Just as the market was glutted with slasher films during the initial wave of the sub genre in the early 1980s, now we're being inundated with many modern homages made by people who are big fans of those films. Unfortunately, with some of these films we're not getting anything we haven't seen many times before. And "Madison County" is one of those films. It's underwhelming, even boring, with fairly likable but extremely unmemorable characters, a sorry screenplay, and, worst of all, unimaginative set pieces. The story has a young man named James (Colley Bailey) working on a thesis and travelling to redneck country to interview an author with whom he's been in contact. The author had written a true crime book about murders in his neck of the woods, and, what do you know, the killer is still alive and well and intending to do some serious damage. About the only good thing I can say is that Robert Halls' Almost Human company does well with the gore; very undemanding fans of this sort of thing will enjoy the brutality. The pig mask that our killer Damien (Nick Principe) wears is also good for a mild chuckle. Writer / director Eric England spends quite a bit of time establishing situation and character, which is fine and good, except that the action, when it comes, isn't worth that much set-up. This thing only runs 82 minutes, and in all honesty it might have worked better in an even shorter format. The acting is not so hot from all concerned, although to be fair they don't have particularly good dialogue to recite. The girls are attractive, and it might have helped if they'd shown a bit more skin. All things considered, I could only recommend this if you just CAN'T get enough of rural horror. It's poor stuff, all the way until its unsatisfactory ending. Four out of 10.
Review of Madison County
