Red Hook

Oh, Wal Mart five dollar bin, why do I fall for your tricks?
Jenny, who about ten years ago witnessed her older sister being stabbed to death by a guy dressed like a police officer, has just arrived at college in New York. There she meets a grand total of one nice people but somehow she considers all the ass hats she encounters her friends.
The one nice person she meets is a guy named Gavin whose brother died in the whole September eleventh debacle and naturally he and Jenny start dating because people who have lost a family member need to be together or something.
Meanwhile, one of their "friends" is trying desperately to rope everybody into a scavenger hunt, which no one wants to do. So he bribes them by offering White Stripes tickets as a prize, and everybody signs up.
But on the day of the scavenger hunt, Gavin never shows up and the clues start becoming weird / sinister / made of severed fingers. And then people start to get killed somewhat bloodily.
Red Hook goes with the "no likeable characters" slasher route so you root for carnage instead of the defeat of evil:
Jenny is bland and flat; her roommate, Angela (pronounced ann-jella, just to guarantee you despise her) is a stereotypical phony drama student bitch; Paula is a hateful and self centered wannabe reporter (who is also a big phony whose smile frightens me); Gavin isn't in the movie enough to have a personality; Tim is a creep; Camille is a one-note slut character; her boyfriend is a one-note jealous type; Paula's boyfriend is henpecked and awkward and the token ethnic kid is a one-note "guy with a crush on the slut." Oh, and there's the tough chick from across the hall who seems to have a crush on Jenny even though in her first scene she tells Jenny she likes "bigger girls."
Anyway, what was I talking about?
Oh, yeah! Not only does the viewer not care if any of these people die (they're too bland to care about) but some of the characters you actually want to see killed. Which sometimes works but it's not sitting right with me this time around, most likely because if you make the audience want to see these horrible people get killed, you have to get crazy with the Cheez Whiz. And by that I mean the deaths have to be over the top and gory. But they weren't; they were pretty much standard issue slasher fare, nothing to get excited over.
Which is probably why I found Red Hook in a five dollar bin at Wal Mart and I shouldn't even be complaining right now because it's my own fault I bought it.
The movie is split up into days, and it comes off as weird that, on the first day Jenny meets Gavin but tells her roommate she's "undateable" and can't go out with him. On the second day Jenny and Gavin go on a date and on the third day they're having a conversation that sounds like they've been together for weeks, with Jenny thanking Gavin for being so patient with her. Patient? You gave up on your whole "undateable" excuse after, like, twelve hours!
Red Hook was pretty okay, but something about it is off and it doesn't really draw you in or make you interested in what's happening.

End of line.
-Sally