XII (2008) User Reviews

Interesting premise is ruined by filmmakers cutting corners.

[Matt_Layden · 4/10 · 22 August 2010]

A man gets out of prison and goes on a killing rampage of those who were on the jury. 12 jury members, 12 people to kill.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this film. I think if done right, it would make for a very good thriller/horror film. A killer killing off those who put him away. Those 12 jury members. I'm sure it was probably done before since the idea isn't original, but I haven't seen any films based on that idea. So when I saw XII was about just that, I thought why not, let's give it a chance. It's a shame though because this film lacks anything that would make it interesting or entertaining.

The killer is in prison for apparently having sexual relations with a minor. There is only one bit of dialogue that supports this. Other than that, we have no idea who this guy is, why he went to prison or anything else. The film doesn't really set events up well, the opening credit sequence is horribly shot and edited that you don't really don't know what you're watching until the 5 years later text pops up.

All of the cast are bland and boring with the exception of Mercedes McNab of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame. She played Harmony. She seems like the only one who knows that she is in a horror film. She plays the blonde bitchy type friend of the supposed heroine well enough to make this not an entire travesty.

The kills are non existent. The film starts off with a kill near Vegas where one guy gets his head blown off with a shot gun. Then it is all downhill from there. The killer rips the skin off of his victims face, sometimes while they are still alive. This should make for some gruesome scenes but non of it scares, excites or interests the viewer. The killer is a lame Ed Gein wannabe who wears the skin of his victims as well.

Low rent horror this is, but not even the good kind. I can't help but feel what I could have done with this story and budget. Or anyone else for that matter. The guy who directed this played Jim Morrison in Wayne's World 2. Yeah...you read that correctly.

Typical - The 'baddie' gets it in the end!

[alanc88 · 3/10 · 24 April 2011]

Well, where shall I start with this one? It starts off OK with one guy getting his head blown off driving along the interstate. His new 'wife' then cops for it, but you don't see it - you only hear about it a bit later. The 'baddie' then sets about bumping off the rest of the jurors that convicted him of 'kiddie-fiddling'. When in prison, the inmates sorted him and his face out good style for bring a 'nonce', so he isn't too happy when released. He gets through 11 of the jury who all happen to be living in some poxy little town where it seems nobody lives(?). You don't get to see much gore until the last 15 minutes when he is taking the faces of some of his victims. Unfortunately, the last jury member; some bimbo waitress beats this tough guy up, runs away, gets caught, beats him up again, gets away again, gets caught again and then manages to get away again and finally shoots him. The End! The bit that I'm most annoyed about is that the description on the CD box said the film contained: Strong Sex, Gore and Sexual Violence. What a load of crock - There is some gore but not an ounce of sex, nudity, kissing , sexual banter - Zilch! This is clearly a case of false advertising and I'll be contacting my lawyer tomorrow!

I had hope. Oh well

[tequila101 · 5/10 · 18 June 2011]

I saw this film in the video shop yesterday and decided to give it a try. When I saw what ratings this film got here, I was sort of put off but at the same, I had high hopes that this might succeed in me giving it at least a 6.

That's not the case in this film and I tell you why in pointers.

First off like the film Seed, I don't know about you guys but I found Seed to be some sort of Michael Myers rip-off. Here I have the same minor problem. At first the Leonard Karl Character is quite awesome but as we see what goes behind doors, in his house, he is more portrayed as a Leatherface character. I don't know if that's what you guys think but that's what I think. Yes, we get a cool looking killer but it treaded on when a poor writing director tries to use someone else's character to rip theirs off. The director ruined his killer which sucks (in that sense). Overally I found the Killer enjoyable to watch in action. One thing with Karl I found the director pulled off well was the amount of screen time Karl was on for. He was on at the right moments and he was paced on the screen well, not revealing too much till the end.

From start to finish, we get crappy un-developed characters that we really don't care about, and we just want them to die or live either way. I had high hopes that eventually we would come to like these characters. oh well.

the music is OK.

The acting is bad. Not much else to say about how bad it is.

The kills are average at best. They were timed right (being honest). I never had a problem with them.

The story also could have been more awesome and conclusive if we didn't have such poor actors, scenes and scares. There was nothing about this film that was scary and as for the script, it feels as if it's poorly written and when every scene comes around the corner, it just goes no where.

A really poor film. 4.9/10

Spoiler warning: piece of garbage

[tylerrhendrickson · 1/10 · 21 August 2010]

This is a typical example of a young film company trying to prosper by making films in every genre. This movie has no explanation as to why the killer does what he does, Horrible direction, and sub par acting. Those responsible including Tenny Stedd should know that persons being brought into prison are escorted by bus and not by patrol car. The make up and special effects are beneath even the Sci Fi channel. The only reason to watch the piece of trash is either extreme boredom.... actually thats the only reason I can think of. This is a classic example of idiots trying to make a buck in a profitable genre, except they are idiots and couldn't pull a better story out of their butt holes. In fact, thats probably where they found this film.

Easy

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 20 March 2009]

I'll begin with the title of the movie. Let's just say it's pretty easy to decode/decipher, which makes it kinda painful, that the characters in the movie, don't realise it for a very long time. That's all I'm gonna say.

Having seen HATCHET and therefor seen Ms. McNabs natural and therefor obvious talents, might be a disappointment for those waiting, to be "exposed" to the same thing here (pun intended). But she plays her part very convincing (for a horror movie) and the others don't let her down. On the other hand, the script does let them and the audience down and the "Less is sometimes more" phrase could've applied here too (especially at the end, where it tried to compensate for the lack in other departments, in just being ... out there! Not really bad, but not really good either!

Average teen slasher.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 25 December 2011]

XII is set in a small American town on the eve of Christmas, FBI agent Naughton (Steven Brand) is on the trail of a killer who likes to rip the faces off his victims, two of his known victims come from this small town & agent Naughton talks to deputy Kent (Nick Searcy) about the case. Kent says he will ask around, while talking to pretty young waitress Claire (Emily Hardy) she mentions that the two victims served together on jury duty. Kent feels this is important information as the juror's verdict sent child molester Leonard Karlsson (Jeremy Fitzgerald) to prison where he was badly disfigured, even more so since Karlsson had been recently released. Claire also manages to piece the clues together & since she also served on that jury assumes that her life is in danger as well as several of her friends, as the twelve juror's either turn up dead or go missing it seems that Karlsson has returned to have his revenge against those who sent him down...

Written & directed by Michael A. Nickles this horror teen slasher is pretty typical of the genre & while it's not the worst example out there I wouldn't exactly call it good, a passable time waster for what it is I suppose but nothing more. The script feels like it's an assembled patchwork of teen slasher ideas, themes & images with the holiday event setting of Christmas, the badly disfigured killer like Freddy, the human skin collecting like Leatherface, the plastic mask like Jason & the two main female victims one of whom is all slutty & uncaring while the other is pure virgin material as well as the dumb cops & secondary character's merely there to be killed off. XII is strictly routine & by the numbers, there's nothing of any great surprise, the revenge driven motives for the killer are nothing new (A child molester? Where have I heard that before?) & his filthy basement hideout is standard teen slasher issue. Lasting under 80 minutes at least XII is fairly brisk, despite an attention grabbing opening sequence the script settles down & introduces the character's who slowly release that something nasty is going on before the final obligatory chase & stand-off between the surviving girl & the masked killer. None of it is very original but it's reasonably well staged, the short running time helps & there are a couple of nice moments but otherwise XII is for teen slasher fanatics only.

While disfigured & masked killer looks quite good & imposing at times he has virtually no back-story, it's not even made clear if he was innocent of the charges & wants revenge for that reason or whether he's just an evil git. There's a few decent gore scenes including a cool opening in which a guy has his head literally blown off, unfortunately this is the films gore highlight & because it comes so early nothing else lives up to it. There's a also a throat slashing, someone has his tongue cut out, someone's face is cut off & removed & there's some blood splatter. Fairly basic in set-up & execution XII doesn't rewrite any slasher rules & for the most part it's pretty predictable & straight forward.

Probably shot on a low budget the production values are decent enough, it's looks nice enough & the special effects are alright but it's not a film that live long in the memory. The acting is OK, the two young female leads look nice enough & aren't too annoying when they scream.

XII, or Twelve for those who don't know their Roman numerals, is a fairly average teen slasher. It has a decent villain & one or two good gore scenes but overall I wouldn't say it's anything other than an indifferent way to pass 80 minutes. It could have been better but it also could have been worse.

Not good. I only gave it a 5 because Nick Searcy is in it.

[Onetrack97 · 5/10 · 6 February 2019]

Nick Searcy is the only real actor in this movie and he is hampered by bad writing and directing.

The two female leads are pretty bad.

The plot is a typical crazed revenge type going after a list of people. That can work but not in this case.

Missing something

[BakuryuuTyranno · 4/10 · 16 January 2011]

The movie is about a criminal who escapes from prison and targets those who were jury members who found the killer guilty. It's... it should be along the lines of a slasher movie although I'm not sure the final product really qualifies as one.

Minor spoilers: Nobody is exactly safe. People seemingly important are offed surprisingly quickly. Unfortunately in trying to achieve this unpredictable feel the movie seemingly lost something. I'm not sure exactly, but whatever it was it would've saved the movie.

Whatever the writers were going for never really works, for reasons I can't quite explain. The movie certainly is far less exciting than a film like "Twelve" could have been though.

Spoilers follow ...

[parry_na · 6/10 · 21 July 2016]

A 'just married' couple are driving through Las Vegas accompanied by a musical soundtrack that sounds as if it has been lifted straight from Hawaii Five-O. Everything is going well until the groom has his head blown away by a passing driver.

A similar shock happens later on. FBI Agent Naughton has all the hallmarks of a sharp-dressed hero. Before long, he is smeared along a sun-kissed highway by the same manic driver.

The storyline involves disfigured criminal Leonard Karlsson (Jeremy Fitzgerald), convicted of child molestation. He breaks out in a clumsily shot pre-credits sequence and starts a killing spree against the 12 jurors who convicted him. To hide his deformity, he takes to wearing the faces of his victims. Apart from this, we are never invited to learn much about Karlsson; he immediately becomes the standard slasher/killer whose victims are dispatched in a less than bloody way.

The characters are sketchily written. None of them are particularly obnoxious (a common complaint) but neither are they particularly interesting or easy to care about. Deputy Kent, who emerges as the unlikely hero, is probably the most likable of them all – before he too is dispatched, leaving two young girls Vicki (Mercedes McNab) and Claire (Emily Hardy) to sort things out.

As a whole, 'XII' is competent, perfunctory and contains some gory moments, particularly towards the end. If we knew a little more about the main villain, he would have been more effective – as it is, he is simply another 'bogeyman.' My favourite aspect of this is the element of surprise; many of the deaths were truly shocking because the characters seemed the least likely to be despatched.

Not quite a B movie

[cynic-idealist · 3/10 · 11 July 2010]

At least the movie lets you know how horrible it is from the get-go.

From the first five minutes you get treated to tired clichés, sub-par writing delivered by untalented people playing pretend rather than actually acting, you get to witness cinematography that is on par with a passionate hobbyist who lacks actual experience and the audio for the actors sounds like it's coming out of a shallow can.

I understand the fun that can be had from a campy B horror flick but XII misses that classification soundly. No fun can be had here by anyone who is not related to the people involved in making this reckless attempt at film making.

From beginning to end you'll grimace at everything but the actual horror.

Not the best, far from worst

[aksanadia · 6/10 · 26 June 2020]

Its a cookie cutter slasher with slightly better acting than average but the real saving is Mercedes Mcnab as Vicky, an actual ''smart'' character in a movie with one of the dumbest most ignorant protagonists ever who only ever grow some courage once every single other person is dead. enjoyed the movie but it's no oscar winner

What will I say the next day to whatever I kill in my hovel tonight?

[Bezenby · 4/10 · 19 November 2016]

The folks of Blandsville, Blandizona are going missing for some reason (they were on a jury that put away some nutcase). This guy be skinning off'n the faces of these folks for some reason. It takes an awfully long time for people to figure out what's going on.

Luckily, on sabbatical after recording 'Chunga's Revenge' with Frank Zappa, Flo and Eddi arrive in town and have brought along Knight Rider 2000 to help solve the case! The film really takes off here, thankfully.

You might fall asleep during that bit though, and upon missing it, find the film to be a dull affair with a load of human drama (what was all that crap with the boyfriend about? That led nowhere). You don't even see much in the way of slashing. Way to botch the job, losers.

Except that bit where Flo and Eddi turn up in the killer's house and distract him with a rousing version of Sharleena.

I'm cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying (over this dull movie)

Did not care for the ending

[sheliawells825 · 5/10 · 7 May 2021]

The actors were okay. Actor, Emily Hardy/Claire got on my last nerve. She had to be the dumbest one of all. She got her friend , Mercedes Mcnab/Vicki murdered by that psycho, all because her dumb butt had to go back and check on the idiot who shot, Nick Searcy/Deputy Kent. She was worried about him and that he might still be alive, when she should have been worried about her friend & her life. The man was shot multiple times, you could see he was dying in a matter of a few seconds. And then in the end her sorry but got to live. I wanted her to die also, that much she deserved... Dumb idiot. I was hoping she would die, but no such luck.