American Gothic

The film, even according to the poster, wants to present itself as a kind of parody of Grant Wood's famous 1930 painting “American Gothic”. It tries, through Rod Steiger's goofy overgrown "kids", to play on a lighter note, but the kids are played so badly, and the whole thing is so absurd that it's impossible to take it seriously. Starting with the attack on Jeff, about half an hour before the end, it completely falls apart dramaturgically, and all that's left is an obscure scene of crazy people, with a hard-to-accept transformation of a main character, and horribly, downright scary bad acting. The theatrical performance of the great Rod Steiger seems to belong in a completely different film. An utter cinematic disaster. (19/10/2018)

A slightly lightened up redneck massacre. The shaky premise and the illogical character behaviour are fortunately compensated by a bizarre group of villains that are a joy to watch. You’ll certainly not get bored, but I can’t call it a masterpiece, the performances of the good guys are too poor and the direction is too unoriginal for that. I’d like to highlight in particular the ending, which is relatively original. It’s worth watching, but don’t expect anything great. 60% (23/06/2008)