Clawed (2017) Horror Sludge Monster

Clawed (2017) This film was originally called Sludge and it is the more appropriate title because the monster comes from a combination of some slime leaking from the ground coming in contact with toxic waste. I don't know if this writing will become anything but I am going to throw some words together on a little movie. I often skip the writing for films that don't connect with me and this one did not. I try to remember that making a film is hard and just because I get to sit in my TV room and pass judgement it is still an accomplishment to create and even if it is not art to me it still has value. Some films just don't grab me and some are just not good enough for writing paragraphs about. I know that seems a bit harsh but this film makes a case for actually using script writing structures. It is very difficult to connect to a film when the acting is unbelievable or the script is structured in a way that makes it confusing or the shots take you out of the moment.
  The framing story of the film is done through a pod caster interviewing the sheriff about the massacre at Bear Claw Mountain ten years earlier. The actress playing the podcaster chooses the most callus, gotcha politics style to ask questions. An airy voice asking questions like this is some kind of expose show and not really getting the gravitas her co actor is going for. It makes no sense as a choice when contrasted with the dower survivor who is the cop. In the end though her choice makes sense after you see the twist ending.  As he describes the incident giant claw scars covering one side of his face, we fade to that time and spend the better part of the film reliving the killings. Problem is there are no developed characters people come and go and die but you literally don't get to know any of them. We get a couple scenes sort of introducing the players like Jim the cancer ridden angry young man who heads off the Bear Claw Mountain to die only to be saved by the toxic goo that spews from the ground. He falls in it and looks to be dying but seems instead to ingest the stuff and it has some interesting effects on him. He is the closest to a lead character in this part of the film but we barely stay with him.

Instead we cut to a group from the local college out exploring the geothermal activity of the mountain.The problem with this script are numerous but the main thing is there are too many characters there for the sole purpose of dying. Cliche and poorly acted most of the ideas seem dredged from every other poorly written monster film over fifty years. You care about none of these characters so their brutal deaths at the claws of a maybe toxic chemically altered animal are not at all compelling. I am just saying that if you write good characters that can connect to the audience then their deaths mean something. this film really does not do that. Sure there is plot, seismic activity, goo leaking from the ground, illegal dumping of toxic waste, a rampaging monster but the story does not come from character development instead it is exposition by characters we don't really know, passed to the audience just so we can get to the killing.
 The people involved with this film do a great job of showing off their practical effects chops with lots of early gore scenes of people getting killed in various ways. The gore gags are pretty cool but since it is mostly daylight and the practical end of the effect sort of needs to be hidden the film maker uses really quick cuts when the effect is shown. This film is also plastered with these shots, instead of developing characters we seem to have a formula where every x minutes we get another gore shot. So really the characters are there to further the effects department instead of the story. When they do computer effects they are really shoddy and not very convincing.