Dark Angel

The one star is for John Shepherd as Tommy Jarvis, the lone good thing about this movie. A New Beginning has, without a doubt, one of the most unlikeable and poorly written sets of characters I’ve ever seen in any movie, horror or otherwise. Of all the teens at this halfway house, the only one who even remotely screams “at-risk” or has any depth at all is Tommy. There are not one, not two, but THREE scenes in which two characters show up for five minutes and then get killed off. Ethel and her son are just trashy and soap opera level ridiculous. WAY too much gratuitous nudity. A killer that couldn’t be more boring and forgettable if he was the later seasons of The Walking Dead. John Shepherd barely speaks throughout the film and disappears for a good part of the second half, and yet his performance is the only one in the film that feels genuine. Go to the Dead Meat YouTube channel and watch the kill count for this instead. It’s leaps and bounds better.

The only way a film such as Spree could be made was as found footage, so I highly applaud the fact that it was. However, when it comes down to it, I wouldn’t watch this a second time if it wasn’t for the one and only Joe Keery being center stage. Joe is seriously one of the most underrated actors, period. Every line he delivers is believable. And when he’s on screen, whether alone with others, the floor is all his. And it’s his impeccable craft that gives Spree five stars for me.