Strawberry Estates (2001)

Strawberry Estates

Rating: 1 star out of 5. 

Notice: This review contains no substantial spoilers.



A college professor brings in a group to film goings-on at an abandoned asylum which is said to be a hot spot for hauntings. Decrepit, abandoned asylums are an archetypally unsettling affair -- isn't it one of the most common themes for a haunted attraction at Halloween time? I had high hopes for this film. The best found footage movies are based on a simple, universal premise. So, too, is Strawberry Estates, but its similarity to the best found footage films ends very abruptly there. It's a virtually useless film.

It's not the lack of effects that kills Strawberry Estates. The fact that it appears to spend virtually no money at all, is perhaps the most compelling thing about it. No-budget films have a spooky, eerie charm all their own. There's something uniquely volatile about a film that lacks even the most basic frills. Unfortunately, Strawberry Estates brutally squanders this luscious atmosphere.

If you'd like to see a movie that fully utilizes its negative-numbers budget to craft a chilling and compelling narrative, look to The Wicksboro Incident. Strawberry Estates, in great contrast to good movies everywhere, attempts no subtlety, and coerces no scares from the depths of our imagination, or from much of anywhere else.

Response to the film is almost universally negative, and rightfully so. But what makes Strawberry Estates so jarring for me is that it easily could have been a good film, yet the filmmakers blew it. The first half of the movie is meandering and pointless.... which is the perfect set-up for a terrifyingly believable found footage movie, as the action slowly escalates into all-out mayhem. Except for the fact that the second half of Strawberry Estates is every bit as meandering and pointless as the first.

The characters aren't decent human beings, but they're developed enough to keep me interested and I consider the acting very believable. It's not dramatic, it's rather low key, which is a lot more like how most people tend to act in real life than the powerful emotive expressions commonly seen in film. They even engage in a variety of religious discussions which, while devoid of particular intellectual merit, I find to be an intriguing and interesting choice, as well as pretty plausible in context. It's just a shame the film failed to hit on the essential scares of a found footage film, and instead lingers in weakness.

The filmmakers' most asinine offense, is the fact that in a movie about a decrepit, abandoned asylum, there are positively no dimly lit corridors, no pitch black detention chambers. The setting looks like a decent hotel, and it is perpetually well-lit. Virtually no darkness! How foolish do you have to be to flub something so simple up? Now, if there were truly horrific things happening here, maybe the bright light would turn into a cruel mockery, an illusion of safety in a sick torture-game as they are hunted by derelict spirits. But, no, instead we are treated to goofy, half-hearted drawling from the psychic of the group as she pretends to see docile spirits. If they had simply sent us tiptoeing down dark corridors, chasing things that go bump in the night, this could have been a scary and decent film. But apparently a concept so painfully obvious, and a scenario so easy to shoot, was beyond the scope of our filmmakers.

If you're absolutely obsessed with no-budget films, I could recommend Strawberry Estates for a watch. But it's not something you're liable to come back to. The things it accomplishes well are harshly overshadowed by a boring script and an apparent inability to build any atmosphere what-so-ever.

Strawberry Estates is a pretty decent film if you know what to expect, and what not to expect, but if you haven't seen the film before, it's difficult not to be disappointed. I would definitely give the makers of this film a second chance, but first I would tell them to watch The Wicksboro Incident.

The movie also came with a handful of likewise un-budgeted short films, around 20 minutes in length each. Most of them are boring and pointless, but the first one, called Pritchart's Landing... I really enjoyed quite a lot. It's very creepy, and while you're bound to scoff at the effects, this short film is about a thousand times scarier than Strawberry Estates, and I'd even go so far as to recommend it. A student filmmaker goes to the locale of a regional urban legend to shoot a film about the ghost girl who lost her legs in a car crash and therefore severs the legs of passersby. It's a creepy little tale, and I'm fondly reminded of the kind of ghost stories you used to hear when you were a kid. Simple and creepy, that's the realm found footage accomplishes best.