Interesting premise? Definitely poor execution.

Rating: 4/10 (2 February 2014)

I really thought this might be a good movie. It has an interesting premise, unless you take 30 seconds to think it through. The government gives every citizen nearly full license to do whatever they want for 12 hours every year. I say nearly because there are "clear" restrictions set up in the movie by means of an emergency broadcast. They can't use certain weapons (Class 5 and higher, one would assume things like nukes or other similar WMDs) and can't harm "government officials of ranking 10", so one would assume the way higher-ups. The broadcast also mentioned all crime, including murder, being legal.
Pondering that can only bring you to one conclusion: how the hell does the entire country not fall apart? What sort of moron would think this is a good idea? Well, the creators of the film clearly thought people were stupid enough to buy into this, perhaps for some morbid curiosity crap... The problem is most people aren't going to go kill someone simply because it's suddenly legal. The film doesn't really err on the side of realistic. Sadly the premise tends to be heard as "MURDER LEGAL GO!"
Aside from the premise not holding up in reality, the rest of the movie was essentially a pieced-together horror/thriller that was never really horrifying or thrilling. I did not care about the main characters. They were a bunch of rich folks with their own silly problems and absolutely no depth. And of course, lets not forget the daughter who prances around in a catholic school girl outfit for the duration of the film.
This movie really wanted to capitalize on extreme close-ups and the brilliant scare tactic of hiding the villains behind people's enlarged heads. I eventually found myself counting down to the next "OMG HE'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU" moment and actually nailed most of them. It just wasn't scary. It is still possible to make someone jump out of their seat, and I don't mind having that happen. But when you can predict those moments, it ruins the experience. As for the psychological part, it didn't really work out, especially when you want the main characters to die anyway.
By the end, I was hoping someone would have just dropped a nuke right on this house, but sadly that would have been against the rules. I'll give them credit though, it's hard to find a film with a $3 million budget that does this well in the box office. But clearly this is only a sign of having a rather captivating premise marketed with a decent trailer.
I really hope Honest Trailers picks this movie up. They'd probably enjoy making another lens flare montage.