Sorry, this movie sucks

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The basic idea might be OK, even though not very original, but the developing of the story doesn't work at all. The main character is one of the most unbearable, pathetic losers ever met on screen, it's impossible to empathize with him. He loses every single confrontation with all the family members, is totally unable to make a good decision and he only keeps whining all the time. The other characters are rather stereotypical psychopaths. The main problem with this movie is that, in spite of the gruesome story and the plot twists, it manages to be boring all the same. If you want to watch a good movie about people taken prisoners and abused, watch An American Crime or Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door (both of them based on the same real events), tension won't be released one single moment. This incomprehensibly spoken bore fest can just be thrown into oblivion for good.

Picture the scene: There you are cycling along on a random street on your first day as a film student. The birds are chirping. The sky is blue. Life couldn't be any sweeter. Then suddenly. a puddy tat leaps out in front of you, causing you to brake. You're injured, and your vehicle and phone are bust. You head to the first house on your way, and a seemingly nice middle-age man tells you to wait outside while he rings for a taxi for you. He takes a while, so you poke your head round the corner to see what's going on.Suddenly, a noise from upstairs startles you. Could that be... Someone shouting HELP? You decide, rather stupidly, to investigate... sneaking past the old dude in the process. On the second floor, you enter a bare room... and there in it, is a guy bleeding to death with a stab wound. You panic, and rush to get help... but are stopped by the home owner. Soon, the corpse of the stricken knife victim will be gone, and you'll take his place in those not-too comfortable conditions. Beatings, imprisonment and loud rock music await. Wanna get out of there? You better be good at chess...The antagonist here is what's known as an 'everyday' psycho... he lives as a respectable citizen with his two daughters and wife, but his spare time is spent as a vigilante, killing those he regards as human trash e.g drug dealers and pedophiles. He is trying to train his oldest child to follow in his footsteps... without much success. His youngest is a mute, and his missus is nothing more than a put-upon doormat. And into their life comes this student. They all react differently to him... the psycho sees him as a potential protégé, the teenage girl sees him as a threat, the put-upon wife sees him as an opportunity to escape and the littlest daughter... well, she just stares blankly into space.It's a great set-up, and the film captures every moment of our lead's terror and eventual descent into madness as a result of his enforced caging. It's also nice to see a fully fleshed-out enemy who has a legitimate motive for his murderous activities, and his family are well written too. A revelation near the end when we discover what's in his basement is especially horrifying. It's not perfect... there are tedious spots, and you get the feeling if he REALLY wanted to escape early on, he could... the only thing keeping him there is the screenplay. But for unique ideas, and a pretty consistent feeling of dread, this is more than than worth a watch. 6/10

"5150" certainly does not get enough recognition from what I've just seen, and it's probably because it simply isn't well known! I only happened to stumble across it when it came up on my Amazon recommendations and I actually bothered to click on it, then I read about it and thought it sounded quite good, especially after reading it was French, and I know that nobody does horror better than the French. And then I watched the trailer that blew me away, I knew it was something I'd love and so almost immediately bought it straight after that! "5150 Elm's Way" certainly didn't disappoint much. In fact, if it was more horror heavy than drama heavy, then I would consider it up their with the greatest of French horror. It also surprised me as well, and gave an absolutely compelling and gripping drama/horror.I don't know why not many people have heard of this, maybe it's because of the rubbish title, I mean come on! "5150 Elm's Way" is a bit of a mouthful isn't it? Maybe if it had something catchier like "51 Elm's Way" or simply just "Elm's Way" it might've appealed to more audiences, but maybe I'm just picking a bit their. The fact is that this film deserves to be seen by a wider audience, I'm sure if people knew about this and gave it the time of day they would love it almost as much as I did! Now maybe it wasn't as dark as the trailer suggested, but it did give much more in the way of plot and screenplay that I anticipated for. Maybe, if "5150 Elm's Way" was glossed over in a brush similar to "Frontier(s)" we might've had a little horror classic on our hands.But don't let the drama aspect put you off! In some ways it is much more of a positive, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how the film went deeper into the psycho family's character, when usually horror films like to ignore the villain's so we feel zero sympathy for them, here the film quite cleverly takes a different route by showering us with excellent characterisation on both sides, the righteous and the unrighteous both get equal screen time. It also means that instead of getting two dimensional villains, we get very human ones, which is extremely refreshing to see. We get to understand how their family works and why they are like how they are. I felt such sympathy for Maude, the mother and at times felt very teary for the family (don't worry I didn't let go!) Everything did seem like a drama pretending to be a horror film at times, but actually when the game of chess was introduced in the final 40-30 minutes, horrifying things did start to pick up, and its air of realism slightly went out the window, which I actually quite admired in a way. I also wasn't expecting Yannick's psychological torment to be quite as mind-blowing as it was. The directing sometimes looked as if the person changed. Instead of interesting family drama we got psychological horror that was really cleverly expressed. It was absolutely captivating to see Yannick change and become obsessed, and also to see how he's affected their family.Some scenes such as when Yannick plays chess and when he starts seeing "The Shining" styled blood, are marvellously done and it really helps for the audience to get into his character. "5150 Elm's Way" can often be thrilling as well! The film has you cheering for Yannick to get out all the way, and you do start to notice the complex bonds changing, giving us much, much more than a horror film. The acting was also very good, and very realistic. They looked like a normal family, so it was easy to relate, and Yannick also didn't make too many frustratingly stupid decisions like you see in almost every survival-based horror film.In the end. "5150 Elm's Way" is more of an extremely dark drama than a horror film, although it does step into horror territory towards the end, and it also isn't afraid to shock like most horror films, it has no boundaries. It is brilliantly written and shows beautifully promising directional flourishes. It's also completely thrilling and captivating to watch, with a very clever ending that makes you wonder who really has won. "5150 Elm's Way" is one of the best psychological films, I've seen and is very nearly a 10/10 masterpiece.

Maybe I'm a little desensitised these days, from all the foreign movies I've seen, like "I Saw the Devil" and "Martyrs". I found myself very bored and wasn't frightened one bit by any of the proposed villains. The father was too soft, and the daughter was too predictable. I watched Spanish film called "H6: Diary of a Killer" and this film reminded me of that. Both of them bored me to tears and pretended they were more fierce than they actually were. This film's saving grace is probably some nice camera work and decent acting that wasn't expected from this type of budget. If you're a seasoned horror-geek, save this one for your little sister instead.