The Task

Plot synopsis:
Six terrified people, Shoe (Ashley Mulheron), Randall (Marc Pickering), Toni (Amara Karan), Dixon (Texas Battle) and brother and sister Stanton (Tom Payne) and Angel (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), are kidnapped to take part in a new reality show which will see them spending a night in an abandoned prison to win $20,000. Show host, Taylor (Adam Rayner) handcuffs the contestants together, removes their belongings and sends them into the prison.
The contestants find their way to the Warden's office, where they unlock themselves. Soon after, a TV monitor turns on, revealing an evil clown who warns the contestants of the Warden (Valentin Ganev) who used to work at the prison, before being sentenced to death for murdering inmates. Randall is set a task to travel to the chapel of the prison. With a microphone to communicate with the others, Randall ventures to the chapel and reads a prayer backwards to summon the spirit of the Warden. After completing his task, Randall returns to the others. Outside, the show's team, including Connie (Alexandra Staden), Sclezi (Sam Stockman), Big Daddy (Victor McGuire) and Snow (Sean Mcconaghy) begin to lose connection to some of the cameras inside the prison. Sclezi is sent in to fix them, however, he is stabbed in the eye by the Warden.
Dixon is set a task, to remain lying in a hole in the ground. Once he is inside the hole, the Warden arrives and locks him in. Connie, Big Daddy and Snow see this, but believe the network had twisted the show to also make them contestants. They let the game continue. Shoe and Randall are set a challenge to eat a meat believed to be human flesh, which they complete. Toni and Stanton are sent to the gas chamber for their task. Stanton locks Toni in a chair in the gas chamber, and puts a gas mask on her. As the chamber fills with gas, Stanton is instructed to find the switch to stop the gas somewhere in the prison. When he leaves, the Warden appears in the chamber and removes Toni's mask. While Randall and Shoe make their way back to base, they come across the Warden, who stabs them to death. As Stanton turns off the gas, the Warden knocks him unconscious.
Connie starts to become worried and sends Big Daddy and Taylor into the prison to check up on the contestants. They are soon attacked, and Connie attempts to warn Angel to get out of the prison. Angel believes this to be part of the game, as she has just been given the task to free Toni and Dixon. She enters a cell and finds a knife before the Warden appears with the key. She stabs him with what she thinks is a fake knife, and retrieves the key. She then finds Stanton hanging by his ankles in a cell, but before she can help him, the Warden stabs him in the neck and the abused inmates devour him.
Angel flees, and runs into Connie, who has entered the prison. The Warden returns, and as Angel runs, the Warden catches up with Connie. As Connie prepares to be stabbed, two more Wardens, Shoe, Randall, Taylor and Big Daddy reveal the show was a set up, and Connie was the real contestant. After the initial shock, Connie is sent to retrieve Toni, Taylor to get Dixon, and the others to leave the prison. Taylor finds Dixon murdered in the hole, and Connie realizes Toni is dead. The Warden locks Connie in the gas chamber and gases her, while the others are sealed into the prison. Angel manages to escape out of the prison to Snow, having discovered people were being murdered by the real Warden. Snow follows Angel with his camera asking her for a final word; not knowing the rest of the cast and crew are trapped in the prison, Angel responds by breaking his camera.

Tags: paranormal, plot twist, murder, haunting

Review:
So basically this movie is a mix between the film "Are you scared" and an old MTV show called "Fear", and lets just say that mix doesn't work very well in this case.The film is insanely slow, things really don't pick up until about an hour in, and even then its nothing special.
The first hour is basically just a bunch of shots of the annoying main characters walking through dark hallways while they talk about how scared they are.The gore is basically non existent so even the gore hounds won't find something to like in this one.
Honestly this could have been a PG-13 horror film, not sure why it was given an R rating.I do regret watching this flick because all in all it was a pretty big waste.
Take a very spooky place where a bunch of game show participants choose to spend the night for major cash prizes, make a creepy TV reality show of it, and then introduce a couple of plot twists just when you are collecting your things together ready to leave.
The kind of film that makes you reel in horror after watching it because you could have been doing something better with your inane life, like punching yourself in the balls.I can't believe that this film actually got through my eyeballs to my brain without my body throwing up.Bad cast, bad script, bad plot, bad dog.Should be advertised with the warning of 'slightly less mildly perilous than "Finding Nemo"'Don't watch this unless you're on Mescaline.
The Task is like Halloween : Resurrection but ten times better and the film is on a low budget where as Halloween : Resurrection had $15,000,000 (estimated) budget.
I was really surprised by how good the ending was.!!I agree with most of the reviews, this films has a good concept and good ideas, but not executed as well as they could of been, yet saying this I still enjoyed the film.Its not the best film I've seen but its worth the watch and I suggest horror fans to watch this,put it this way its like Halloween xIts not as corny as you would expect, this film could of been a lot better by editing certain parts of the film and editing some dialogue and removing it out of the film to make it less corny.Overall I think it is worth the watch, some films I watch for 15 minutes and turn straight off, if this movie wasn't worth watching i would of turned it off lol..And I give the film extra credit for been on a low budget..Peace From The U.K. Silly Screenplay with Unbelievable Plot Point.
One of them gives up, but the gay Randall (Marc Pickering); the nerd Toni (Amara Karan); the blonde Shoe (Ashley Mulheron); the strong Dixon (Texas Battle); and the siblings Stanton (Tom Payne) and Angel (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) accept the invitation expecting to receive US$ 20,000.00 each.The six contestants also learn that the former warden had killed eighty-five inmates many years ago, and they are assigned to accomplish with tasks that explore the fear of each one of them that they had confessed in the interview.
Is it?"The Task" is a horror film with a good acting but a silly screenplay, with an unbelievable plot point.
Yes I know its been done before, but as a horror fan I live in hope a movie will deliver the jumps and scares like they used to when I was growing up in the 80's!
This movie is without a doubt the worst 'attempted' horror I have seen in a long time.
I am amazed that someone made this, looked back on it and though "Wow what a great horror film." Like many horror fans it takes a lot nowadays to scare people, this film wouldn't scare my 7 year old nephew..
Nonetheless, it does manage to just about hold your attention long enough to see the twist near the end, which surprisingly wasn't as predictable as is standard with these cheap horror films.I wouldn't rush out to buy/watch this one, but if you have a spare hour and a half and a group of friends that fancy a laugh it is worth a go.
Yes, a good mystery keeps your mind going while you're watching a film.
Anyway, the producers (of which there are four of them - apparently you only need four people to stage a TV show - Big Brother must waste loads of money on runners and editors etc) lock these six English-American teenagers in an abandoned prison and tell them they'll get paid if they stay the night.Well, you probably already know it's a horror film, so, guess what, they start getting picked off one by one.
The first hour and four minutes is made up of the six teens wandering round darkened corridors completing (completely non-lethal) tasks.I guess the main trouble is that this is too much like real reality TV.
I couldn't wait for the main characters to die - at least it meant they could stop pretending to be from the deep south of Arizona (as opposed to West Kensington).It also says a lot about the movie when the person you recognise the most is 'Jack' from the eighties sit-com 'Bread' (now, Nellie Boswell - she was truly scary - The Task just isn't)..
When a group of reality show contestants arrive to participate in a horror reality show at an abandoned prison, a series of gruesome accidents has them believing that the site's resident ghosts might be the ones responsible and not the show's fear-based antics.This one here manages to become somewhat watchable as there are several really good points on display.
Several of them are rather freaky and definitely enjoyable, especially the first one in the chapel as the activity required here to raise the spirit inside the utter darkness is truly chilling, the later player being forced into the tank of sludge that signals the first of the ghostly activities and the team trapped in the gas chamber are incredibly fun scenes that utilize the prison's layout effectively while being extra creepy for how they're woven into the game, and the biggest part here is the finale where he's finally been uncovered and allowed to really focus on the ghostly figure running loose interfering with the show as these are really fun moments.
The last plus here is the concept of the show and how it deals with fear, since it tends to skip over some when it comes to going wrong so that there's a lot of anticipation as to when it'll go sour, which is a great feeling and keeps it interesting.
The biggest factor here is the last half, which is where the film gets a little off-track since it tends to pile on twist after twist in attempt to try something new, but gets way too overblown thinking there's a rather big reveal to its twists.
Nudity: 0 out of 10 (nothing even close to a female disrobing in this one) Gore: 1.5 out of 10 (this movie could have been rated PG-13) - Six young adults have been hand-selected to participate in a reality television show.1) Shoe (the luscious Ashley Mulheron who was part of the 2009 effort, "Lesbian Vampire Killers"): The ambitious, ditsy one of the bunch.2) Dixon (Texas Battle who was an expendable character in Final Destination 3): The muscular, masculine presence in the film.
As the doors open to the prison early in the movie, he affirms, "And I thought coming out of the closet was scary..." - These six characters, in exchange for $20,000, agree to spend the night in an abandoned prison.
It looks like an untoward place.Once inside, each of the six characters has to perform a task or two that is revealed by a barbed wire-wrapped television set.If they make it through the night, the cash is theirs.But is the warden still around to "welcome" his visitors?
- "The Task" is an odd duck.In January of 2011, when the After Dark original movies hit the theaters, this one was curiously left off the roster.
The darkest elements of the movie are only hinted at (like what the warden did to his female prisoners), but they are never explored.If you've seen the execrable Halloween Resurrection, you know the drill.
How far are the viewers willing to let it go?To its credit, "The Task" does try to shake things up a little bit at the end.
I was weary of watching this because I wasn't familiar with many of the actors or the companies that had produced the movie.
Only the twist at the end makes it worth watching because you can't see that one coming.it's so strange that I didn't get into the characters because the actors aren't unknown in the genre, Ashley Mulheron for example played in The Lesbian Vampire Killers and I enjoyed that one a lot.I'm intending to see all 8 flicks out there in the After Dark series but this was the worst so far and I have seen 4 of them so far..
"The Task" seemed at first like a good movie, albeit somewhat formulaic - the characters seemed played and written quite enthusiastically, although they still were archetypal characters.Unfortunately although there's some sense of fun during scenes focusing on the contestants and crew members, the horror aspect is handled somewhat poorly - it has slow pacing without the atmosphere or suspense that makes slow burn horror effective.There's also not much here that would satisfy gorehounds - partially because little happens plot-wise for large portions of runtime, but also because these kills aren't very imaginative - generally stabbings and such.It's still not terrible, its just lacking strength in any particular area that would make the film worthwhile.
So I went into watching this film, thinking it'll be a great original horror film.
I think it's the kind of film, which would only be watched the once, not several times.
I Really Enjoyed It. I don't understand why this movie got so many poor reviews, outside of the fact possibly that the genre of horror has become a pretty abysmal thing (and so many people think that's what horror is really meant to be.) This movie was done to the stage of classic horror -- if you enjoy Vincent Price and Alfred Hitchcock; who didn't use senseless gore or torture or muzak (music altered to get a psychological effect from someone where something otherwise may not be scary) to get the point across; then you will enjoy this.This movie is almost entirely a rip off of Vincent Price's house on haunted hill, everywhere down to certain twists that occur.
It made me enjoy myself, and it was worth the watch.While I couldn't compare this film as a great classic like Beethoven, if I were to compare it to music, I could certainly compare modern horror (and many modern movies) to modern music -- which is talentless, relies almost wholly on machines, and for the better part soul-less.
Apart from that, what you have is a film that involving some fuds that have signed up for some reality TV show and are 'kidnapped' and taken to an abandoned prison, where they are set some tasks and etc.You know the drill, some guy keeps showing up on the TV folks footage, people get killed, blah blah.
Oh, I don't know, I suppose that depends on how you like your horror movies.
Do you like a lot of the 'cut-em-up' Friday The 13th style horror films?
I loved the fact that the contestants in the ersatz gameshow worked together instead of being pitted against one another as in so many of these like-themed films.
'THE TASK': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five) An 'After Dark Original' about a reality TV show staged at a prison with a dark past where six students must survive the night accomplishing random spooky tasks.
The students must then take part in terrifying tasks assigned to them by the TV show while mysterious things continue to happen all around them, it's just never quite clear whether it's part of the show or something else.The movie is stylishly shot and edited and like I said the actors all look good and so does the scenery.
The problem is that the movie is never really that spooky, until the end but it takes way too long to get there.
For too long were kept in the dark on what is really happening and the characters never really seem like they're in that much danger.
For 2011 I'd place it right in the middle of the bunch; it's an average horror film that gives us something but nothing worth getting too excited about.Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQaTxuL7SQ.
i thought that the movie was good but also Not good for some reasons, first of all i like the idea of reality show "fake" turns into "real" but i really think it would of been better if they worked more on the story and ending, the ending was nice but it was bit to expected and i expected more before the movie ended, they could of come up with a better ending besides that i like the idea and the actor it looks like it might get a sequel but if they do they must do a lot of edits A Lot !i gave it 5 rating because of the great effects, the idea of the movie which i liked, and it just left me confused and wanting answers to my question, 5/10.
It's unusual to find good writing or much of anything that isn't predictable in a film like this, and I really didn't expect it to be as entertaining as it was.
A movie like the Task really comes down to the cast, because if they're not believable the movie ends up being only good for a few laughs.
The cast was good, the plot was great, but what really put the film over the top was it's terrific ending, which was very reminiscent of another Lionsgate classic, Saw. It's an ending you shouldn't see coming, but one that really brings the whole thing together..
The idea was looking interesting, but sadly the movie has almost nothing in term of scare factors...
You would think for a movie set up in an abandoned prison, it would, but no.
Also he is supposed to be a ghost in the movie, yet totally act like a "slasher movie killer".In any case i had good hope it would be a bit scary, it wasn't at all, another movie for the pawnshop pile..
There are no Horror Elements in this movie yet I Enjoyed it,.
I was excepting this movie to be really poor.I found the start a little odd, people are being kidnapped, only to be told they going to be spending the day in abandoned prison.They did not seem to care that were kidnapped expect for one of them, who soon leaves.I found move really entertaining and did not find it boring at all, nothing much really happens and people in this movie did not annoy me at all.There also had just hint of descent atmosphere, if they tried a little hard, it could have made this movie creepy.As this movie was not scary or creepy and it wasn't even that bloody, yet I still enjoyed it!I was shocked with that twist, , I had no idea that would happen, I think it worked really well with the rest of the movie.
to sum it up for everybody: DON'T DO IT!There is "real life" game show, a film crew, some random candidates, a spooky prison, a clown (i don't think he's relevant - but hey, he looks cool in the trailer!
Let's do stuff with a mad looking clown, dancing in front of a poorly animated wall of fire - kinda like an 80s video but not that well executed), dark floors, a pothead (who is basically part of the film crew - but never mind...), a warden ghost who isn't really a ghost at first but then he is ...
An old prison, some warden ghost who is pi***d, because he got caught f*****g female inmates like 50 years ago...
As some other reviewers have said already, this movie actually has a fairly original plot idea.
The basic premise is that a group of people signed up for a reality game show, and are "kidnapped", and then taken to a deserted prison with a nasty history.
The way the idea is portrayed, it actually would make a good "reality" TV show.Strange things begin to happen, of course, but are they supernatural, or part of the show?
Seems like it would be pretty predictable, but it has a few unexpected twists.Basically this movie uses tension and atmosphere to drive it for the most part, although there is some occasional blood.
I have to say it surprises me how many people will crap on a decent horror movie just because it doesn't have tons of blood and violence happening every ten minutes.
The game show uses a clown video to deliver the tasks to the participants, and its pretty stupid, but hey blame that on the game show producers, not on the movie.
Some of the tasks are kind of stupid too, but again just what you'd expect from a reality game show.
Finally, I agree that the ending wasn't very satisfying.In summary, if you are looking for a horror movie with lots of gore and/or jumps, this is not it.
If you are looking for a story where everything gets explained, and you learn all about the characters to the point where you know their family history (exaggeration), this isn't it either.But if you are looking for a movie with a decent plot, and some tension and atmosphere, don't let the negative reviews put you off.