13 Eerie Film Review – Kind of Like "Mindhunters"

Runtime: 87 minutes

Release Date: April 2, 1013

Rating: R

Director: Lowell Dean

Professor Tompkins (Michael Shanks, "Red Riding Hood") invites his students to Eerie Straits for the weekend. Since his class is apparently super small, only six people actually head out there on the bus. Eerie Straits is actually a former prison island that the school staged with different death scenes in the hopes of teaching students what they need to land a job on CSI.

The group includes Daniel (Brendan Fehr, "Silent Night"), Patrick (Jesse Moss, "Final Destination 3"), Megan (Katherine Isabelle, "Ginger Snaps"), Katie, Rob, and Josh. After breaking the kids into different groups, the bus driver warns the only two girls, who naturally must work together, that they'll probably find a corpse not on their list.

Each group gets a small amount of work done before things go haywire. The corpse one group looks at seems to disappear, and the girls find that one of their corpses actually gets up and starts walking around. Even though they all have walkie-talkies, they take way too long to actually attempt any type of communication. By the time they do, the corpses are rising all over the island, leaving them trapped.

When "13 Eerie" started, I couldn't help comparing it to "Mindhunters." In fact, I was a little surprised when I read a review from someone who couldn't believe no one used this setup before. A group of students investigating forensics? Check. Students left with little supervision in a deserted area? Check. The only thing really missing was Val Kilmer and to a lesser extent, Christian Slater.

Once it finally started though, I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. You probably already know that I have the hots for Brendan Fehr, blame my college years and the television series "Roswell." While he's one of the main characters, I actually found myself rooting for some of the other characters. Poor Megan probably gets the worst of it. She gets stuck in a cabin after finding that one of the zombies attacked a friend, who is now a zombie too. I might hate "Ginger Snaps," but Isabelle does a strong job in this film.

The real surprise is the zombie storyline. You go into "13 Eerie" thinking that it's just another random story about people stuck in a remote place, and then the movie surprises you. It's actually fairly believable, especially once it delves into what happened to the prisoners, though you have to wonder if no one ever visited this place in years. Still, it didn't make me pick up a magazine while watching it, which is more than I can say for some of my more recent choices.