Sadly Over-hyped

Don't Believe the Hype

Better Late Then Never

A Masterpiece!

A psychopath, supposedly executed via electric chair, somehow survives to terrorize a hospital full of nurses, doctors, and patients, in pursuit of a suicidal teenage young woman the object of bullying and ridicule in school. You can shoot him multiple times, break two bottles of sulfuric acid on his face, and stab him in the heart numerous times with a scalpel, yet thanks to his allegiance to "the dark lord", this bloodthirsty maniac doesn't stop. Chambers(James Binkley), the killer, is after Sara Wexler(Meredith Henderson)for her body is where he wants to invade with his evil spirit. So, Sara, along with a fellow teenager she meets while in a hospital room, Walter(Nathan Stephenson), must evade Chambers while everyone else is butchered, their hearts ripped from the chest while the killer goes on and on about how God has forsaken them. The only merit this movie has going for it is the gore which is graphic and bloody. Chambers, at one point, massacres an entire room full of people, even pulling apart one patient's chest so he can extract the poor guy's heart. Robert Englund has a supporting part as the sheriff who helped bring Chambers to justice only to see him returned to life once again, the result not in the policeman's favor. The hospital setting is dark and murky, so a lot of the violence is hard to decipher. The plot is absurd and just gets more and more stupid as it continues.

I think that just about the only reason why most people would pick up "Heartstopper" at the video store or watch it on cable would be that one of the actors is Robert Englund, star of the "Nightmare On Elm Street" movies. Well, I'm here to warn Englund fans that they'll be disappointed. For starters, this is not one of his best performances - his acting gruff seems to suggest that he's not thrilled to be here. Not only that, he exits the movie about a third of the way through, never to be seen again.Had the rest of the movie been good, I might have forgiven it for the way it handles Englund - but it isn't good. The central villain is one of the most boring I've seen in a horror movie for a long time. His unstoppable nature is NEVER explained, nor what happens to him at the end. He does some gory stuff, such as pull out several hearts (I think the makeup department used the same heart each time), but the movie lighting is so dark and murky for 99% of the movie that gorehounds won't be able to enjoy these gory sights. The worst sin is that most of the movie is simply boring, focusing on the protagonists crying, hiding, and not doing much. Your heart will stop and you'll die from boredom from watching this movie.

Heartstopper (2006) 10/10***WARNING*** Explicit language Possible spoilers..."You have the right to shut the f*ck up!"Directed Bob Keen, best known for working on Dog Soldiers, Event Horizon, & Hellraiser, directs his best in Heartstopper, a supernatural horror slasher starring Robert Englund, Meredith Henderson, James Binkley, & Nathan Stephenson. Heartstopper was one of the best movies I've seen in a while. But at first glance, it was just a normal slasher rehash of Jason and the Friday the 13th series. Possibly Robert Englund's best movie or career move since the Nightmare On Elm Street series, this movie almost certainly eclipses in that popularly acclaimed title if you even go by the standards of cinematics such as believability, cinematography (for the most part excellently handled by David Mitchell), and acting. The plot is similar, and heavy in it's dutiful commitment to the unoriginality of yet another supernatural serial killer in the already over-saturated market. Let's face it though, there's quite a high bar for Heartstopper to meet. To say that it over-qualifies is an understatement.In this movie, we begin with the obvious necessities in horror, the threat of extreme danger in the form of an inmate who has killed quote; "A gazillion" people. It's fairly obvious by the casting of Robert Englund as the sheriff in charge of his execution, the danger is going to be more extreme than we might be ready for. There is a man who we normally fear in charge now, and we feel safe. Seeing the killer, Chambers, in the electric chair is an early satisfaction that this movie will make up for in short time.Next, the character development happens so rapidly, we are almost rooting for the villain for a while. But surely as we get to the scene where the killer's power is revealed, we soon understand that his obsession for human hearts is more than a superficiality or gimmick, it's his superpower. But more than that, it's a metaphor for the wrath of the epitomized sin of humanity, exhibited in the killer's own admittance of motivation, as well as his supposed hidden motive of self-disgust.The camera stays active, although trapped in the halls of an old insane asylum for the duration of the film. But it seems like most of the camera work is done off-screen, where our imaginations are oft lead to go astray in confused assumptive attempts to make sense of what literally seems like at first to be hell on earth.The characters who seem weak, are the ones left at the end, and by now they are strengthened to their maximum giving the heartfelt acting towards the end an extra charge of imminent importance in the wake of the extra-excessive gore effects used in absence of a substantial need for an exaggerated plot. It's simple, it works, and it's scary.As for that old scare factor, though, less attention is put on it than normal for this type of fare. Most of the times that I jumped out of my seat were actually from just the raising tension when I was suspending myself in midair ready to shout "NO! DON'T GO AROUND THAT CORNER!" Thankfully this was a DVD release, and I wasn't blocking anybody's view behind me in a theater.Get your budget dollars ready next time you visit the DVD store. Looking for a showstopper? Get Heartstopper. Your guaranteed to miss at least a beat."Well, most would call it the stuff of nightmares, I'm afraid."Heartstopper (2006) 10/10

HeartStopper is a very predictable horror/slasher film that uses the same ideas we have seen time and time again. Directed by Bob Keen, who is the same director who gave us the silly B movie Proteus, Keen doesn't do a much better job with this movie. It seems to put Halloween 2 and Wes Cravens Shocker into one movie.The movie starts with our serial killer already apprehended by the hands of the local Sheriff played by Robert Englund. Chambers (the killer) is already to be fried in the electric chair and pulls a similar type of performance of that of Horace Pinker from Shocker or Max Jenke from The Horror Show. After being fried (horribly) the sheriff and the coroner are taking the body to the local hospital when they almost hit a suicidal girl named Sara. Along with the body, they take her to the hospital as well. Once in the coroners room, Chambers rises from the dead and murders the coroner and anyone else who gets in his way as he tries to make it to Sara to take her body and use it as his own.What this movie lacks is some background of the characters and and any real terror. The character of Chambers is played WAY over the top and is just not a believable performance. Meredith Henderson, who played the part of Sara, didn't do such a bad job and was actually pleasant to watch. Robert Englund as the Sheriff seems a bit silly, but, he was really the only true highlight of the film and he gets killed off very early in the movie.Now onto the gore/violence department. Anyone that is going to rent or buy a movie called HeartStopper is expecting a great deal of violence. For my taste, there wasn't enough. I have seen plenty of movies where the subject matter is of people getting there hearts ripped out so that didn't bother me. But, there is one particular scene that is worth seeing just for that scene alone. Let's just say that Chambers decides to perform surgery on an unsuspecting victim.Well, there have been far better movies then this over the years. As far as slasher movies go, this is one of those weak links. I would suggest watching if there is nothing else on, or, if you just have to see everything that Robert Englund is in. 6/10