Review: Barricade (2012)

Barricade Review

Year: 2012

Stars: Eric McCormack, Jody Thompson and Dalias Blake
Directed: Andrew Currie
Running Time: 81 Mins Approx.

Eric McCormack aah Will and Grace, how I never watched you! Aside from TV series appearances since Will and Grace and some animation voices he’s not been a busy bee since that series, though keeping his floating above water with them.

Jody Thompson Is in a similar boat, with a few more bit parts in movies and no major series’ under her belt she’s mainly a bit part player in anything she’s in. Though those parts are in some pretty major things such as 2012 and way back mission to mars.
Andrew Currie has nothing major under his belt as a director either, other than a favourite zombie film of mine, which I may do a retro review of on here some day and that is 2006’s Fido. Most of his other work is TV movies or Shorts.
I can’t find any budget info, though being made in Canada I’m guessing it wasn’t huge but they will get a lot for their money.

So the film starts off with mum Leah Shade (Jody) convincing dad Terrance Shade (Eric) that they should take the kids to a remote cabin in the woods to celebrate white Christmas with them. He reluctantly agrees playing the I’m not a good dad I’m just the provider card, which is quickly rebuked by the mum’s it’s not that hard to be a good dad card. All this is done in good spirits no hard feelings. They seem like parents that get on.

One year later in a car ride we meet the kids, the son Jake Shade played by Ryan Grantham who has a surprising repertoire of films under his little belt from 2009’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus to 2010’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid there’s some other gems in there to!
The daughter Cynthia Shade. She’s played by Conner Dwelly who doesn’t have anything worth mentioning under her belt. They seem like generally good kids at this point and not any typical type cast, no stroppy teen daughter etc.
They pull up to a gas station that’s apparently deserted Terry proceeds with a little trepidation to knock on the stations door. Films first jump scare we meet the sheriff and we also learn that in the year that’s past Leah Shade has died (what an amazingly big part Jody had there) Terry and the Sheriff reminisce as the kids go about choosing some snacks. Picking up the keys and taking his instructions they leave for the cabin.
There’s some genuinely good writing and acting in this movie as we see in the drive up to the cabin dialogue between the dad and daughter is genuinely heartfelt. During this conversation the next jump scare happens when Terry hits something unknown on the road.
Of course in true horror movie fashion he then gets out leaves his kids along in the car and follows a trail of blood to boom the next jump scare and the first of flashbacks.

They finally come upon the cabin where we have the usual modern kid’s reactions. What no TV or sky dish? Followed by the typical parent reaction we’ll have lots of fun doing out doors stuff to notice no TV. Yeah right.
Oh taxidermy jump scare, yes as you can tell by only 14 minutes in we have a film that’s going to be mainly loud noise jump scares, though done right these work relatively well and lots of movies with them are good films.
Here the fathers surprise is revealed a lovely Christmas set up for the kids. After a small look around we get our first spooky scare a door closing on its own!
We then find our freezer full of essentials hotdogs, pizza and mac n cheese. With that sorted a slumber party in the family room is declared. Here we find out Terry is on some serious happy pill medication.
When the kids are asleep we see the suffering sad father come out, which I’m sure a lot of us over a certain age or experience can relate to. Of course Jody didn’t just have a tiny starting part! She’s through the movie in flashbacks here she is in the second one of the movie.
We are then treated to a spooky, freaky jump scare which is a kind of good one and forces Terry to run outside to see what it was.
This possibly starts the first few cracks in his mental stability. Then bam he wakes up in the chair he was in before it all happened. At the start the sheriff had a nasty cough; we now see that Terry seems to be cough intermittently too now.

All the things in this film though standard thriller/horror fare are just done at the right intervals at least for me. I found myself at this point slowly slipping into the film watching mode where you just wait to see what happens next. Though I have like most people by the age of thirty the ability to now watch a film and tell exactly what’s going to happen with at least a 75% probably margin, I watched this film absorbing every bit that came next.
The usual fare includes the phones not working, a scary attic and things seen out in the woods. There’s a case of a huge snow fall while sleeping, so Terry decides they should go make a snowman before it gets to deep.
The effects though a little few and far between are well done in this movie too and don’t subtract from it rather they add which is always a bonus to films when they can work in such good tandem like this.
Jake disappears during a snowball fight this was a little off because he blatantly walks off; this was just a tiny flaw I had with this scene. Coughing Terry decides they should all go to see a doctor, entering the house and collapsing by the door the kids run up stairs to pee and there’s another flashback. Terry suddenly comes too and runs outside to discover the car is now buried under about eight foot of snow; this makes him a little manic and wonders how this happened.
After digging out a section of the car and door he tries to start the car and mixed with flashbacks and the car not starting his mental state degrades a bit more as he notices his kids looking on at him from the doorway of the cabin.
By midway through the film Terry’s mind is slowly circling the plug hole and we get the first signature glimpse of the films name, he starts to barricade them into the cabin. Time seems to be slipping away faster and faster as well, I was genuinely a tad puzzled by now as to what was going on, I loved it as my aforementioned note on being able to guess films. Also they all seem to be looking rather sickly by now as well.
After a few more spooky scares and jump scares and coughing and a little obvious insanity the movie seemed to end really quickly. Don’t get me wrong this film has some odd parts and isn’t great all the way through. I did like it though and have seen films worse or even on par with this get into the cinema and this was a straight to video affair.
From start to finish it does degrade in quality the horror aspect isn’t as well written as the family parts and the shaky type camera action and screaming coughing sounds thrown in were the most annoying bits.
Anyway towards the end of the film we see due his mental state Terry has been cutting parts out of his memory, now we see how it really played out in the last few minutes. I won’t spoil it too much but thanks to a fever they all contracted is why it seemed like so much odd stuff was going on.
Suffice to say the dad who thought he couldn’t look after his kids pulls through for them in a misguided way at least. Why Dalias Blake is credited I have no idea as he only shows up as the deputy at the end of the film.
Thing is, was it just a fever or was there really something in the cabin after all?
A definite 4 out of 5 stars for this b-movies effort and managing to keep me focused on it from start to finish, like I said I’ve seen worse cinema releases than this.