Chemical Peel (2014) Reviews

• Not bad

  chrismackey19722014-10-17

  Six friends - all girls - and an infant baby are at an out-of-the-way cabin that is owned by the grandfather of one of the girls. That night, while having a party, they hear noises from outside, and two guys - friends of the girls - come into the cabin for a brief visit. The next morning, two girls go outside and find that it's foggy, and it stinks of bleach. There are also dead birds on the ground. A moment later, a scream is heard. The girl with the baby is yelling that her child can't breath, so she runs out with the kid, gets in the car and drives away, leaving the girls totally stranded. They turn on the news and hear that there was a train accident that spilled a lot of toxins into the air, and then as is typical, the TV goes out. Also, they cannot get cell phone reception, and there is a busy signal when they called 9-1-1. One of the guys from the other night bangs on the door, but the girls refuse to let him in because if he's sick, he might contaminate everyone. While the girls are sealing up the windows with duct tape, they start wondering if ebola is outside. As well, they think terrorists might be responsible for the train accident. As the movie progresses, some of the girls show they are as big a threat as the danger outside. Let me say that I thought this would really, really suck. When I saw the cinematography, which reeked of very low-budget, I almost turned it off. At the beginning, the girls were kind of obnoxious. However, I like the atmosphere of places miles from anywhere, so I stuck with it. There was a lot of blood and gore, but no nudity. There was a part when a girl strips down to take a shower, but I think they even blurred her butt crack, which kinda cracked me up - no pun intended. lol. The acting got better as the movie went on. You could tell it was pretty low budget, but they did a good job, and state-of-the-art special effects were not needed. This was not a found-footage film, thankfully. I think anyone can appreciate the movie for what it is; a movie about a group of people trapped in a tragic circumstance. The bloody CPR was the grossest part of the movie. The dumbest part of the movie was what happened in the hospital room between Rae and the company representative. I don't know what it is with movies like this and Extraterrestrial that feel they need some sort of an explosive ending. It wasn't necessary at all. Anyway, I gave this a 5-star rating.

• Somewhat flawed but still slightly enjoyable at times.

  kannibalcorpsegrinder2016-02-22

  Gathering together for a bachelorette party, a group of women awake to find that a chemical spill has been accidentally unleashed nearby and is slowly affecting the group forcing them to try to fight off the deadly virus before they kill each other. For the most part this here wasn't all that great of an effort.What really ends up hurting this one immensely is the fact that so much of the film's running time is simply spent on the girls turning on each other and offering little in the way of making them appealing which is crucial and important in such a situation. Considering the initial reason why they're getting together in the first place and what's the entire purpose of their meeting, it tends to just waste so much time here going for the type of useless subplots that do anything but make us believe that they're friends. While the snapping at each other in the beginning when they're still unsure about the entire situation does make some sense as the slowly- dawning threat is gradually unveiled which affects the group differently is certainly understandable, there's little need to carry this out as much as it does into the later half by showing them continually snipping at each other for completely unneeded and useless natures, from their backstory about the dead friend, the meeting with the friends and all the other rather unneeded parts here that makes the group quite unlikely to be enjoyable to be around. Even more puzzling here is the fact of what the purpose of bringing the local hunter into the group was supposed to serve as there's little point in him being there. He's so late into the film that regardless of how much he got exposed to he should still be far more infected than he really is, the addition to the body count isn't all that needed and in reality shows off another in a long line of continuous bad decision-making by the group which is the last big flaw here. Avoiding common sense by ignoring the strange toxic gas-cloud surrounding them and going outside, failing to even seal up the house until just about the hour mark and finally tuning out the emergency broadcasts by staying around each other when they have the infection instead of staying in isolation is a major series of missteps that furthers the situation more than normal and really holds this one back all-together. About all this one has going for it is the fact that the graphic representations of the infection against them are quite fun, from the various bloody sores to the opening blood-vomiting and finally the graphic meltdown that still comes hidden away so as not to get the full-effect of the situation but gets just enough to matter. As well, it does score well in their panic and confusion when the entire reveal is found out and it remains watchable enough throughout, but on the whole the flaws more than outweigh the positives here. Rated R: Graphic Violence and Extreme Graphic Language.

• This and that

  begob2015-01-14

  Well ... Mostly female cast (all young), so the early dialogue is full of life. Opening scene is a blind VO during the credits - very effective. Followed by a full car interior with a cast of good actors in giddy form. Problem is the cast ends up trapped in a house with a thin plot. While the mutual bitchiness does okay for a while, their helplessness gets very trying. Feels like exhausted improv, and the story doesn't know what to do with so many characters. At about 60 mins a man enters the room and the action gets going. Can't understand why they didn't use the chick with glasses to supply this role all along. I'm mostly down-voting because of that big gap in pace. The flashbacks are sentimental. And the ending is childish - unless the dude with the pen is a personification of American capital, but this film doesn't do metaphor. And it doesn't do reality. Otherwise it would show this is the disaster visited by American capital on people in Bhopal, but this time exported back to America and it's lovely teens. There's always next Halloween.

• Kinda horrible...in a good way

  monicakmosley2014-10-28

  I'll be honest, I thought it started a bit slow, but once the chemicals hit the fan, it gets sorta...hypnotic. The setup puts these girls in an isolated spot (no cell phone service, so you know it's trouble), and then traps them there with a deadly poison outside the ranch. Things slowly start to fall apart (literally and figuratively), but enough happened that it remained interesting. I thought it was a pretty effective thriller, and when I say horrible in a good way, I mean precisely that. What transpires in this film is quite horrible, though I can promise there's at least one character who kind of deserves it.

• Why did I torture myself? This movie really scared me!

  alshwenbear12014-10-24

  No there's no ghosts, zombies, or insane serial killers, but something worse than all of that combined; a chemical spill going airborne! Burning your skin, making you gasp for air, driving you mad and insane with panic, fear, terror. Through the whole movie I wondered: why I am torturing myself, but I couldn't walk away, now I am seriously considering a gas mask and protective gear! The acting is not the best, but who cares, the story and unfolding drama is so compelling, that it makes this movie more than a horror film, a fair warning for all. As a young man, not far from where I used to live, a terrible explosion burned people, houses, cars,and no movie before made me feel back to that horrible event. and I shiver thinking what if instead of gas, it had been a mix of lethal chemicals traveling fast for miles and miles? And that is the reason "Chemical Peel" is a movie to watch if you want to scare yourself, this upcoming Halloween,after that you won't need a ghost story!