robertemerald Review of The 7

The 7 (2006)

You never actually see the monster. I can't recommend The 7.

[1/10 · 11 January 2021]

I like monster movies, even bad ones. I like studying the genre. There's something pure about the sheer exhilaration of our deepest childhood fears coming horribly true. The 7 (The Oakley Seven) gets a point from me for that, and I certainly didn't mind watching it. At its heart it's about a childhood fear coming horribly true for a young teen. The movie would have benefited by staying in that childhood memory, which is the opening scenes of the movie, for a far longer period. If you are wondering at what movie might be suitable to show your 13 year old their first monster horror movie, well, you might consider this one I suppose. The story is full of holes and is a stock standard formula slasher teen horror adventure. Despite the fact her life and others depend on it, our lead fails to remember key details about her childhood monster until over half her crew are already dead. Before that you have to wonder at Henry Czerny's character taking 7 kids out to a secret and highly dangerous desert location in a less than modern bus without telling anyone where he intends to go. We're fobbed off with a story about a research fund he's after and no permission to take the bus and entrusting 7 teenagers, who obviously know nothing about geology or ecology (the grant apparently involves both) to help finish his PHD for him, all in a 3 hour field trip. Imagine ... the cave has bats, which carry disease, the desert has rattlesnakes (one of which, at one point, will prevent a decent escape route from being used) and Henry knows there is a creature of unknown species in the cave. The script for this is basic "teen" and not very imaginative, employing racism, sarcasm, a lot of talk about sex (none of it friendly), and progressively more swear words. In fact, when the group are down to the last two survivors, the boy asks the girl if they could have sex as he is still a virgin. Each time someone dies one girl will scream, and the others will cry, for me, not very convincingly. All the kids act 14, yet look 18. Numerous bends and turns of the "cave' distinctly look like the last set repeated. The gore is not believable, and besides, you don't actually see any violence. I understand the filmmakers here had no budget, but to make a monster movie where you know there is no money for an actual monster, well, even as satire, and given that this is a 2006 movie made well after the advent of CGI being available for home computers, well, you need to be much cleverer than this! I can only give it one point, and cannot recommend it. If it were made by a film student in their first or second year, I might pass it with a 5/10, provided their next effort shows marked improvement, particularly in the story/script department.