Five young adults in their early 20’s go on a road trip to a town in the middle of nowhere called Madison County to interview an author who wrote a tell all book about a local Psychopath named Damien, who butchered and killed 33 people and the town covered up the murders. When they arrive, the locals are not too happy to see them. You can guess the rest.
Madison County tires to emulate three of the major horror franchises. Firstly it tires to be a gritty and unsettling much like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, small town with generic red necks and a sweet old lady who turns out to be in on the kills herself. The camera is shaky most of the time with close up’s of rusted chains or hidden behind beams of a barn house, seeing only the back of peoples heads and again using the shaky cam to show you how gritty it is trying to be. Secondly it tires to build suspense much like Halloween except you get tired of watching these typical young people wonder around for the first 45 minutes of the movie, unlike Halloween where Michael himself was toying with his prey. Finally it tries to have violent and in your face kills much like Friday the 13th none of which are original.
Damien is the pigged masked killer who like to throw his arms up and wale along with his victims trying his hardest to be demented again trying to be Leather Face but more evil. He walks with a bummed foot. It comes off as trying way too hard to be a new Slasher franchise for us Horror hounds to get into and Damien is the new poster boy for us to love and cherish like we do Michael, Jason, Freddy and Leather Face.
the only good thing I can say about this movie,is a small quick scene near the end where the survivors miss seeing each other by a near second.
This could have been a decent Slasher flick with it’s premise, but it relies on tired over used clichés to bring in an audience. Madison County had promise, probably the reason I am so hard on it. It could have been a welcome change to the slasher genre.
