Call me a sentimentalist, but I really love it when countries bring forward movies that are somehow linked to their own heritage, culture or fauna! For example, I love it when Australia makes another movie about a giant killer crocodile, or when Austria releases a splatter flick about Lederhosen zombies, and I was really excited when I found out that The Netherlands was going to bring out a folklore horror movie about windmills! I'm not a Dutchman myself, but I live next door in Belgium and spent a lot of time traveling around in The Netherlands. The country is full of windmills and, especially when you drive past them when night is falling, they often look eerie and sinister out there in the open fields, so it's about freaking time they finally form the decor of a horror movie! Of course I'm slightly biased, and I probably awarded the film with at least one more point than it deserves, but "The Windmill Massacre" is good entertainment with a more than adequate screenplay, above average performances, a reasonable amount of suspense and quite a lot of exhilarating gore and bloodshed!

First and foremost, the film rather cleverly solves a typical issue that Dutch speaking productions always struggle with! It sounds horrible when Dutch or Belgian actors/actresses attempt to speak English, so instead of that, "The Windmill Massacre" almost exclusively stars native English speakers that are supposedly tourists in Amsterdam. That's just smart, period! Following a whole bunch of separate clips that only start making sense later in the film, 7 people (an Aussie girl, a former model, an Asian student, a mariner, a surgeon and a British father with his teenage son) board a ramshackle tour bus that takes them on a trip past several idyllic windmills. The bus naturally breaks down, but when two courageous passengers head towards a nearby windmill for help, they painfully experience that the miller – Hendrik – is a nastily deformed and bloodthirsty type of avenging demon. This group wasn't coincidentally put together, as it turns out they all have committed horrible sins and now they have to pay for them. For a horror flick from The Netherlands, "The Windmill Massacre" has a solid and compelling story to tell (especially in comparison to other recent titles like "Dood Eind" or "De Poel"),and you'll even gladly overlook the rather many clichés and improbabilities in the script. The film also features loads of gratifying gore and delightful make- up effects. Hendrik, the deadly miller, looks like a hybrid between Jason Voorhees and the Chatterer Cenobite from the original "Hellraiser". There's a cool urban legend linked to his existence (something about selling his soul to the devil) and enjoys things like stomping people's heads with his boots or throwing rusty chains in people's faces. Good, unpretentious entertaining Holland should be proud of!

Despite the very bland title (which did make me unsure whether to see it or not),'The Windmill Massacre' showed promise with its cool and quite creepy cover and interesting and remarkably fresh idea. Also appreciate horror films, although not my favourite genre, and there are good slasher films out there.

'The Windmill Massacre' definitely could have been more, part of me was hoping it would be scarier and tighter in pace. At the same time it was far better than anticipated, was afraid of whether it would be amateurish and non-stop predictability and ridiculousness, being a less than modestly budgeted film (that all too often is not something in a film's favour),but to me it was competently made and had its creative and creepy moments.

Lets start with the good things. It doesn't look too bad with a very nice creepy setting. There is a slickness and eeriness, and nothing looks slipshod. The effects while not what one would call special were surprisingly better than average. Likewise with the acting, showing a capability that one doesn't expect to find for this sort of film. The music is a decent fit.

Some nice affectionate and creepy horror touches and the kills are suitably gory, without being gratuitous, and creative. There is enough freshness here and there is some suspense.

However, the pace could have been much tighter. A large part of the problem being that the film is bogged down by an over-reliance of overlong, dull and not always necessary flashbacks that don't always illuminate that much. They feel like they were there to pad out a story that felt too thin for the length and doesn't have an awful lot to it. The tension and suspense similarly could have been more consistent.

Script-wise, 'The Windmill Massacre' can be too predictable and also over-explanatory which does dilute the suspense. The climax is rather anaemic and easily foreseeable far too early. The characters, while never annoying, are developed with little depth or substance, there is effort here with the flashbacks but it is undone by the flawed execution of the flashbacks themselves.

Overall, watchable and better than anticipated but less than great. 5/10 Bethany Cox

THE WINDMILL MASSACRE is nothing more than a low budget Dutch slasher movie set in and around a windmill being visited by a group of the usual diverse tourists. On arrival they find themselves stranded, but matters are to worsen when a mysterious masked maniac begins to butcher them one by one.

I had high hopes for this film due to the style alone but sadly it turns out to be a typical waste of time, a thinly-plotted outing that's endlessly padded with long and boring flashbacks. It's the kind of film that tries to make mystery and mileage out of the back stories of the main characters but I found all of these bits just slowed the action down to a snail's pace.

The acting isn't too bad, with a lot of British faces familiar from WATERLOO ROAD and THE OFFICE showing up, and Noah Taylor is always fun. The kills are pretty graphic but the director doesn't really seem to be interested in his killer all that much, and the climax is weak. Even though the film is fairly well shot, the material is so predictable that it becomes just another forgettable outing.