The Task (2011)

• Year: 2011
• Released: 14 Jul 2011
• Country: United States
• Adwords: N/A
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1621446/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_task
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Horror
• Runtime: 94 min
• Writer: Kenny Yakkel
• Director: Alex Orwell
• Cast: Alexandra Staden, Victor McGuire, Sean McConaghy
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	4.3/10
	18% – Critics
	18% – Audience

The Task Storyline

Six terrified people, Shoe (Ashley Mulheron), Randall (Marc Pickering), Toni (Amara Karan), Dixon (Texas Battle) and brother and sister Stanton (Tom Payne) and Angel (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), are kidnapped to take part in a new reality show which will see them spending a night in an abandoned prison to win $20,000. Show host, Taylor (Adam Rayner) handcuffs the contestants together, removes their belongings and sends them into the prison.The contestants find their way to the Warden’s office, where they unlock themselves. Soon after, a TV monitor turns on, revealing an evil clown who warns the contestants of the Warden (Valentin Ganev) who used to work at the prison, before being sentenced to death for murdering inmates. Randall is set a task to travel to the chapel of the prison. With a microphone to communicate with the others, Randall ventures to the chapel and reads a prayer backwards to summon the spirit of the Warden. After completing his task, Randall returns to the others. Outside, the show’s team, including Connie (Alexandra Staden), Sclezi (Sam Stockman), Big Daddy (Victor McGuire) and Snow (Sean Mcconaghy) begin to lose connection to some of the cameras inside the prison. Sclezi is sent in to fix them, however, he is stabbed in the eye by the Warden.Dixon is set a task, to remain lying in a hole in the ground. Once he is inside the hole, the Warden arrives and locks him in. Connie, Big Daddy and Snow see this, but believe the network had twisted the show to also make them contestants. They let the game continue. Shoe and Randall are set a challenge to eat a meat believed to be human flesh, which they complete. Toni and Stanton are sent to the gas chamber for their task. Stanton locks Toni in a chair in the gas chamber, and puts a gas mask on her. As the chamber fills with gas, Stanton is instructed to find the switch to stop the gas somewhere in the prison. When he leaves, the Warden appears in the chamber and removes Toni’s mask. While Randall and Shoe make their way back to base, they come across the Warden, who stabs them to death. As Stanton turns off the gas, the Warden knocks him unconscious.Connie starts to become worried and sends Big Daddy and Taylor into the prison to check up on the contestants. They are soon attacked, and Connie attempts to warn Angel to get out of the prison. Angel believes this to be part of the game, as she has just been given the task to free Toni and Dixon. She enters a cell and finds a knife before the Warden appears with the key. She stabs him with what she thinks is a fake knife, and retrieves the key. She then finds Stanton hanging by his ankles in a cell, but before she can help him, the Warden stabs him in the neck and the abused inmates devour him.Angel flees, and runs into Connie, who has entered the prison. The Warden returns, and as Angel runs, the Warden catches up with Connie. As Connie prepares to be stabbed, two more Wardens, Shoe, Randall, Taylor and Big Daddy reveal the show was a set up, and Connie was the real contestant. After the initial shock, Connie is sent to retrieve Toni, Taylor to get Dixon, and the others to leave the prison. Taylor finds Dixon murdered in the hole, and Connie realizes Toni is dead. The Warden locks Connie in the gas chamber and gases her, while the others are sealed into the prison. Angel manages to escape out of the prison to Snow, having discovered people were being murdered by the real Warden. Snow follows Angel with his camera asking her for a final word; not knowing the rest of the cast and crew are trapped in the prison, Angel responds by breaking his camera.

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The Task Movie Reviews

A horror-bull mistake

The premise shows promise. Take a very spooky place where a bunch of game show participants choose to spend the night for major cash prizes, make a creepy TV reality show of it, and then introduce a couple of plot twists just when you are collecting your things together ready to leave. Had any single one of these things been done well then the others would not have mattered, but, regrettably, the whole film is poor.

It is not spooky, it is not scary, it is not even well done, and in places it is just plain silly. There are continuity problems, poor script, poor editing, and just poor acting, aside from the opening five minutes where there is at least some energy and verve. But once we are into that time when you just want it to lift off the film reveals that you have already seen the best it has to offer. And you hope that whatever twists there are to come they’ll be signposted somewhere if you watch carefully. Unfortunately for this film its twists try to redeem a dying film when the kindest thing would have been to put it out of its misery.

I love a good mystery

Yes, a good mystery keeps your mind going while you’re watching a film. However, the main mystery about The Task is why a cast, made up of 99% British actors, were putting on American accents for the entire movie? The Task is about a reality TV show where the producers kidnap (yes, kidnap) six contestants (all supposedly American, but frequently use the term “torch” instead of “flashlight” and shout “Bl**dy hell!” when there’s danger). Anyway, the producers (of which there are four of them – apparently you only need four people to stage a TV show – Big Brother must waste loads of money on runners and editors etc) lock these six English-American teenagers in an abandoned prison and tell them they’ll get paid if they stay the night.

Well, you probably already know it’s a horror film, so, guess what, they start getting picked off one by one. However, anyone hoping that this happens soon will be sorely disappointed. This film is the very definition of slooooow. The first hour and four minutes is made up of the six teens wandering round darkened corridors completing (completely non-lethal) tasks.

I guess the main trouble is that this is too much like real reality TV. By this I mean they’ve picked central characters who I really would like to see get murdered painfully (a viewpoint I also take when I accidentally tune into X-Factor, American Idol and that one in the jungle where people stop doing pantomime in order to eat bugs in front of Ant and Dec). I couldn’t wait for the main characters to die – at least it meant they could stop pretending to be from the deep south of Arizona (as opposed to West Kensington).

It also says a lot about the movie when the person you recognise the most is ‘Jack’ from the eighties sit-com ‘Bread’ (now, Nellie Boswell – she was truly scary – The Task just isn’t).

YOUR TASK IS…

The movie starts out with a young male, Dixon, (Texas Battle) strolling down the street and then he becomes abducted. He is one of several people who have been abducted and forced to wear pig head mask. As it turns out, all those who were abducted (interesting that they could get them all in one afternoon) have tried out for a reality TV show. The characters are all introduced by playing a portion of their interview tape. They will split $20,000 if they spend the night in abandoned Benneville Prison with tasks and scares provided by the producers…and oh yes- 20 homeless people have died there recently.

The cast are hand cuffed, like a chain gang, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy with the black man at the end. There is an Indian(subcontinent)girl (Amara Karan) who is super intelligent and a blond (Ashley Mulheron as Shoe)who isn’t. Antonia Campbell-Hughes is delightful as Angel who is a contestant who enjoys frightening the other contestants.

The story goes that the warden, in order to cut costs killed 85 inmates and then later was sentenced to death himself. His soul roams the prison. Or that is at least the story they were told…

Contestants randomly select a chess piece to represent them. Tasks are assigned by a prerecorded tape based on the chess piece…first up the white queen. While the tasks seemed to be at random, they are actually based on the interviews where the contestants disclosed their biggest fear.

As it turns out there are things in the prison the producers didn’t count on…and the producers think it is just their network playing a game with them.

Good acting for a B movie. The soundtrack is not overpowering, but it is effective with drum rhythms inconspicuously mimicking heart beats. The horror is mostly psychological and not blood and guts. Yes, we’ve seen this type of movie before, and I don’t mind watching them again when they are done right.

F-bomb. No sex or nudity.