Hell Reviews - Paintball

Synopsis: Low-budget horror. A team of eight adrenaline junkies applies to participate in the ultimate paintball game. On arrival they are blindfolded and taken deep into a remote forest, and the game begins. But the game soon plunges its players into the realms of nightmare as one team member is hit with a real bullet, and what began as a thrill-seeking sport becomes a desperate struggle for survival.

Well…here we go again.

What is there to say about Paintball?

Not much honestly.

Just like Silverhide, Paintball has an interesting concept but over all the execution is just boring and flat. On the plus side, at least this one has some decent acting in it…but I can’t see how you can mess up screaming, crying and panting.

This isn’t a film I paid for, it’s currently being shown on the Horror channel and I figured I’ll watch this one, then watch the zombie in the bathroom film Stalled which is on straight after.
I shall be reviewing Stalled as I watch it, that’ll be put up soon enough.

From the bat you can tell it’s one of those independent, low budget movies that Horror channel likes to show. Sometimes I fully believe they pick these films to fully troll their audience, knowing most of us are suckers for B-movies and will probably sit through anything, even if we hate it.

Ah…the fun of horror film masochism.
I think they did pretty well with what they had, I don’t know a final number for the budget but I do fully believe that it wasn’t that high just from general watching.
The effects were pretty good, not scary, bloody splatters everywhere kind of pretty good, but more slightly above realistic kind of blood splatter levels.

The characters are complete non entities, I couldn’t tell you who was who, who died and who survived as none of them seemed to have any individual personalities.

From the bat we’re given a very brief shot of each character in a truck preparing for the game, but not given a clue as to why the hell we should give two shakes of a rat’s ass about.
None of them have their own personalities or quirks that help differentiate who is who to the watchers, except for one guy.
His whole thing is being fat apparently, because you know…character building.
In fact the only time I remember them being singled out and named clearly is right near the end when fake documents about each character are found and their names are read out.

The acting is bearable, but I feel that that’d mostly be because there’s just not much that needs to be emoted, the script hardly calls for anyone to make an Oscar worthy performance.

If you can seem worried and panicked then hey, you can have a part.
The only acting that stood out was one of the women who was behind the ‘hidden attackers’, but that was only because she stood out as the worst damn actress there. How can someone sound so hollow when pleading someone not to kill another because that isn’t what they do?
Other than that the acting was passable.
One of my main gripes however was that sometimes it was hard to understand what the hell they were saying, sometimes it was due to them panting through or screaming their lines and sometimes it was simply because they just didn’t enunciate properly.
Now I understand that when someone is panicking and frantic, scared for their lives and crying it’s normal to not be able to speak clearly, but when you’re trying to make a form of media you at least want your audience to have a brief understanding of what is being said in their moment of distress.
Speaking of panting and screaming once again, there’s only so often you can listen to people pant, cry and scream before it gets tiring.
A prime example of this would be The Human Centipede.

The ending itself is just a snorefest, the ‘final stand off’ is just not worth the film it’s on.
Not to mention the very, very end scene before the credits roll is so freaking pointless and adds nothing at all. Actually it’s extremely cringe worthy to be entirely honest and doesn’t offer a thing that makes you think: ‘You know what? That was worth it in the end’.

Do we find out why they were doing what they were to the people?

No.

Would I have liked to know?

Hell yes! Then I wouldn’t feel like I wasted my time.

What’s the point of a movie like this if the motivation behind the antagonists aren’t explained properly and you’re left with the impression that you have to just shrug it off and accept ‘just because’ as an answer.

If the film had been done well and had an effective ending that stuck with me then I wouldn’t be too bothered, as I’ve said in previous reviews I don’t need everything spelled out for me and sometimes being left in the dark can be fun if the film leaves a positive lasting impression.
Paintball’s only lasting impression is my recommendation to not watch it unless you’re extremely bored.

Overall, it’s an interesting concept of paintballing gone wrong and the forest they filmed it in was absolutely beautiful, but this is nothing to write home about.

The pacing was far too slow, the acting was alright but in the end I just didn’t give a toss about what happened or why it was happening.
I’m certainly glad I saw it for free.

You could make a drinking game out of it however!

1 drink every time you can’t understand what someone says.

2 drinks every time someone yells at someone else.

3 drinks every time someone says any form of ‘fuck’.

4 drinks every time the camera moves in a way that you can’t tell what’s going on or makes you feel a little sick.

5 drinks every time you find yourself zoning out or realising that you just don’t care about what’s going on.