X
- 2013
- R
- LD Entertainment
- 1 h 23 m
- 2013
- R
- LD Entertainment
- 1 h 23 m
Summary In Katie Aselton’s second directorial effort, three childhood friends set aside their personal issues and reunite for a girls' weekend on a remote island off the coast of Maine. One wrong move turns their weekend getaway into a deadly fight for survival.
Directed By: Katie Aselton
Written By: Mark Duplass, Katie Aselton
- 2013
- R
- LD Entertainment
- 1 h 23 m
- 2013
- R
- LD Entertainment
- 1 h 23 m
Black Rock
46
4.1
Where to Watch
Summary In Katie Aselton’s second directorial effort, three childhood friends set aside their personal issues and reunite for a girls' weekend on a remote island off the coast of Maine. One wrong move turns their weekend getaway into a deadly fight for survival.
Directed By: Katie Aselton
Written By: Mark Duplass, Katie Aselton
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
46
32% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
42% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
26% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
46
32% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
42% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
26% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
This indie, female-centric riff on “Deliverance” is spare, smartly written and shot through with moments of twig-snapping tension.
Working from a ruthlessly efficient script by husband Mark Duplass, Aselton effortlessly sets up the women’s reunion scenario before effectively flipping the action from drama to thriller.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 21 User Ratings
4.1
19% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
33% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
48% Negative
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 21 User Ratings
4.1
19% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
33% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
48% Negative
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
We know from past experience that the bad days outnumber the good in places called Black Rock. So it comes as no surprise that things go wrong almost from the get-go in the low-budget indie “Black Rock,” set on a tiny forested island off the coast of Maine. It’s here that three girlhood pals now in their thirties go to unwind and because two of them fell out over a fella a few years back, this is what you might call a session in survivalist reconciliation. Once on the island the friends go exploring. They turn up three hunters armed with guns. Bad sign. The hunters introduce themselves as gung-ho Army vets. Another bad sign. And did we mention they received dishonorable discharges? Cue the sirens and flashing lights.
Violence begets violence and soon someone’s yelling, “Run!”
Directed by Aselton from a cliche-riddled script by husband Mark Duplass the dialogue is peppered with such expressions as “Bring it!” and “I got your back!” “Black Rock” (now available on PPV) still proves a grim, entertaining, efficiently plotted little thriller. “We came here to hunt,” says one of the hunters when things start to escalate. “We’ll just hunt ’em down!” Oh, yeah? This guy obviously didn’t get a look at the script. If he had he’d know he’s part of a feminist reworking of “The Most Dangerous Game” and “Deliverance,” with the friends soon stripped down and armed, like a tribe of Amazonian huntresses. And once they get their war faces on, they give better than they get.
Kudos to Aselton, who obviously doesn’t mind getting down and dirty plying her craft. Based on this film, her second behind the camera, she has the makings of a decent exploitation director. “Black Rock” has the visceral appeal of early Kathryn Bigelow.
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The male characters here are too thinly developed for this to be a top-notch survival thriller, but Ms. Aselton knows how to get the pulse pounding.
Aselton is clearly trying to broaden her reach as both actress and director beyond the rumpled indie comedy of "The Freebie," her directing debut, and the concept is there, but a movie like this needs a much more polished execution that Black Rock gets.
The dialogue is particularly bad, which is odd because the Duplass crowd typically excels at natural-sounding dialogue.
The screenplay is far too obsessed with the setup, and not at all concerned with making the villains even the least bit believable or scary.
Black Rock is as dingy and dirty as the genre thrillers it appears to want to one-up. All it does, though, is bring everyone down.
This is an interesting film with some very good tension, but some of the dialogue is poor and like a lot of thriller/horror movies some of the scenes just get silly. To silly to recommend. C
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Black Rock is one of those rare films that was written by, directed by, and starring the same person. Back in the early days of film, this was common, but today it's rare. While I admire all the work a single person puts into such an effort, the truth is that most of these films turn out to be a little strange, Black Rock is no exception. Three life long best friends decide to reconnect on a weekend retreat, to a small secluded island, where they had a lot of childhood memories. Once there, they run into a pack of hunters. Testosterone and alcohol mix, leading to a vicious assault, leaving one group a member short, and the other group on the run. Katie Aselton is the Writer, Director, & star of this film and while I admire what she put into it, the truth is that it was very predictable and didn't make a whole lot of sense. First of all, these three women, as children were allowed to play on a secluded island in the middle of nowhere, without supervision? It also doesn't make sense that the hunters would be there, when there was seemingly no wildlife, and of course there had to be exactly three of them. Finally, why did three women, spending a weekend alone on a secluded island, bring enough alcohol to fuel a Todd Phillips movie? The whole thing was just a little too weird to be believable, and when you add how predictable this film was, it's just a recipe for disaster. The one thing I liked was the performance of Jay Paulson. He's usually a guy who gets bit parts and guest appearances here and there, but he was very solid and the most believable of the six characters. Aside from that this is a slow, painfully predictable, mess of a film, that really doesn't have a whole lot going for it.
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The biggest mystery is how such a short film could simultaneously be such a waste of time. Basically three friends liked Maine and said "hey let's make a film here". The problem is no one considered the film should actually be watchable. The plot is wrote and full of holes, the budget is apparently shoestring, and the acting (with the exception of Bosworth) is absolutely awful. I recommend whoever's reading this, stay far away from this film.
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A laughable feminist version of Deliverance (1972). The script is so cliché ridden to the max (I wonder if they used copy-paste from a few other movie script...). The male characters are all cardboard hillbilly rapists, the three women are old childhood friend who reunite during a trip, and settle their past issues. Situation goes bad as the male characters try to ****, torture and murder these three (I guess that is their weekend hobby). They try to escape while their lives and friendships are turned on their head ....Sounds boring right? Well it is. We have already see this scenario a trillion times before. This movie offers nothing new, and I believe it is very insulting towards male audiences (I guess the director lady is pro man-hater of some sort...). See something else if you can! Boring cat and mouse "drama". Not recommended.
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