B horror competitors and there is enough here to possibly warrant some degree of entertainment for those with the same genre affliction, there were some OK kills and to be completely honest the picture the killers leave for the girl in the final seconds was brilliantly done, though a photo cannot undo the overall average plot and mundane feel to this film.

After having just seen the other Oz Perkins-written 2015 horror film February, and adoring it, I was hoping for a similarly well-crafted film here, with a nuanced screenplay which dares to contribute to the horror genre in new ways. Got the opposite - an extremely low-concept, poor execution slasher. I hope he follows the path of that other film in the future.

A grocery store checkout clerk keeps having mysterious photographs of murdered and mutilated women left for her to find around her workplace and other locations. Seven of them so far. The cops think it is "art" so they don't bother doing absolutely anything about it (what?) at any point, even after the girl is stalked (what?). Then some famous photographer and his posse of models comes to town because he's "inspired" by these photographs, and wants to recreate them. Then slasher.

I'll just get the biggest problem out of the way - this slasher has absolutely zero tension. I feel like it tries to heavily borrow from better films, but achieves only lifeless recreations which fail to understand how to create tension. Most obviously this was clearly inspired by the Strangers, down to the masks. So expect a LOT of scenes that make zero sense if examined from a "why would anyone do this other than for the camera" perspective. Like the villains just lurking randomly in the background and appearing and disappearing and so on and so forth. On top of that, the setups are SO common that the viewer is always five seconds ahead of the characters in peril - you will be able to, with 100% accuracy, predict every single time a villain will appear and disappear in the background. Every, single, time.

The characters were supposed to be funny (I think), but weren't my cup of tea. The secondary cast were decent actors, just not given much to work with. The main actress just looked annoyed throughout the entire film. Her range was "very angry" to "only moderately angry". The villains were just awful. Were they going for farcical? They seemed to do random creepy things for the sake of it. It was just an amalgamation of one dimensional "gross" ideas to try to convince us of how deranged the characters are, which just made them comical and a parody.

The nail in the coffin was the final scene."Horror 101", obvious from the beginning, standard "last chill". This movie did not take itself seriously at all and it did not bode well for the concept. It wouldn't be a bad concept if developed further, but should have tried for a serious and tense tone, because it could have been far more interesting.

Upsides? Decent gore, and two or three funny lines hanging on for dear life in an otherwise mostly-witless sea of dialogue.

It's a nice little nod to Wes Craven, the film's Executive Producer, who died with this being his final film. It probability could have been a better movie if Craven was not suffering from Brian cancer during his involvement, yet it's still not the worse way to end a legacy.

I thought Kal Penn was actually pretty funny as an eccentric artist who goes back to his small town after hearing about a string of murders in which the killer would take pictures of his victims. Inspired to copy the murder pics for an Ad campaign, he meets Colleen, the murderer's muse, and convinces her to become his muse, which the murderer does not like.

It lies somewhere between The Last House on the Left and Scream in the story format, not as good as either, but you can see the total potential for it being that kind of innovative horror film.

I will say that I love some of the kills that where done in this movie. Very old school violent with very little animated blood. I like the bluntness of it, it's been a while since a movie gave me that.

As a Horror fan I feel that The Girl in the Photographs is worth taking a look at.

Though I would not call this a masterpiece, I did find it interesting on the comical side. I know this is a horror movie, but I really could not resist the villains. You have to give it to them, they were a very comic duo. I have to tend to believe that they were the ones who had the true lead in this thing.

Unfortunately, besides that fact, the characters as always in horror movies tend to be painted as being particularly stupid -; especially the blonds. This movie did not fail to deliver on that side. They always tend to make ridiculous decisions. Obviously, I could enumerate the nonsensical actions that many of the actors had (except probably the couple in the bed) but that would make no sense.

I'm not really sure why the police kept staying in denial when it was obvious that somebody was killing people. In the real world, there would have been an investigation and on that side, I feel this was a huge miss by the movie. Nobody would make such realistic pictures of a crime without getting hooked by authorities and to my mind, being fund myself of fashion photography, I'm not sure I've ever seen something like that pass in reality. In that case, how did they miss that part in the movie?

I would recommend this for a quick laugh but nothing really too extraordinary to see there. I did give it a score slightly above the average review scores because I did not find it THAT bad and it was kind of enjoyable at the end because of the some of the very funny or borderline annoying characters in the movie.

I will pretty much watch anything to give it a chance, especially horror movies because they're my favorite. But, I can't believe I'm still watching this movie right now it's awful lol. It's not the worst movie I've ever seen but it really is a 3 for so many reasons. The worst part about the movie is the acting. It's comical! It's baddddd lol. The main girl has no range of emotions but she reminds me of Ashley Benson (and I wish it would've been her maybe it would've been better then). Also the model who's the "gf" of the photographer was sooooo annoying!! The story just sucks. I only like the photographer because he's an idiot and has a few good lines in it😂 I would say you might enjoy it if you're bored though. Plus it's free on Netflix at least!

If you are bored to death and you have no slightest idea what to do with yourself, then you could maybe consider watching this movie. Actually... no. Better observe your walls, there must be some interesting bug stains or something. I mean... something this much useless and unprovoked is rare to find...

3/10

...and even that much only because there are some cute girls in it.

Sadly, horror movie maestro Wes Craven died of brain cancer on August 30, 2015. The final film in which he was personally involved was "The Girl in the Photographs" (R, 1:35) (as an executive producer). That movie was first shown publicly at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) barely two weeks after Craven's death, both events marking the end of his 45+ years in the film industry. Although he did some work in other genres, Craven is best known for his innovative and popular approach to horror. Among his cinematic creations are the original versions of "The Last House on the Left" and "The Hills Have Eyes", which led to the "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream" franchises, as well as other sequels and remakes of some of his early films, so they could be updated, and then discovered by new generations of horror fans. Whether you like it or not, "The Girl in the Photographs" (directed by Nick Simon, written by Simon, Oz Perkins and Robert Morast) represents Craven's last direct contribution to horror cinema. So, I guess the questions we have to answer now is what IS there to like about the film, and what… not? Colleen (Claudia Lee) is a bored grocery store cashier in the small town of Spearfish (in west central South Dakota). She's about 20-years-old, pretty, and in a rut. Collen has that job, a weasley jerk of a boyfriend named Ben (Toby Hemmingway) and… not much else. She feels like her life is going nowhere fast and there's nothing worthwhile on the horizon, but her life is about to get a lot more… interesting.

One ordinary morning when Colleen is the first employee to arrive for work, she finds an 8 ½ x 11 inch photograph in the middle of the store's bulletin board. The photo shows a young woman who appears that she has been brutally murdered. Naturally, Colleen immediately takes the ghoulish pic to local law enforcement, but Sheriff Porter (Mitch Pileggi) tells her there's nothing he can do based on that one picture, which might show nothing more than someone's sick sense of humor. "No body, no crime," is how he sums up the situation. He's right, but she grows increasingly frustrated. That photo was only the first of several Colleen finds. They get more and more gruesome, but there is still no evidence of a crime. Besides, Colleen has not been threatened in any way and there's always the possibility that the pictures have nothing to do with her and aren't even for her… until one ends up on the windshield of her car.

Peter Hemmings (Kal Penn) is a Los Angeles photographer who specializes in artistic and often disturbing images. He reads about the very upsetting photos on the internet. Peter's upset too, but not about the subject matter. He's upset that he didn't think of it first. He takes the photographs as a personal affront. He doesn't know who the photographer is or why he would be taunting Peter, but Peter is sure the photos are aimed at him. He was born in Spearfish and, well, he's a famous photographer, so… this has to be personal… right? Peter decides to head home for a photo shoot that will top this "dead model look", as he calls it. His entourage includes his girlfriend, Rose (Miranda Rae Mayo), his long-suffering personal assistant, Chris (Kenny Wormald) and a couple models. They pile in and head for South Dakota.

In Spearfish, world's collide! (Can't you feel that??) Peter and company rent a big cabin in the woods and when they go to the local supermarket to pick up some supplies, they meet Colleen. Peter likes her look and rudely tells the more diplomatic Chris to ask her to the house for a party. Colleen tries to invite her best friend, Jill (Eva Bourne), but can't get a hold of her. Oh, well. Colleen doesn't have anything else going on and this Chris guy is kinda cute – and a lot nicer than Ben. Meanwhile, we meet some of the other residents of Spearfish. There are these two guys named Tom and Gerry (Luke Baines and Corey Schmitt) and they like to take pictures of women. When they discover a new model they… oh, no you don't. Nice try, but you won't get any spoilers out of me. I guess you'll just have to watch the movie.

"The Girl in the Photographs" is smarter and more fun than a lot of people give it credit for. The premise is original and interesting. The cast could have been better, including the "bad guy" characters who were menacing, but should have been more so. However, Kal Penn stands out with his over-the-top version of the quintessential rude and self-important West Coast artist type. Simon's direction is a bit too loose and short on scares. The script should have kept more of its secrets until later in the story, but the clever and surprising ending mostly makes up for that shortcoming. The movie is well edited and very well shot, owing to the fact that the cinematographer, Dean Cundey, also shot the entire "Back to the Future" trilogy, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (for which he got an Oscar nod) and the original films for two classic Hollywood franchises: "Halloween" and "Jurassic Park". In short, this movie's execution is hit-and-miss, but its basic story is right on target. I'll even go so far as to predict that this one will gain some more fans when it comes out on video. Somewhere, Freddy Krueger, Ghost Face and Wes Craven are all smiling… crooked, wicked smiles, but smiles nonetheless. From me, "The Girl in the Photographs" gets a "B+".

"The Girl in the Photographs" centers on Colleen, a grocery store clerk in small town South Dakota who is the unwitting target of a mysterious local who has been leaving photographs of mutilated women for her to find. The series of bizarre photos go viral, garnering interest from an egotistical Los Angeles photographer (Kal Penn) who is also from the town. The arrival of him and his entourage and their meeting with Colleen sets the killer's plans into motion.

This middling contemporary slasher has received most of its buzz from the fact that it was the last project that the late Wes Craven was attached to (he served as executive producer), and had the maestro's name not been on the bill, it's unlikely the film would have seen as much as attention as it has from genre fans. I was excited about the film irrespective of this, as "executive producer' does not equal "writer" or "director," and also because films done in this tradition are rare these days. Opening on VOD and to a small circuit of indie theaters (I caught the film at Cinema Village in New York), the reviews overall have been lukewarm to terrible, so I went into the film with barred expectations–and was actually somewhat surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

While it is in so many ways a conventional slasher thriller, it's also well-shot and decently-acted by any standards. Is it revolutionary? The advent of contemporary horror? Absolutely not. But as a playful riff on serial killer thrillers, it never ceases to be supremely amusing. The production values are high here, and the film benefits greatly from Dean Cundey's cinematography (a frequent collaborator with Spielberg, and the man who shot John Carpenter's "Halloween"). It's flashy and glossy from beginning to end, and conjures the prototypical small-town-in-terror vibe very nicely.

As far as scariness or suspense goes, that is where the film does lack some bite; jump scares surprisingly are not the route taken here, but "masked men lurking in the shadows" is the film's modus operandi. It's ineffective, but what can you do? The muted suspense is possibly the result of the script not seeming to know where it's quite going, but the ambiguous conclusion reifies the apparent confusion in narrative direction, and is quite disturbing in its own right. The performances overall are solid; Kal Penn is appropriately ridiculous as the egomaniacal photographer (whose persona seems to be culled from the likes of Terry Richardson), and Claudia Lee is serviceable as the leading lady despite having an underwritten character. The rest of the supporting cast manages to pull in some comedic elements that offset the sadomasochistic center of the movie, and the dialogue is efficient and believable.

Overall, I thought this was a decent effort, and it is one of the best modern slasher movies I've seen in quite awhile. Fans expecting something revolutionary or on par with the likes of Craven will be disappointed, and I feel that Craven's name on the project may have something to do with the disheartened fans who expected something more than what this film has to offer. In spite of that, "The Girl in the Photographs" is a fun and indulgent throwback to the eighties slasher. It's conventional, but stylish and entertaining enough that I found it worth my time–and maybe that's enough. 6/10.

The trailer looked good. The premise was interesting. The actual film itself...well...I just kept hoping for it to end or at least provide SOME sort of creepy factors. This movie may work for some but true Horror and Thriller fans will be disappointed. If you can get past the obnoxious and facetious character of one of the main actors well you're definitely more patient and forgiving than me. He was absolutely AWFUL. Condescending...and much more. Horribly written character. In addition I was very discouraged by the police and how they handled certain situations. Finally this movie may as well be re-named "Masked Stabbers" trying in some way to perhaps be like Scream (but failing miserably). I am not sure how this film garnered 5/10...definitely beyond me. Pass.

Wes Craven's name is synonymous with directing some of the biggest, scariest films ever to come out of Hollywood including; "The Hills Have Eyes" The Last House On The Left" plus the "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream" franchises.

So when Amazon Prime claim "The Girl In The Photographs" is Wes' last film they neglect to tell you in his role as Executive Producer whilst dealing with Brain Cancer, so his creative input is minimal.

Instead we get a cheap, schlocky Hallmark movie directed by Nick Simon starring the very unfunny Kal Penn and Claudia Lee.

FFS! What a disappointment this was on Fright Night at The Ponderosa.

Big 65 cm screen lit up, Bose sound bar cranked up to 11 (with Sub Woofer) and then this so called "brutal thriller" came on.

It pales in comparison to the great mans work and should never be mentioned in the same breath as his legacy of wonderful Horror genre movies.

It's like a cappuccino on skim milk otherwise known as a why bother.

95 minutes of your life you'll never get back.

Big names like Wes Craven and Kal Penn can get away with anything. If those two names were not attached to this project, it would be largely unknown.

Either that or the smaller names that took their places would have realized they had to actually work at making a film worth watching.

There are precisely two main characters who I can bring myself to care about. Most of the acting is probably not bad, but the terrible acting (I'm looking at you, Kal Penn) makes it hard to notice anyone else's passable acting.

I guess I'd summarize by saying that there's really no point watching this movie unless you just want to say you saw it.

How The Girl in the Photographs was accepted into Midnight Madness at TIFF 2015 is certainly a mystery to me. Poor writing and performances overall, this movie was a chore to sit through. Even the usually excellent Katherine Isabelle is mediocre at best here (granted she doesn't have much screen time). Karl Penn's attempt at comedy was grating and absolutely unfunny. The plot, while having some promise initially drowns in a sea of mess. I have never walked out of a screening before, but The Girl in the Photographs made me come close. I did stay until the end, but it certainly took a lot of will power. It is unfortunate that this would be one of the last projects that Wes Craven's name is attached to (as Executive Producer).

No matter how a movie turns out, I know equal amounts of blood and sweat went into making it, and because of that I try to find at least one positive point to make about any movie. In this case, perhaps the cinematography was the only element that wasn't terrible. Shot by the excellent Dean Cundey (Halloween, Back to the Future, Apollo 13, etc.) the movie looks good with some nice Steadicam work.

Went in with realistic expectations and walked out severely disappointed. Avoid this one.

My friend and I are on a spree of watching horror films, and we hoped this would be one of the good ones. It turned out it's one of the least planned out horror movies I know of. The movie has no real story other than there's serial killers. There is no true plot, or resolution. It was well produced, just no story. It was a disappointment. It's like the creators just wanted to make a movie where people are brutally murdered and end it. I hated this movie.

So insanely boring and filled with unlikable , unrealistic characters it's maddening. every time Kal Penn opens his characters mouth something embarrassing happens . It's almost like it was written by an alien trying to figure out how humans act . Was this meant to be a horror movie or spoof ? I'm honestly baffled and desperately seeking for something good to like . I've sat through "the amazing bulk" and "the night of the bloody apes " and find those to at least be watchable in an ironic way ... I'm struggling here .

Yeah so, like almost every horror movie, it has its cheesy moments. But with this film at least they picked actors who can actually act, so those cheesy moments are intentional. Maybe I'm bias because I'm a fan of Kal Penn, but he can act, as well as everyone else in this, and I think he's funny as a douche bag hipster. It's a new story I haven't seen a million times. There's more than just hunter and prey and it has a good solid story line build up before you get to find out who lives and dies. Best of all there's none of that loud noise, cheap scare bulls---. I watched 30 new (to me) horror and slasher films for October this year and I have to say this was my favorite.

Dumbest damn movie out there. Senseless murder with an idiotic police force. No real story to follow. Stupid stupid stupid!!!!!