Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Good idea lost in the noise

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film centers around retired police detective Derrick Stanswood, who is called by a successful doctor about an unsolved case involving his wife Maggy and their son, Cole. Chasing after loose ends in a backward rural town, Derrick has no idea that Maggy has been held captive for the past eight years by farmer Lukas Walton, who is raising Cole as his own son in a wrongful world that holds its own horrors."Deer Crossing" starts off as Maggy and her son Cole head out to visit her Husband's mom. When she detours she ends up hitting a deer and her and her son end up passed out after their car hits a tree. It doesn't take long before a truck pulls up and a bearded older man steps out and takes Maggy and her son. This older man who goes by the name of Lukas Walton keeps Maggy chained inside an old shed and he raises Cole as if he were his own, 8 yrs. pass and the husband, Michael still has no answers. But after receiving a phone call from someone claiming to be his son Michael decides to call retired Detective, Stanswood for help but the Detective has his own personal issues as well so at first he declines. Eventually the Detective decides to look into the disappearance which leads him to Carvin Country. From there the story begins to unfold and you find out there's a lot more going on in this little town, most of it is illegal and it seems like everyone is on the take."Deer Crossing" is a complex story with different sub-plots going on all at once and there are a number of different characters in the film that are all intertwined. To be honest I was expecting more of a horror/thriller here but instead the story is more about what bad people are capable of doing, it's a very realistic yet disturbing film. To think that there really are people like this out there is more scary than any horror movie could be. The film is really hard to talk about because there is so much going on in the and so many characters that are involved in some kind of bad doings. If I were to talk about it all I would surely ruin the film for those waiting to see it but I can say that this is a well-written film that really draws the audience in.If the complex story wasn't enough the film also has an incredible cast which features Ernie Hudson as Captain Bailey, Christopher Mann as Detective Stanswood, Laura Lynn Cottrel as Maggy, Warren Hemenway as Michael and Doug Bradley as the crooked Sheriff, if the name doesn't ring a bell Bradley was the original "Hellraiser." Like I said the entire cast was terrific but the stand-out performance here was by K.J.Linhein as the evil monster, Luke Walton, this was a perfect casting choice and I doubt the film-makers could of picked anyone better to play the villain.Production wise the film looks great and the set locations were perfect as well as the film's score which really helped in creating the right atmosphere."Deer Crossing" offers up plenty of things to like, there's intrigue, a bit of mystery, suspense and a good dose of terror and violence. Writer/Director, Christian Grillo not only has an eye for the genre but he knows how to tell a story that grabs a hold of the audience. I see he is making a sequel, I cannot wait to see where he goes with it. He is a talented film-maker I will be keeping my eye out for.If you like a good thriller then I highly recommend picking this one up, it's not often you get to see a film that is this intelligent and effective.

After viewing Deer Crossing i felt dirty. In the positive sense of seeing the dark side of humanity-type-dirty. I had a very similar feeling after watching Requiem for a Dream.I'll leave the summary out since it can be viewed on the main IMDb page. What i will say is this....the casting is phenomenal. Ernie Hudson and Doug Bradley are amazing (as one would expect). However, you can't forget about the lesser known stars of the film. Carmela Hayslett delivers a strong performance in what is not always an easy role - a woman who has to be strong yet sensitive. Warren Hemenway and Tina Desiree Berg play off each other quite nicely. Kudos also to Laura L. Cottrel and Sebastian Banes for their performances. (i can only imagine what they had to go through after watching this). The film has so many colorful characters with unique personalities, but for my money the 2 stars of the film were K.J. Linhein and Tom Detrik. K.J. plays Lucas Walton, a truly disturbed backwater psychopath..but what i appreciate is how he doesn't go over the top crazy. He keeps the character dark and disturbing...but still controlled. Sinister glares can be far creepier then maniacal laughter, and he has them in spades. Tom Detrik almost goes the opposite route...taking his character over the top, however he pulls it off with amazing screen presence. It really gives a unique edge to an otherwise standard character.But what i appreciate the most about Deer Crossing is how it doesn't insult one's intelligence. It's a smart, slick, and amazingly well shot film that replaces big-budget Hollywood explosions and cheesy one-liners that would make a 5 year old roll their eyes, with a harrowing story, great dialog, and intense characters. Much like Glengarry Glen Ross, Deer Crossing really highlights its strengths - characters and dialog. Christian Grillo has really raised the bar for independent films with this one. You're not going to get what you typically see in theaters, keep in mind this is a low budget film, but $50k looks like a million dollars here.If you want pretty things to look at....watch Bad Boys, or Con Air. If you want dirty, dark and real....watch Deer Crossing.

Some of "Deer Crossing" will put off a lot of people, mostly women. The good news is that this movie goes pretty far on the exploitation scale to please hardcore fans of low budget crime/horror fans. It's like a Jack Ketchum story line, mixed with classic moments of pathos with rich characters that will not be forgotten. "Bad Day at Black Rock" and "In the Heat of the Night" are inspired and classic movies that are reworked into something new and frightening. A mother and young boy get lost on the way to grandmothers house. An accident brings them captive by a real monster, Lukas Walton. A farmer with a perverse habit of collecting women for his psycho-sexual pleasure. After years of torture, and raising the young boy as his own, a retired lawman comes to sleepy Carvin County for closure to this lost case. A former cop that does not fit in (yes, he is black and Carvin County is a hotbed of racist white folk). The local sheriff has his hands full with the local thugs and bikers that rule this nightmare town. A drug addict sheriff is a puppet to a lady pimp and her lunatic henchman. But Luke Walton is connected somewhere in the mix, with an interloper snooping around his homestead. Christian Jude Grillo lays it all out on the screen. No holds barred! That's his style, and his first film "Booley" was a prime example of his mindset. It's off the charts with the brutality. The jewel in the Cracker Jack prize bag is K.J.Linhein as our real life monster, Luke Walton. A asset to making a great movie is it's villain, and Grillo found a great actor here. Filling in the main role of troubled hero is Christopher Mann (Booley alum) as the cop. Excellent support from "Hellraiser" star Doug Bradley as the corrupt lawman in the way. Tom Detrik (Booley's titular star) brings a fine turn as Dick (one-eyed loony with a long knife) and guest star Ernie Hudson in an extended cameo. The movie is not perfect.... and some performances are miscast, but it does not hurt the movie. Down and Dirty, for it's worth. Grungy scenes will make you squirm.

Deer Crossing is a complex story that starts off being about a woman named Maggy (Laura Lynn Cottrel) who has left wit her young son, Cole, to go on a trip somewhere. When she detours she ends up hitting a deer and her and her son end up being picked up by mountain man who holds them captive for eight years. Maggy is kept shacked up in his shed as some sort of play thing and he raises Cole to be his son. This is one of three stories intertwining into the main plot of the film. The disappearance eventually ends up in the hands of a retired detective named Stanswood (Christopher Mann) who is reluctant to take the case after Maggy's husband desires to hire him personally. Before he knows it ends up in Carvin Country where as the story progresses, other disturbing tales unfold as well. Doug Bradley performs very well in Deer Crossing as Sheriff Lock, a cop who takes himself more seriously than the rest of the town does. This film will not be for everyone. It's disturbing but not in a typical blood-filled, over-gored, torture chamber sort of way. This film is disturbing because it's more realistic and emphasizes on the violent impulses and corrupt nature of human beings who you would hope don't actually exist in this world. I'm not big on Independent films but this one really stands out. It certainly doesn't look like a low-budget flick and I'm actually surprised that for the amount of money spent on Deer Crossing that such great visual effects and production was put into this film. I admire the director's effort. Grillo obviously is setting out to change the world of cinema and get us all out of the mainstream of typically tired horror films. I also very much liked the acting in this film. Aside from Bradley and Ernie Hudson I think Hollywood might need to start keeping an eye on Deer Crossing's talent pool. Laura Lynn Cottrel as Maggy was one of the best performances in the film. She was so emotional ad convincing that I still think of Maggy sometimes and what she's been through. Christopher Mann's performance was also top-notch. The most memorable indeed was K.J. Linhein as Lukas Walton. I have no doubts that people will be having nightmares about him for years to come. Tom Detrik really stood out in this film as Dick, the flamboyantly-ruthless villain of the film. He actually wasn't the main villain but I think he should have been. I thought Carmela Hayslett's small part was very good as Olivia. It was nice to see Carmela Hayslett outside of her Roxsy Tyler Carnival of Horrors persona. She plays some sort of cop. She's not convincing as a cop but I don't think she was supposed to be. Her character's job was obviously to not come across as a cop to the person she was interrogating. And Kevin Fennel as older Cole, I've never seen Fennel before but I can't imagine his role being played in any other way than how he did it. If he's new than he has a great career ahead of him!