Kangaroos Loose In The Top Paddock: Safety In Numbers (2006)

Safety In Numbers (Australia, 2006)

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Jessica Napier, Ben Tari, Henry Nixon

In this rare Aussie export, six former reality TV stars find themselves going to an island for what may have been a reunion show, only to find the place seemingly deserted and trashed. Unknown to these chuckleheads, a jealous ex-contestant who got booted from the show have been waiting for them to get there, biding their time for the perfect opportunity to murder the bunch, or at least have enough deadly traps set around the island for these wankers to walk into.  

Now, see, Safety In Numbers (2006) could have been a good enough slasher film with that premise alone. Not a great slasher per se, but at least entertaining enough to earn an occasional watch should one be looking for a casual island-set survival bodycounter to pass the time with. Sadly, the film simply fails to execute any form of genuine interest from this simple plot, not with its characters being as bland as stale bread and twice as dumb despite the actors themselves being competent in their roles, or its kills, though bloody, mostly done either offscreen or edited in a way that we only see the weapon or trap approaching before it smash-cuts to a scream. Camera work is as dull as the near-barren island setting, too, and there's not much drama, atmosphere or tension to speak of here since, again, the victims are too dim and cliched to feel invested in. 

The killer doesn't show up in the flesh until the third act were it suddenly goes full cat-and-mouse mode and, once more, it could have been a great deal of fun with the perp chasing down the obligatory final girl while more or less surviving at most four attempts on their lives, but this is soon tarnished by a clumsy twist reveal and finale where it hints the possibility of another loonie offing people, but never bothering to do anything of actual substance with it so we're not even sure if this is what they're suggesting! 

Bestrewed with a poor script, lackluster characters, tame kills and an infuriating ending, Safety In Numbers (2006) is a rarity that deserves its obscurity. An ocker mess of an uninteresting slasher, we'd be better off watching or even doing almost anything else...

Bodycount:

1 male bludgeoned on the head

1 male trips a spiked spring trap, impaled

1 female killed offscreen, later seen impaled in the mouth with a spear

1 female hit by a hurled log trap, killed

1 male found murdered in a pit

1 male found murdered in a pit

1 female shot with a harpoon

1 male missing, presumably killed

1 female killed offscreen, dismembered arm seen

Total: 9