Exoticalot
People are voting emotionally.
Noutions
Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
MamaGravity
good back-story, and good acting
Michael_Elliott
Effects (1980) * (out of 4) The film takes place in Pittsburg as a crew of low-budget filmmakers are making a horror film. Before long some members start to think that it's not a fake movie but instead a snuff movie.EFFECTS is a rather interesting film. It was shot by people in Pittsburg who were in one shape or another connected to George A. Romero. This film appears to have been in production around the same time as DAWN OF THE DEAD but it would never get an official release. It played a few showings back when it was completed and then basically disappeared. Seeing that Tom Savini and Joseph Pilato (DAY OF THE DEAD) were in the cast, it kept fans guessing at the movie and then it would eventually get an official release thanks to Synapse.For the most part I really didn't like this movie. I will say that the story itself was quite interesting and especially how the film bounced back and forth as to if what you were watching was real or fake. The "movie within a movie" was an interesting take on the subject and there's no question that the story is years ahead of its time and especially when you consider where reality TV is today. I think the filmmakers deserves a lot of credit for the interesting story and that they didn't just try to go for gory violence.With that said, perhaps some gory violence would have helped matters because in the end the film just didn't work for me and I honestly thought the 84-minute running time dragged quite badly. For starters, the film just had a very hard time getting me interested in anything going on. The first forty-five minutes or so are basically us just watching this film crew shoot a movie. After a while we finally get to a snuff movie being shown and this sequence was actually very well done. It was creatively shot and there's no question that it's the highlight of the picture.The finale also works well enough and leads to an ending that you really wouldn't expect. The cast and crew are full of Pittsburg natives and it's certainly fun see Savini and Pilato here. The film has a couple gore effects but one shouldn't see Savini's name and think you're getting something like DAWN OF THE DEAD or MANIAC. I really think this is one film that could benefit from a remake and especially in this day and age.
gavin6942
Some crew members of a company shooting a horror film begin to suspect that the "killings" in the movie are real, and that they are actually making a "snuff" film.There are two things about this film that keep it interesting all these decades later. One is the abundance of George Romero-connected people involved: Tom Savini, John Harrison, Joseph Pilato, Pasquale Buba, Nancy Allen (but not THAT Nancy Allen) and others. Filming took place in 1978, around the time that "Dawn of the Dead" was made; it seems that many involved in "Dawn" were making their own film on the side.The other interesting historical note is how this film for many years just never existed. Although it was shot in 1978 and seems to be copyrighted in 1980, virtually no one saw it in the 1980s or 1990s. Due to a distributor bankruptcy problem, the film never received a theatrical or home video release. It never aired on television, or got passed around as bootlegs either. The October 2005 Synapse Films DVD was the film's first official release anywhere in the world. The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) is now (2017) releasing a Blu-Ray of the film mastered from a rare 35mm print that was made before the distributor backed out, so it can be discovered by a new generation.Perhaps due to this film's misfortunes, Dusty Nelson did not return to directing until the "Tales From the Darkside" episode "The Unhappy Medium" (1986). Others involved (Savini and Harrison in particular) achieved great success in its wake. How such a movie went hidden for so long is something of a mystery. If its existence was known, it would be widely sought after. The film was such a secret, we never see it mentioned in interviews or even within in-depth books such as Joe Kane's "Night of the Living Dead".The most logical reason it would fade into obscurity would be if it was an awful film. But, on the contrary, it actually happens to be quite good. While not the era-defining classic that "Dawn of the Dead" is, it is far better than many other independent horror features of its time. Heck, it even blows away Romero's early works (especially "There's Always Vanilla"). The film-within-a-film is creepy and effective. Dusty Nelson could have been somebody! A historical footnote: The first known use of the term "snuff movie" is in the 1971 Ed Sanders book, "The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion". He alleges that the Manson Family was involved in making such a film in California to record their murders. His allegations were, for the record, false. The idea caught on, however, and we received the film "Snuff" in 1975, as well as this film. The most interesting thing about snuff films is not how they have captured the imagination of people who spread urban legends… it is that they don't exist. While it would be nearly impossible for such a thing to exist as an industry, it seems plausible that at least some killer would record their exploits and at least some of those tapes would get traded on a bootleg market. But apparently not.The AGFA Blu-ray comes out August 22, 2017, featuring a new 4K scan from the only surviving 35mm theatrical print. We get an archival commentary track with John Harrison, Dusty Nelson, and Pasquale Buba covering their memories of a bygone era. These should be enough, but wait… there is also a "Beastie" short film by Dusty Nelson and a "Ubu" short film by John Harrison. Heck, we even have the "After Effects" documentary with optional commentary track!
Coventry
This movie seriously had me worried that I might be autistic! Forty-five minutes into the film and there still wasn't the slightest sign of plot development and/or essence. I don't know about you, but especially when dealing with early 80's low-budget horror flicks, I like to know if it's at least going somewhere. I was slowly starting to behave like Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man"; continuously repeating 'I need a plot … I need a plot …. I badly need a plot". "Effects" is a long, slow-moving, incoherent and visually exhausting movie and I honestly regret to say that because I'm a devoted fan of the genre and usually I really, really, really support obscure horror titles like this. Sadly, however, "Effects" is amateurish nonsense with sequences that are endlessly stretched and a story that literally never shifts into gear in spite of its great rudimentary potential. The crew of a cheap horror film, well … actually just the effects guy and the lighting girl, notice that the director is behaving very suspicious on set. They're right, too, because that sleazy bastard is actually planning to turn his little film project into a genuine snuff movie with the cast and crew members as the unaware and probably very reluctant lead players/victims. Sublime idea for a bona fide 80's shock feature, if you ask me, but the execution of the film is horrible. All of a sudden, I'm not even surprised anymore to find out this film was apparently "lost" for 20+ years. Even with Tom Savini and Joe Pilato (the latter giving a terrific performance and totally unlike the role in "Day of the Dead" that made him famous) in the cast, this is an infuriatingly lame movie. There's actually very little gore in the film and if you were, by any chance, hoping to learn some "kitchen secrets" about the special effects industry, you'll be sorely disappointed as well. "Effects" only specializes in overlong and pointless padding footage – especially the chase through the woods seems endless – and oppressed slasher ideas. Another extremely disappointing snuff-themed thriller, joining the same list as Roberta Findley's "Snuff", "Live Feed", "Snuff-Movie", "Vacancy" and Larry Cohen's "Special Effects". For good snuffies, stick to the Spanish "Thesis", the massively underrated "Mute Witness" and the legendary classic "Peeping Tom".
The_Void
Effects is based on quite a clever idea - maybe even too clever for a slasher flick. The title, of course, refers to special effects - and that's essentially what the film is about. Effects is a slasher flick based on a bunch of people making a slasher film. The director seems obsessed with blood and gore and a cast member starts hallucinating - although that particular cast member had just been smoking weed. The director later shows his crew a film that may or not be a snuff film, and then the cast start getting picked off, though there's doubt over whether it's real or 'effects'. It really does seem that this idea was too clever for this film because it doesn't pull it off. A potentially interesting idea is turned into a snooze fest thanks to far too much talking by dull characters and a plot line that really doesn't ever get to the point. This film was apparently lost before someone resurrected it for DVD. The last 'lost' slasher film that I saw was A Night to Dismember, and like that film; this one shows that lost slashers really needn't be brought back. The most notable thing about 'effects' the fact that Tom Savini appears and does the effects, although he has had better days in both departments. We don't really get what we came for until the final third of the film and by then I was pretty bored of it. Overall, Effects is a pretty dismal slasher and I definitely don't recommend it.
