User Reviews

Here is another "found footage" horror movie in which the story is told through home video shot by the characters. In this film, the premise is that some high schoolers are looking for something to do during the summer, so they drive to a small nearby community to poke around and mess with the locals. They peek in windows, sneak around garages, trespass, and ridicule people from afar. Little by little, weird things begin to happen. For example, on one trip, they look in a house and see several Amish-looking men just standing and staring ominously. After each incident, they go home, talk about what happened, hand out, and then get together to go back out to bother the strangers again. By the end of the movie, you start to feel like these kids definitely deserve some consequences. Eventually, they are brutally murdered by the residents of the town. We see them getting beaten and cut apart pretty graphically. It adds to the creepiness that the killers seem to be doing this in a very methodical manner, with their children helping out as if its a daily chore. This lengthy ending sequence is the most effective part of the film, and made it worth sitting through. Whereas the build up portions of the movie are fairly unremarkable, we get a very memorable horror movie payoff.

I just watched this Film, and coming from another Filmmaker. In my personal opinion it took way to long to get to the point! A bunch of kids causing trouble and pissing off the locals. The Cinematography was fantastic, to kudos to that. In no way did this Film scare me, not a bad start for some actors who are starting out trying to to get some screen time. Not a bad written story, I personally would have changed a few things script wise. I guess my main complaint is most of the movie was bored kids looking to get into trouble. And then finally at the end they are killed......Why? What was the main idea? Whenever i sit down to write a script my producers will ask me, why? What Am I writing this, what am i trying to get across to the audience?

This is a very original movie with a twist at the end you have to sit through the credits for. The viewer bonds with the characters through the first hour of the film, as clues about Hell Town are dropped between pranks. This is a movie where you have to pay attention to see where the story is going. There are many scenes that freaked me out. After that it starts to pick up, culminating in a quick and hideous end. The shock is not just what happened to the Boston Mill Five, but who did it and why.

If you google Hell Town Ohio, and follow the coordinates on the Wiki page to Google Maps; a satellite view of the area looks almost exactly like the area shown at the end of the movie. Definitely adds to the creep factor, for sure.

This is an interesting low budget movie that is shot in a Blair Witch style with the characters carrying the camera around with them. Unlike the knock-offs, this movie has a different and entertaining story line. There are three teenage guys and a couple of girls who spend a few days in June driving to a nearby community called Boston Mills. There are all sorts of stories about the town, which is nicknamed HELLTOWN. They include a haunted bus, the crazy lady who killed her kids and the creepy church. Pretty much the standard legends that most small towns have that capture the imagination of bored kids. Along with visiting all the sites, they get into trouble with some of the locals, which results in some vandalism and several really creepy encounters. All of this comes to a bloody end when they return one final time to recover a missing purse.

This is a very well made and entertaining independent movie that I enjoyed way more than I thought I was going to. While I'm among those that wish the first person video camera movie phase that has been popular of late would pass, this movie still sucked me in. The story is different and combines the recent trend of kids taping themselves doing the dumbest things with a horror movie. I've never seen anyone approach one of these movies this way and found it very creative. The story is filled with the sort of local legends that anyone who grew up in a rural area will immediately relate to. Of course in my case, being from Ohio and knowing something about where they were shooting, only made that more fun. Now the movie does slow down a bit and get repetitive towards the end as they keep going back when most people would have bailed, but the ending is so killer that it more than makes up for that. I also need to say that I have no idea where director T. Michael Conway found his cast, but well done. They are all young actors that in most cases seem to have nothing on their resume other than this movie. They are all very good and natural. Not once while watching the movie did I ever even notice that they were acting. This is so rare to say about an independent movie that I just had to point it out.

This movie is supposed to be shot by one of the kids with a consumer video camera and looks like it was. If you are looking for well-lit, superbly polished camera work this is the wrong movie for you. Also if you are susceptible to motion sickness (like I am) you might just get a little sick to your stomach watching this movie (I was by the end). But for me, that just made the movie more effective and was part of the experience. In addition to the previous, there are also a couple of really effective creepy moments that are captured on the camera nicely. There is a bit with some night vision and a mysterious figure in the woods that was scary and another with a couple of people standing in a house staring out the windows that also worked nicely. Speaking of scary, the voice on the CB radio freaked me out just a bit.

This is one of the creepier independent movies that I've seen in a long time. My big rule with movies, regardless of funding, is whether they entertained me. While June 9 had a micro budget and looks like it, I still had fun with it. I've always thought that a talented filmmaker could make a decent movie on any budget and I believe June 9 proves my point. I recommend that horror fans give the movie a chance to surprise them.

I don't know why people say this doesn't have a plot, as it has three: (1) dumbass kids doing hijinks and vandalism, which are not original but seem dumbly realistic, and therefore adds to the "found footage" nature of this, (2) the supernatural edge, with fritzing video camera and "spooks" in the cornfield, and (3) what's really going in Hell Town?

SPOILERS AHEAD:

I enjoyed/ did not enjoy the "pranks" because they seemed very ordinary, as if I were embarrassed watching my own friends. I wasn't bored, but I was, like, stop it, dudes. And not even because ghosts might get them. Since I was involved/ invested that much, it means the filmmakers did their job. Contrast with BLAIR WITCH, where I hated the characters, they were so stupid.

The supernatural elements seemed ordinary (camcorder not working right, the weirdly-lit faces in the woods and fields, and so forth). However, because they didn't try to reinvent the wheel, it felt natural. Some things were forced, like the little girl on the CB radio, but..

SPOILER: Because the punchline is not supernatural, it makes you wonder how some of those things occurred. And that is the most interesting part of this: it's not ghosts, it's really sick brutal townsfolk, as in 2000 MANIACS, but not satirical or exaggerated in any manner. In fact, the ending, while not 100% realistic, has major brutality which could make you squeamish. And it's not like it's a second strung-out ending for a "roller-coaster" ride. It's just boom, you're in the next phase, and yeah, maybe they could've built that up a bit more. This is more along the lines of grindhouse, and not that over-dramatic Rob Zombie stuff either. Almost looks real, almost like snuff.

There is a second ending that takes you on a "journey of the video-camera" after the kids are gone, and that ends on a very gory nauseating note.

So, all in all, because the three plots are interesting, engrossing, or chilling in their own right, I give it a solid 6-6.5.

I can remember when I saw the film 'REC' on suggestion from a friend and I was terrified by it. Then, a few months later, I was scrolling through a selection of movies and I found this film. I picked it out and watched it the full way through. By the end, I was in shock by what I'd seen.

Bear in mind, this film isn't award-winning acting or plot, but the style in which it's executed is all but horrid, managing to flawlessly pull off the style of the late 90's, the year being 1999 in the film.

-Plot- A gang of friends decide to go around from town to town causing mischief and mayhem on the locals and catching everything on their hand-held camera. What they don't realize is that the pranks they pulled off on the locals of a town called Boston Mills didn't go unnoticed and, as such, have stirred up the hive. Soon, the trips to Boston Mills become more and more bizarre, leading to the massacre of the four teens by the townfolk in a cornfield. Each teen is killed in some gruesome, maniacal way, one young woman sustained a direct jab from the rough edge of a sledgehammer to the forehead while another received repeated blows to the skull with a rock from another crazed local. Another short film during the credits reveals that the teens were carved up and fed to pigs while their belongings were stored and sifted through by the locals in a shed behind a church.

The plot seems recycled from the 70's crazed killer movies, but the execution is nearly flawless. With solid and realistic acting from most of the characters followed up by a gruesome and truly disturbing ending that you thought would've been tamer, this film is truly a hidden gem in the sinking ship that is the horror film genre.

-Overall- 'June 9' attempted and managed to pull off a P.O.V hand-held film that would normally go along nicely using a regular 35mm. The feeling that you get from the film is that you're accompanying these teens on some sort of adventure that is abruptly halted by a sickening ending. You watch as these four kids you traveled about with are slaughtered mercilessly and you can do nothing about it. These are nightmares that every person has when they'd watch films like Deliverance or even Jason and, for that, 'June 9' will always remain my pick as one of the better horror movies to come out of 2008.

Alternately boring and creepy, stream-of-consciousness home movie about five obnoxious teens hangin' out around town, checking out some supposedly haunted places on the outskirts of their tiny little town in Ohio. These little nitwits play pranks, puke, and generally act like obnoxious teens for about 80 minutes of the footage, but the other 15 minutes of it, was very creepy, and really got to me. Something about this movie stuck in my mind, more so than its obvious inspiration, The Blair Witch Project, a film which I have never been a fan of. This film has the similar look and tone, but largely different story and ideas, of the people of a small town exacting a horrific revenge on these little pricks. When the teens first think they see something in the dark in the woods, I watched the scene again to see if there really was something there. I didn't do that at any time, for any scene, in the BWP. The twins standing by the windows, blankly staring out at them, as simple as that may be, was supremely creepy, as was the little girl's voice on the radio. And the ending was brutal, very cold. But, for all its suspense in those scenes, I couldn't help get the feeling that these were just unbelievably boneheaded teenagers who, basically, get just what's coming to them. Also unusual and unique to this film is that such a major plot twist actually takes places *after* the closing credits.

I'll definitely check this film out again, which is more than I can say about its obvious inspiration, The Blair Witch Project.

I didn't expect to like this movie... and for the first fifteen minutes I really didn't... for the next half hour after that I was on the fence... but by the middle of the movie I was pretty much into it. The thing is, the characters are presented in a way unlike how a mainstream movie would do it. They aren't pretty and they aren't smart and they aren't 'cool'... they're just ordinary bored punks wasting their summer together. You have to stick with this movie and let it move at its own pace.

At first you expect the movie is, like most Hollywood movies, in love with the protagonists... selling the characters to be admirable somehow... but it really isn't. It just lets you watch them and slowly get to know them. It's so rare that a movie would take the time like this one does in letting you get to know the protagonists. Not that you ever grow to love them, the movie doesn't want you to anyway... but the kids and their abrasive behavior begin to be nuanced with their other shortcomings... and you recognize them as being like people you've known. Their initial swagger is all for show and they're really deeply vulnerable. Great acting on the parts of the main performers carried this off like no smug Hollywood 'stars' ever could have.

The weakest parts of the movie were some of the townsfolk and the scattered 'FX' jump-cuts. I also think it was a BIG mistake to put the giveaway shot of the TV at the beginning of the movie... this movie needs some subtler method of foreshadowing than that. It's obviously influenced by Blair Witch, which I loved... but its got a lot of unique elements of its own that most folks are gonna miss or ignore. Some have said the violence looks 'fake' and I think that's a reaction based on having only seen violence in other movies where it's done in a more cinematic way than it is here. This isn't a particularly cinematic film... there is nothing spectacular about the violence. It's done in a very matter-of-fact sort of way. This isn't really the sort of movie that scares you much while you're watching it... but it will creep back into your mind later and haunt you... if you're patient enough to give it a chance.

*SPOILER* The bits at the end with the Lisa character were most disturbing for me because, while she comes off as one of the more innocent characters her final scenes are some of the most brutal.

Also, for people who are so SHOCKED!!! that there are small children present during the violent scenes... just stick to Disney movies why dontcha?

It was great, not scary at all mind you, but great nonetheless. It has the feel of an ARG (alternate reality game) such as This Room Does Not Exist over on YouTube, but it was in movie form. The filming was perfect for the type of video it is.

Story wise, definitely loose ended, and by that I mean it felt like it was created by college students for a final project. A town full of murderers that takes the items from the countless victims they kill with no explanation whatsoever? A little overdone imo. There is no reason for this that we can see clearly. Overall, it's your average group of highschool seniors in the late 90s that go around playing pranks and exploring haunted locations nearby.

Overall, this is a very ARG/Unfiction (ex. This House has People in It) type of movie, that was enjoyable, if not a little corny in it's tropes, movie about dumb teenagers. You have the unexplained bloody noses, and a little girls voice through a CB, but at the same time you have the creepy twins standing at windows and the guy on the dirt road. I loved it, corniness and all, but it probably isn't for everyone. I personally love found footage style movies so it was enjoyable for me. Though, as I said, wasn't scary at all.

There has long been a tradition in shoe-string horror movies for the filmmakers to capitalize on their lack of studio equipment and funding by deliberately capturing a raw, realistic atmosphere to make the events on screen more believable. "The Blair Witch Project" probably took the cake in successfully convincing the world that what was taking place in the film really happened, but it was certainly not the first to do so, owing quite a bit to the controversial 1980 Italian film "Cannibal Holocaust" and the 1992 BBC special "Ghostwatch." Legion Filmworks now presents another pseudo-realistic shocker, "June 9." Written, produced, and directed by T. Michael Conway, this direct-to-DVD feature was filmed entirely on a digital camera to give it an eerily authentic feel and, like "Blair Witch," supposedly chronicles the last days of a group of kids who mysteriously vanish without a trace.

During a carefree June in 1999, five Ohio teenagers set out for some mischievous fun in the nearby suburb of Boston Mills. After hearing strange tales of the small town's sinister past, Derek Boggman (Trevor Williams) decides to go back for further investigation with his sister Lisa (Alasha Wright) and friends Robert, Jennifer and Berty (Jon Ray, Maggie Blazunas and Chad Vincent). With video camera in tow, the group records every moment of their summer adventure as they drive through the sleepy town in their van. At first only interested in Boston Mills for its novelty value, the kids soon realize that the residents seem to be keeping a particularly close eye on them. Why are the locals so fascinated by five harmless teenagers? And what is it that they are hiding behind locked doors? Lacking conventional plot structure and character development, "June 9" relies heavily on the juvenile antics and defiant attitudes of the lead characters to anchor the film as the horror steadily builds around them. Indeed, the young cast comes off quite natural as they interact with one another. With all of the action captured on a jerky digital camera, the film takes on the appearance of a video diary, making the horror all the more tangible. Through a gallery of genuinely disturbing imagery, the filmmakers subtly create an increasing sense of dread as the kids move closer to uncovering the truth about Boston Mills. Strangers peeking out of windows and voices speaking in foreign tongues conjure up greater fears than all of the special effects money can buy. Tension builds as the kids become more and more aware that their quest for fun is leading them to something they could never have fathomed, culminating in a final twist that could very well go down in cult horror film infamy.

Legion Filmworks' DVD presentation looks quite good, preserving the film in its original full-frame aspect ratio. The picture is as good as it can look for being filmed on digital video. Whatever digital artifacts are present are part of the original source and conjunctive with the "home-movie" illusion. The image is frequently bright and quite clear, with a grainy look during night scenes. Again, all of this is intentional.

Audio is presented in a 2.0 stereo track that, like the picture, deliberately reflects its low-budget status. There is really little to be said of it. This is not a Hollywood picture with a souped-up sound mix. What you get is exactly what it would be were this footage of an actual event. Accordingly, there are no subtitle options.

What we have here is a creepy, unnerving little feature that works because of its utter simplicity. There are no bogeymen jumping out of closets or CG specters coming through the walls. Just the documented footage of a group of ill-fated kids who went out for some thrills and got much more than they bargained for. Director T. Michael Conway knows what scares and has taken no cheap shots with this surprising picture. Don't expect to have a good night's sleep after this one, as the chilling images will stay with you long after the final credits roll.

Felix Gonzalez Jr. DVDReview.com