The Hamiltons

Plot synopsis:
A suburban family harbors a dark secret: When their parents are killed in a tragic accident, eldest Hamilton sibling David (Samuel Child) relocates the surviving family members to a quiet California suburb and assumes the responsibility of caring for his orphaned teenage siblings; Wendell (Joseph McKelheer), Darlene (Mackenzie Firgens), and Francis (Cory Knauf). While twins Wendell and Darlene seem to share a bizarre incestuous bond that separates them from the rest of the siblings, Francis acquires a video camera that previously belonged to his deceased parents and sets out preparing a school project about his family.
The all-seeing lens of Francis' roving camera begins to reveal that something malevolent is going on inside the Hamilton's picturesque abode. David finds work in a meat-packing warehouse, and is shown to bring some stuff from work home with him, while it is also implied that he is interested in men as he regularly invites male co-workers to go with him to a nearby motel for an evening.
One evening, Wendell kidnaps two young girls whom he meets in a local bar and they are tied in their storeroom. Older brother David drains blood off one of them till she slowly dies. Francis gets attracted to the other girl who tries to get him to help her. But things come to a head when Wendell and Darlene murder one of her classmates and feed off her blood.
When David tries to kill the other girl, Francis hits him in the head and carries her off to a safe hideout at the meat packing plant which is closed for the night. Wendell asks David to follow Francis, as he is the only one capable of persuading him to return. At the barn, Francis, seeing an open wound on the girl's hand, is unable to control his bloodlust and he kills the girl and feeds off her. When David appears, Francis is crying and we see his fangs. Though terribly sad at his actions, he finally seems to be accepting what he really is: a vampire.
With the death of Darlene's classmate, David decides to move somewhere else, and they go to the basement to retrieve the creature locked there, who turns out to be their little brother Lenny.
The family, the Hamilitons, is revealed to be a new breed of vampires who are born that way, not made. They move from place to place to hide their secret of their thirst for blood and to avoid detection from the authorities. In the final scene, we see them introducing themselves to their new neighbors, as the Thompsons, and Francis, now having embraced his newfound status as a vampire, is shown making a happy video of his now complete family.

Tags: cruelty, murder, home movie

Review:
Another one of the eight films that was part of After Dark's Horror Film Festival, "The Hamiltons" is an intriguing little horror film/twisted family drama that will have you interested and disgusted at the same time.
This independent horror film focuses around a family of four, consisting of three brothers and a sister, their parents both deceased.
The Hamilton family may seem like a basically normal bunch on the surface - but little does anyone know, they also kidnap innocent people and tie them under their house and proceed to murder them.Interesting premise, eh?
It has a few faults here and there (this would mainly be the trouble finding any sympathy for a couple of the characters of the family, when it seems the writers were poking at that), but overall the writing is clever and keeps a couple of important plot-twists pretty well hidden until the appropriate time to reveal them.
It does drag it's feet a little during the middle of the film, which could have been a problem - luckily it isn't necessarily uninteresting because the character interaction is really compelling.The acting here is surprisingly good, the leading actors are mostly unknown (besides Brittany Daniel of "Club Dread" and "Joe Dirt", who has a small role in the opening scene of the film), but I thought everyone performed well and the characters were pretty believable.
It's not your typical horror movie at all, so don't expect one - but if you want to see a different type of horror film (a little slow moving, but heavy on character development), check it out.
On its own, an excellent ending...it's getting there that's the problem with the film.The fundamental flaw of "The Hamiltons" is that it's caught between being a serial killer film and a family drama, and unlike "Suburban Nightmare" - which was similar, also an indie, and much better in my opinion - "The Hamiltons" refuses to commit to its characters.
His relationship with one of the women being held in the cellar of the house is particularly well-written and potent.The problem is that the movie feels forced to bend to genre conventions, and in doing so it makes the other three members of the family unsympathetic in the extreme.
The characters of Wendell and Darlene are written well as sociopaths, but the problem comes when the film wants you to identify with them and accept them as part of this family, and you can't imagine why anyone would love them even if they WERE family.The film is worth watching, but the script really could've used another run through editing to work out the kinks..
The family now consists of older brother David, who is struggling with his homosexuality and the pressures of running the household, the twins Darlene & Wendell, who are devious troublemakers, and younger brother Francis, who is coming to terms with his family and his place in the world.The film starts out explaining that The Hamiltons siblings recently lost their parents and they have moved several times within the past couple of years.
They've managed to put together a good old-fashioned scare fest, with some very powerful shocks along the way, all while using very basic gore and makeup effects.The movie is about a group of grown siblings, whose parents have died, who are living together as a family unit, trying to be a "normal" suburban family.
I would like to have seen them use this technique again, but instead they went on to try every camera trick they could think of.The youngest brother is camcording much of the family action, he says for a school project.
It's a much better movie than a lot of low-budget horror and it left me with the kind of feeling I get from the old 70s and 80s slashers, but it's not as graphic..
Perhaps a greater emphasis on societal rejuvenation through blood intake, scenes directed with varying geometric shapes outside the square, and a sustained focus on playfulness through the family's maliciousness or traps sympathetic characters need to escape in order to escape their dilemma would have improved my opinion, but this was not a good start to my excursion through horrorfest..
It ended up with a cliché ridden gory sadistic hour and fifteen minutes with all the characters being one dimensional and you couldn't care less what happened to them but to try to make the audience care about the characters they added a useless monologue at the end and the beginning of the film which to be perfectly honest wasn't needed.The only good part really was the middle/end- I won't ruin it for you.
After the death of their parents, the troubled teenager Francis (Cory Knauf) and the corrupt twins Wendell (Joseph McKelheer) and Darlene (Mackenzie Firgens) are raised by their older homosexual brother David Hamilton (Samuel Child), who sold the farm that belonged to the family.
This low-budget movie brilliantly develops the character Francis, performed by Cory Knauf and alternates between a sadistic movie and a family drama in a slow-pace misguiding the viewer.
The Hamiltons is one of the best independent horror films since Saw. More of an intense character study than anything else, this disturbing creep show takes a tired concept and successfully gives it a refreshing, and even humorous, twist.
If this film is any indication, The Butcher Brothers are a pioneering duo who should be watched in the coming years, whose ability to tell an engrossing and twisted story is bold and unique.The Hamiltons are just like every other family.
And with a crop of rising actors whose talent holds great potential, The Hamiltons is outright one of the best and most enjoyable horror films to come out this year.
The youngest brother begins to to think this family tradition is something that must end.In many ways there's nothing new to this movie.
I love this movie with a passion, although I don't consider it horror as much as an in-depth look at what lies beneath the surface of a grief stricken family, this movie was still one of the best low-budget films I've ever seen it.
At first I thought the story would suck but after 15 minutes I was addicted.Must see for anyone who wants something different from a "horror" movie, anyone who wants to see something so real and deep that for the hours you watch this you wish you were there trying to help...
Every aspect of the cinematography is terrible, the acting is forced, and I was left feeling like I had wasted my time when there are plenty of other movies out there that do horror better..
Apart from the fact they like to trap people in their basement and then eat them.The film does its best to try and inject some new life into the current obsession the cinematic public has with vampires, as it tries to portray them as basically a normal family (i.e. they don't fear Peter Cushine's crucifix, throw up when you try and feed them garlic bread, or sparkle in the sunlight - like any self-respecting vampire would actually sparkle in sunlight!).
The fact that The Hamiltons opens with a pretty young woman (Brittany Daniel) bound and gagged in a basement desperately trying to free herself and escape, let's us know right off that there is something far more wrong with the title family then dealing with the death of their father and mother.
The real standout is Rebekah Hoyle as Samantha, one of the Hamilton's captives who overcomes her horror and fear to try to manipulate the troubled Francis into letting her go and running away from a family he doesn't appear to fit in with.
***SPOILER*** The movie "The Hamiltons" starts out like another chapter of the "Saw" series of horror films with this young woman only known as "Hot Pants", Nathan Parker, trapped in this locked underground cold cellar with a number of human cadavers.
It starts to look like "Hot Pants" will very soon become one of them.It's then that the film completely changes course with this mid-west American family having problems making ends meet in paying their bills due to the fact that they can't stay in one place for too long in having moved some six times over the last four years.
The head of the Hamilton family David,Samuel Child, works long hours-somethings doing double shifts-at the local slaughterhouse while his two brothers the meek and artistic Francis, Cory Knauf, and good for nothing Wendle, Joseph McKelheer, just hang around contributing nothing to the families coffer.We soon begin to realize what the opening scene, with "Hot Pants", was really all about with Wendle having a hot date with two local teenage girls Samantha & Dani, Rebekah Hoyle & Brittany Daniel, in his beat up Volvo automobile.
It turns out that David and Wendle together with their ghoul-like sister Darlene, McKenzie Firgers, are a bunch of homicidal maniacs who've been on the run from the police, which explains their constantly being on the move, and left a trail of dozens of corpses along the way!Francis being the black sheep, by him just being normal, of the family soon becomes a threat to the rest of his siblings in him having human compassion for both Samantha and Dani.
If you want to shoot a film about a teenage Psycho Family Robinson, then do it.But then again, The Hamiltons lingers so lovingly over every blood spurt and flying glob of flesh that I suppose simple lesbian porn comes as a welcome relief from the gore porn.
Meanwhile, Francis (Knauf), the youngest and most sensitive, is the only one who seems to be normal and trying to complete a school project by filming the daily exploits of them all; something hard to do when there is two local girls bound and gagged in the basement.The Butcher Brothers provide The Hamiltons with a surprisingly real tone despite all the crazed nastiness, helped along by the nods to The Blair Witch Project with the use of a video camera.
As they all try to sort out their own problems with only a social worker who cannot possibly understand them to act as parental guidance, you'll want to know why they are so screwed up.Although the Hamiltons are hardly the most likable family with the twins pushing their friend Kitty (Hunt) into joining them for unsettling games that threaten to get out of hand, its grim mood gives way to brighter prospects for them all for an oddly uplifting final reel.
Meet The Hamiltons: oldest brother David, who likes to murder transient homosexuals; twins Wendell and Darlene, a couple of sadistic nut-jobs who delight in suffering and incest; tortured soul Francis, who reluctantly assists his family in their gruesome activities; and Lenny, who remains unseen for most of the film, locked in a room in the basement.The opening scene of The Hamiltons, which sees a pretty woman waking to find herself bound and gagged in a grimy hellhole full of bloody surgical implements, made me think that I was in for yet another predictable ho-hum psycho-killer/torture horror, and to be honest, much of what followed did little to alter this perception.
The acting was passable, and the direction perfunctory.To my surprise, however, writers/directors The Butcher Brothers pack in a pretty neat twist at the end of their film which actually helped me to forgive some of the preceding mundanity, although I can't help but feel that the whole thing would have been much more successful overall had they not relied so much on their clever ending to completely save the day.
For a better idea concerning where the story is going, try to pay more attention to the "narration" given by protagonist Cory Knauf (as Francis), youngest of "The Hamiltons" family.
The family has one of those "dark secrets" you often see in movies like this...Anyone questioning "The Hamiltons" secret should keep an eye on Knauf's teeth...Although the secretive screenplay is neither original nor unpredictable, filmmakers Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores do score some points by playing around with a different delivery than you might expect from the opening; for whatever reasons, they didn't go far enough.
It does deal with a troubled young man, trying to find his place in the world, and also how he fits in with his VERY unique "family unit." Frances Hamilton (Cory Knauf), confused, withdrawn and in constant turmoil, documents his day-to-day life with his siblings, following them around with a camcorder as he records them and his thoughts in a video journal.Older brother David (Samuel Child) carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, along with his role as 'man of the house', the legal guardian for everyone else since their parents died.
Francis know's something just isn't right & when he eventually finds out the truth things will never be the same again...Co-written, co-produced & directed by Mitchell Altieri & Phil Flores as The Butcher Brothers (who's only other film director's credit so far is the April Fool's Day (2008) remake, enough said) this was one of the 'Films to Die For' at the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest (or whatever it's called) & in keeping with pretty much all the other's I've seen I thought The Hamiltons was complete total & utter crap.
A really bad film that I am struggling to say anything good about.Despite being written & directed by the extreme sounding Butcher Brothers there's no gore here, there's a bit of blood splatter & a few scenes of girls chained up in a basement but nothing you couldn't do at home yourself with a bottle of tomato ketchup & a camcorder.
Like most of the festivals entries Hamiltons makes for an interesting watch a film thats all ideas and little execution.
Don't waste your time or money on this film, the acting is bad, the story is just one of the worst i have come across and the script was just awful.
With movies out there like "Hostel" and "Saw" you need to come a little better for a film that is "considered to graphic or too disturbing for general audiences"..
A parent-less family of five, the Hamiltons kill and kidnap people, although we don't know exactly why until the end.
"The Hamiltons" is a rather dull and weak barely horror film.**SPOILERS**Following their parents' death, the Hamilton family, Francis, (Cory Knauf) David, (Samuel Child) Wendell, (Joseph McKelheer) and Darlene, (Mackenzie Firgens) all move together to get reacquainted.
The fact that this is so much like a family drama rather than a horror film is the greatest flaw.
With the family drama coming in a possible source, it drains the film of much-needed horror scenes that instead don't do much of anything for building up scares or suspense.
If you are going to attempt building tension in a film it is always a good idea not to build it beyond the point of total tedium.Unfortunately the Butcher Brothers haven't grasped this yet.This film sucks, unlike the majority of its characters who (if you didn't work out they are vampires in the first few minutes then shame on you) preference stringing up the plentiful supply of 'no one knows where I am' cheerleader types and homosexual drifters that waft conveniently and with a fast food swagger, past their isolated door.The only tiny bit of originality in the plot is how these vampires come to be vampires in the first place but the rest of it is ludicrous and sloppy.Forced to up sticks (as opposed stakes) on a regular basis due to their penchant for filling their basement with bloodless corpses, they really are none too bright.
For such a low budget horror film the acting is very good as is the camera-work.
Samuel is the oldest but seems to have too much pressure on him dealing with Francis and the twins Wendell and Darlene, not to mention that they cannot seem to keep their hands off each other, or their next victim, not to mention an apparent family member locked in the basement along with some other would be victims just to make things even more stressful.As you can tell all is not as it seems and as the movie continues we begin to find out that the family has a "disease" and they need to kill for this reason which sends us spiraling to an ending that some may see coming while others may not.
What I mean by that is we get more of a character driven horror/thriller than a gore fest which, like "The Abandoned" is a nice change of pace.Taking into account that this had a limited budget and dropping my expectations going in I really came away liking this movie to the point that even with those lulls in the film that may make some shun away I still feel compelled to give "The Hamiltons": 7/10: Good, this is a solid little indie flick that though not a gore fest definitely does what it needed to do to keep me interested for 90 minutes.If you are not into Indie movies or need action every 10 minutes or so you may want to skip this one all together.
Just okay horror film about a nice suburban family dealing with the death of their parents and the "thing" in the basement that they keep feeding people they pick up off the street.
Of course there is more to it then that but to say more would be telling.For me this just didn't come together as it tries to have it two ways both as a family drama and a horror film.
The youngest, Francis(Cory Knauf), finds a movie camera of his parents and decides to use it for a school project filming his family.
Also it is split between hand-held and traditional camera work as the youngest brother films with a camcorder throughout the movie.Overall, The Hamiltons is OK at best.