A lie, a lie, a lie, a lie. Each town or village has its own terrible legend, rooted in the distant past. It scares children before going to bed or entertain teenagers, sitting up until the night by the fire, telling terrible stories. In particular, there are many similar legends in the United States, where superstitions have always been strong, which is used by storytellers who want to have fun with an impressionable audience. If you take into account Westchester County, located somewhere in the vastness of the state of New York, it is very difficult to find a local resident who would not know anything about the Buckout Road, named after the Buckout family known in the local area. According to some reports, Bacout Road is the most visited road in the entire state, even though it passes through a remote forest and is not the most popular highway connecting the largest settlements. Nevertheless, the fame of the cursed place works properly, actively expands and attracts more and more tourists who arrive here in the hope of seeing something otherworldly. According to sources investigating the past of Buckout Road, three girls accused of witchcraft were once executed in the region. And at the dawn of American colonization, it was a crime that was almost impossible to justify. In addition, it was reported that in the vicinity of Bacout Road lived a family of albino cannibalists, as well as a serial killer whose crimes did not end even after his death. You can talk about Buckout Road for a long time, since evidence of supernatural activity on the road is counted in dozens. And just this was inspired in his work by the director and screenwriter Matthew Curry Holmes, who decided to shoot “The Curse of Buckout Road”, in which several celebrities appeared in secondary roles, as well as promising young people who are not going to refuse the opportunity to appear in a full-length film.
So, the plot of the film, as it is not difficult to guess, takes place near the infamous Buckout Road, where for centuries something mysterious and inexplicable has been happening, and yet, until people have evidence that something mystical dwells here, they are not going to simply change their place of residence. The local psychiatrist Lawrence Powell (Danny Glover), who has lived near the cursed road all his adult life and does not even think about running away, is not going anywhere. However, Lawrence understands that something is wrong here and periodically quite adequate, sane people commit frankly insane acts, including suicide. One such ominous case recently occurred with a local college teacher, and the official investigation was unable to prove anything suspicious, leaving the case in limbo. And just at this time, the grandson of a psychiatrist, Aaron Powell (Ivan Ross), arrives in town, who is fully aware of the fact that if you are away from Buckout Road, you should not go back. Faced with unexplained visions of nightmares, Aaron learns that it is the student Cleo (Dominic Provost-Chalkley), who recently filmed material about Bakawi Road. So now young people need to conduct their own investigation and find out what is really happening here and whether there is a chance to save their souls from the curse of the road.
The story touched on by Matthew Curry Holmes first of all bribes with its documentary basis. Of course, scientific minds do not in any way believe that such sinister things are happening around Buckout Road, as the amazed eyewitnesses say, and yet there is still so much inexplicable happening in the world that willy-nilly, and one begins to believe in the manifestation of the supernatural, refusing to follow our traditional laws and natural concepts. However, all the strengths of the production end with the intriguing urban legends of Buckout Road, after which begins a long artistic torment caused by the inexperience of Holmes, known as a TV series actor, but not as an experienced director and screenwriter. The merits of Holmes in his usual field allowed him to convince producers and colleagues that he can actually shoot something special, and yet he never managed to bring the start to a victorious end, in fact, shooting a frankly passing, albeit not the most failed genre film. The heroes of Holmes make frankly stupid, biased and sometimes meaningless actions, frightening moments work far differently than James Wan and his wards, and scenes of paranormal visions are more tiresome than amazing. The film has a lot of shortcomings, many storylines instead of promising development get a vacuum void, but with all this, the Curse of Buckout Road boasts a very good, albeit far from perfect atmosphere, as well as famous faces in small roles that give the production a modest gloss.
You can’t expect Danny Glover, Henry Cerny and Colm Fior to play the seminal roles in this film, but the director gives them his moment of respect, which they do quite well. Each of the veterans of Hollywood cinema left his own imprint in The Curse of Buckout Road, and although it could and should have been made deeper, Matthew Curry Holmes wanted to make young people the leading characters in his story, thereby hoping to get the attention of the appropriate age audience for which the film was shot. You can’t say that Ivan Ross, Dominic Provost-Chalkley and the rest of the guys showed something absolutely outstanding, but in the context of this plot looked good. They did not have enough scripts to properly understand the essence of their characters, but in such films, whose distribution is often limited, few people pay attention to genuine drama and emotional throwing, while here a loud scream, rapid breathing, screeching and wide-open eyes when meeting the supernatural are welcomed. And all this in the "Curse of Buckout Road" is full.
In the end, I want to say that The Curse of Buckout Road was supposed to be a much more terrible and spectacular film, but an inexperienced director and screenwriter created no more than a mediocre attraction out of a truly sinister story. Yes, it is not the most terrible, but still it can not be called the film, for the sake of watching which you need to put all things aside.
4 out of 10