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Eight
convicts go to an abandoned prison to work off
their sentences together with four guards, but when
one of the convicts manage to escape, all hell breaks
loose. With bodies piling up, it seems as if this might
be the end for the convicts, as well as the guards. But
what no one knows is that the real killer is in fact
the new security guard, Evans...
Another DTV horror flick from the Quiroz Brothers, and
by now you probably all know that I usually hate their
movies with a passion. But to my surprise, I found
Death Row to be a vast improvement from their previous
films (if I had to sit through San Franpsycho again I
would end up scratching my eyes out).
Death Row tells the story of eight convicts who go to
an abandoned prison to work their sentences off. But
a mad serial killer is on the loose and has just killed
off the two security guards working at the prison. When
they arrive, the two guards from the bus figure that he's
simply the new security guard, and he manages to fool
them all quite easily. Naturally he starts killing off
the convicts and guards one by one, making the others
believe that it's one of the convicts that's doing the
killing - but will he manage to fool just everyone?
Once again the Quiroz brothers have managed to take a
good concept and make it feel cheap and cheesy but
Death Row is at least watchable. Joe Estevez luckily
only has a small part in the movie and the acting is
overall much better than it's been in their previous
films. The movie also has a pretty decent pace and the
story is actually not that bad. In fact, I'm pretty
sure that Death Row could have been a quite amusing
slasher flick had it been executed better.
The fact remains though, that this is only good by
Quiroz standards - which is not saying a lot. Death
Row is a pretty bad movie, it's just not as bad as
I had expected it to be. So what makes it bad? Well
first of all the shaky camerawork and the no-budget
feeling obviously wasn't very pleasant - but that's
not the movies downfall. As I said before, I actually
believe that this could have been a pretty entertaining
slasher flick with some more gore and less gun action
(guns are a no-no in slasher flicks). The movie's main
downfall was, just like with most of these guys movies,
the soundtrack. People might think that the soundtrack
doesn't matter that much, but believe me, it does.
There is barely a moment of silence in the movie and
the soundtrack feels so incredibly cheap that you
just wish that they had downloaded some classical
midi music from the internet instead. The repetitive
piano music and the cheap strings don't work on any
level and I'm pretty sure that had they changed the
score, this would have been a much better movie.
Ultimately, this is a huge step in the right direction
for the Quiroz brothers though. It's got a better and
more clever script than any of their previous movies
and the acting is actually pretty decent. It's still
not a good movie though, but they're getting there
and I just hope that for their next movie, they hire
somebody else to compose the soundtrack as that's an
issue that I've had with every single one of their movies.
Some slit throats, some stabbings, nothing much.
The constant background music was horrible and I truly
do think that this was the movie's main downfall.
Hopefully, they'll read this review and hire someone
else to do the score for their next movie.
A step in the right direction for the Quiroz brothers,
but they still have a long way to go. It's a gore-less
slasher flick more or less with a pretty uninteresting
serial killer. It's watchable, but just barely.
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