Closed for the Season (2010) Reviews

• Waste of Time

  TrukDrivr2011-08-02

  Kept hoping it'd get better but the first 5 minutes pretty much tell you how interesting the whole movie is going be. The boring just never ends. It just goes on, and on, and on. Occasionally the boring gets spiced up with some confusing, some irrelevant, and some totally lame CGI. The story makes little sense, the actors are terrible and the plot is retarded. It keeps jumping around from one strange (and still boring) scene to another as if whoever wrote it, simply made it up as they went along, hoping to make a quick buck. Pathetic. Boring. You don't even care how it ends or what happens to any of the characters. I couldn't wait for it to hurry up and end. If you have absolutely nothing better to do and someone else paid for it - meh, go ahead and waste your time. Otherwise - avoid.

• Missed opportunity

  Michael_Takes2011-07-31

  Watching this right now. Am writing as I watch. Interesting beginning, good concept spoilt by poor execution, horrid acting and even worse CGI. Confused presentation - the premise is that 2 people who were traumatized and scared by the theme park when younger suffer. Is it in their dreams? whilst on the borderline to death. The rumours and myths of the theme park comes to life to haunt them. Not entirely original, I've seen movies similar such as Rest Stop. The characters of Kristy and James are one dimensional. I tried so hard to like the characters but there is nothing to like or respond to. Didn't mind 'Kristy' wearing a tank top the whole time though! The characters seem to be linked to their experiences together in the past, when younger they witnessed something together, but what does this have to do with them in their 20s? It seems that they have to progress through the horrors to free themselves of their past. Live through and experience and survive the ghosts and stories to be free. But whose interpretations and memories are they? The film is more a mystery then a horror movie. Seems like a kids Goosebumps novel put to film. To me its a waste of a good title and idea... a horror movie based around a closed haunted theme park could have been interesting.

• Not the Worst

  FerusMD2012-06-02

  Not the worst horror film I've ever seen but not for lack of trying. Being a long-time fan of horror movies as well as circus and carnival thrillers, I was looking forward to enjoying a feature combining the best of both worlds minus perhaps the extreme surrealism of Alex de la Iglesia's "The Last Circus". This one, unfortunately, failed to deliver at any level. Had I been shackled before the screen, I would have seriously considered chewing off a leg to escape the very real horror of a complete and utter waste of film stock. Here's hoping the wonderfully spooky atmosphere of Chippewa Lake Park will one day serve as locale for a well-executed and memorable fright film. Closed for the Season? Closed for a reason.

• Didn't get it, didn't like it. A real chore to sit through.

  poolandrews2012-09-30

  Closed for the Season starts the day after an amusement park closes for the season, a young woman in her early 20's named Kristy (Aimee Brooks) ask's an attendant if she scan enter the park to look for a Teddy bear that she left there the day before. Unable to enter Kristy sneaks in & wanders around looking for her Teddy bear, suddenly she sees a construction worker who says the place is abandoned & condemned & is then squashed flat by a huge Bulldozer as Kristy runs away. Kristy runs to a nearby house where James (Damian Maffei) lives & ask's for his help. James agrees to go with her & look around by the two become trapped in the amusement park, the abandoned amusement park that refuses to let them leave & traps them in a nightmare of dreams, fantasies & hallucinations that represent Kristy & James childhood fears... Know under the alternative title Carnival of Fear here in the UK on DVD this was co-edited, scored, written & directed by Jay Woelfel & I have to say that I hated it, no ifs buts or maybes I absolutely hated Closed for the Season as it's so far removed from the type of horror film that I do like. Looking at the cool cover artwork on the IMDb you might be forgiven for thinking that Closed for the Season might be a teen slasher in the mould of Halloween (1978) & The Funhouse (1981) but credit to the makers they have gone for something totally different & against expectation, unfortunately that is the only credit I will give the makers since everything else is a mitigated disaster. At just over 110 minutes long Closed for the Season is an utter bore from start to finish, 90 minutes would have been much better but I still think without the padding & boring repetitive plot Closed for the Season would have been rubbish. The whole duration of Closed for the Season feels like two random people walking through an amusement park & experiencing strange little episodes every so often, the Carny owner dressed as a Clown turns up a lot & spouts a lot of dull dialogue that I assume is meant to have some meaning in the context of the film but completely went over my head, some rubber suited pond monster, a few amusement attractions show & they also encounter themselves, see themselves being killed several times & meet other odd character's from their past lives. The script for Closed for the Season really is a complete mess, it makes zero sense, I simply don't understand what the makers were trying to say or what message they were trying to get across, the seems to large contradictions all over the place, nothing is ever made clear & it ended just when I thought there was going to be some clever twist ending revelation which never came. I just didn't think Closed for the Season worked on any level as either a straight horror film or a twisted psychological thriller, a real waste of nearly two hours. I don't know if was intentional but the film seems to switch between night & day without a second thought, there are various flashbacks that might be more than they seem or maybe not & there are lots of odd little encounters that make zero sense. The whole film just feels incoherent & edited together seemingly at random, if anyone can decipher the narrative here that makes any rational sense then you are better than I. Then again I did lose all interest in this very early on so maybe I was spending too much time hoping it would finish rather than paying attention to the plot. There's a bit of gore but nothing to get excited about, a Crocodile rips a guy's leg off, there's some guts in a wall, a guy is squashed by a huge Bulldozer, someone rams a spike in their own head, someone is seen impaled on a tree & there's a bit of blood splatter. Apparently shoe on a low budget of about $250,000 it looks even cheaper than that, filmed in the actual abandoned Chippewa Amusement Park in Ohio. Production values are pretty rough, the CGI computer effects in particular are awful. The acting is poor, well I thought it was anyway & none of the performances are engaging or likable. Closed for the Season is a film which bored me rigid, I really hated it & I genuinely have no idea what the makers were trying to achieve or what sort of film they set out to make. All I can say is I am glad I saw in on cable television for free & didn't spend money on it & I am even gladder I never have to see it again.

• A creepy & poetic ride

  tdeladeriere2011-12-24

  A girl wakes up into a dilapidated amusement park and seems to drift from nightmare to nightmare until she meets the caretaker of the park, who's willing to anchor her back to reality. But the nightmare doesn't end that easily and the newly-found couple are haunted and pursued by the ghosts of the park, including the Monster from the Lake, the Alligator and most of all, Carny, who holds the key to their escape. The 1st five minutes firmly establish a dreamlike quality, an ethereal half-sleep that holds on until the very last reel. For once, the CGI helps more than hinder, giving the effects an old Hollywood magic. Still, the strength of "CFTS" is that it never drifts into complete absurdity, even at its most awkward. Each kooky segment leads to the final revelation, which of course is love. There's enough humor, grue & thrills to keep the unprepared audience satisfied, and those that are willing to take the plunge will be taken for a creepy and poetic ride.