This "film" is simply dreadful. I won't drag this out. Terrible writing, directing, acting. Terrible scenes, production, makeup. They probably had terrible food on set too. There is not one single thing to like in this "film". I felt raped.

Pay attention to the reviews here. You'll see 2 or 3 blazing good reviews. If you notice they know people involved by their first names and it's obvious that the reviewers either worked on the "film" and/or are trolls.

This is one of the worst to come a long in a while. It's so bad that it can't even be made fun of for a laugh. It's bad enough to make you angry.

Two people go into the woods and of course meet some psychos who want to....

Wait, you say, haven't I seen this a thousand times before?

Yes you have, but never as bad as this crap made by people with no talent whatsoever.

This is one of those "movies" (I call it a "movie" but it's not really a "movie") where everybody involved really sucks.

There is absolutely NOTHING good about this epic fail.

It wouldn't even qualifiy for all the YouTube sites where they make fun of movies by commenting on their crappiness while watching them.

If you enjoy watching a lot of shots of the sun partially hidden by trees over and over this movie is for you! Lots and lots of the same shot repeating over and over.

There is no dramatic structure at all to this film. The filmmakers (if you can call them that) sprinkle in some actors running through the woods screaming, running into houses screaming, and driving their cars screaming. Yes this movie has a lot of sporadic yelling, dissolves, freeze frames, and I do not have a clue what it is all about.

It's got some really weird sound design, I think the sound editor fell in love with a 'pitch control' plug in.

I usually don't care for films that drive the narrative through dialogue, but the complete lack of narrative structure here is ridiculous. Visually it's a complete mess. The films of Stan Brackhage and Matthew Barney are more comprehensible. It's just a film with a bunch of actors covered in fake blood walking around the woods or bound to a tree, and did I say lots and lots of freeze frames, dissolves and the same shot of the sun hidden partially by trees? They also slapped in a disembodied voice saying 'Carl' over and over for good measure.

In stead of Horror it should have been categorized as just plain Horrible.

I have never written a review on IMDb before. This movie was so awful, so pointless and utterly devoid of artist merit that I felt compelled to write one. I'm a huge fan of experimental, avant- garde art-house films, but this is like something that a class of 6th graders put together. In addition to the utter absence of a plot, characters, narrative structure or even a point, the sound design is so awful that it's literally unbearable. Someone needs to explain to the "Director" that loud screeching noises and unintelligible distorted voices are not, in themselves, even remotely scary or interesting. I cannot emphasize enough how bad this movie is. I've seen a lot of bad movies, and usually there is at least SOMETHING to redeem them; this movie misses even that low bar. Avoid at all costs.

We only managed to sit through the first 11 minutes before calling it a day. I think we did pretty well considering.

The cinematography and soundtrack were repetitive and disjointed. It looked like they only had one camera to shoot with and so every scene (within the first 11 minutes) was chopped together with the same imagery and sound effects. It was funny the first 2 or three times, we even joked "I bet they show the sky again" but they kept on doing it! The result wasn't eerie or sinister but it did give my wife and I a headache.

I don't feel its fair to comment on the acting as I only watched 11 minutes of the movie and didn't see any.

As for the reviewers that gave this such an astounding review. Well done! You got me! (for 11 minutes anyway).

For everyone else - AVOID AVOID AVOID!

I never had the need to make and account and submit a review until today. I am amazed on what a train wreck I just witnessed. These two have destroyed... no... TAKEN not only my day but countless others. You will not be forgiven.

This was such an absolute failure.

I forced myself to watch it all the way through and now I have paid the the ultimate price.. and that price was to be part of the few that watched it all the way through.

Chinese Cringe - look it up...

AVOID THIS. I REALLY MEAN IT.

You know what's funny? I watched exactly 10 mins and 42 seconds of this movie before I paused it and searched it on IMDb. In this comment section I found that 11 mins was about average for quitting.

Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of movies that do horror differently, and I am very open to artistic development of motion picture. But seriously, this tries way to hard to copy something good and still fails the test. I've been more interested in the beginning of children's movies than this movie, and I can say with full confidence that I have never sat down intending to watch a certain movie and quit like this. In fact, if I start watching a movie, it really bothers me if I don't watch it from the beginning and don't finish it, regardless its really good or really bad. Even to the point of not even going to the theatre if I am more than 5 mins past the start of the movie; I consider myself a cinemaphile. But this is not cinema, it's a crummy redbox rental that just sits on your table for 3 days and that you give the company money to take back.

The two first troll reviews made my day seriously. This movie is not even worth downloading or watching stream, just burn all the original copies of it and throw the ashes in a pit in the middle of a desert.

Stop making movies like this, thank you, just by watching the trailer i knew this movie would be a joke filmed with a potato and carrots actors.

Wasted 9 minutes of my life on this majestic blaspheme to the art of cinematography.

Reported.

Seriously, i can't even breath anymore, this is too funny, reading the two first comments bellow make this while thing a pure joke, i really hope for them these are troll comments and not member of the production of this Potato movie trying to make it look good even if they won't food anyone. Certainly not IMDb community. :')

Garlic Bread -laugh-

I've seen a lot of movies in my time - a lot of fantastic movies and a lot of 'B' movies, and a lot of 'Cult Classics'... this is not one of those, by ANY stretch of the imagination! In fact, I think this may be the worlds first 'Z' rated movie, it's that bad! I only managed to sit through the first 15 minutes, and that was a struggle! All the time being very thankful that this was a very cheap rental, so I didn't have to worry about a lot of money wasted on this trash! TERRIBLE cinematography, TERRIBLE acting (what there was of it during those 15 minutes), TERRIBLE sound quality. In fact, the sound was pretty much over-driven for much of the time I watched this, doing nothing more than giving me a splitting headache.

Seriously, take my word for it, or read a few more reviews about this.... movie (I have a hard time calling it that to be honest), save your money, save your valuable time. It is NOT worth it, at all!

Okay...so I gave this about 10 minutes and thought "What the hell is going on?".

I understand that the idea was trying to make an "art-house" horror flick. but the only thing that was made was - me being nauseous with all the image flicking in bad editing! If I was epileptic I would of had half a dozen seizures within the first 20 minutes! (That's right, I endured for a while longer after reading the "Critics reviews")

The sound track was pathetic. I flicked the movie after 30 minutes of enduring what I can only refer to as crap!

Please do not waste your time watching this rubbish. The writers themselves should be tied to trees in the forest and left there...

I only managed about 10 mins then had to switch it off, its all flashing imagery, strange symbolism and weird sound effects. IMHO 77 minutes is far too long to endure it all, perhaps it would of been more bearable if it was a short Film. This won't go down well, with your average Horror audience and unless your a film student, critic or well into art house, this probably will annoy the hell out of you with all the sound effects and flashing imagery, and will go straight over the head of most Horror fans. So if you are into horror don't look at its rating and think that you might enjoy this, do yourself a favour, save your money and go and rent something that you will actually enjoy. I give it 1 out of 10 and that's only because i cant give it a zero. When i wrote this its rating was a lot higher, i think about 6.5.

-begin spoiler-

The sun shines down through the trees and, oddly, makes a horrible sound while doing so.

-end spoiler-

I am sure there was some vision here that someone had and then put on film. Sadly, I have never smoked any weed that was nearly good enough for me to share in that vision. Really just a mess of visual and horrible audio tricks that mesh poorly. I am wondering, if I could stand to watch the entire thing, just how many straight up shots of the sun beaming down through the trees I could count. I believe there were six in the 8.5 minutes I made it through at the beginning and twice in the 45 seconds that I watched about two thirds of the way in.

I am so very very glad that none of my money was harmed in the watching of this film.

Only reason I even sat through this movie is for my kid brother's minute and half of on screen time. My brother is Travis Everett aka Man Dog (The fat naked guy in the woods with the muddy scraggly long hair and beard). He has confided in me personally and we both agree that this movie flat out sucks ! But even for those few brief scenes of screen time I am very very proud of my brother for just auditioning and getting into this movie. My brother Travis actually likes and loves all your negative reviews of this movie and actually thanks you all personally for them. And challenges all future negative reviewers to push the envelope to see just how far you will go to impress him and make him laugh.

I'm gonna keep this short because I simply don't want to waste my time here. This is the beginning. Literally! I'm not kidding . The somewhat actual order considering the endless repetition. Forest, Girl, Gazing into nowhere, running, screaming, contractions, other girl...done...Epic wtf moment....Man, driving angrily, compassionate moment through flashback, bleeding, compassionate moment again, bleeding, driving....angrily...again. ..by the way..imagine the camera aimed at the sky every 40 seconds...approximately for whatever reason combined with annoying instrumental power tool contraction site with the bass tuned through out most of these moments. Anyway moving on...driving...camera on the mans hands while driving....""wtf moment"" arrives at house, slide show begins...moving in 3 intervals, the man is now inside the house. Thats give or take the first 3-5 minutes. approximately. I've watched 14 minutes now...14 MINUTES OF MY LIFE I WANT BACK! anyway...14 minutes right guys...AND No one HAS SAID ONE FREAKING WORD YET! JUMPING IN TIME NON STOP. No point, No meaning, no context, no NOTHING! Don't WATCH THIS! I REPEAT LISTEN TO THIS REVIEW AND TO ALL THE OTHER ONES CONDEMNING IT! Everything IS TRUE.! Worst movie ever...don't know about that but its definitely one if not THE WORST of 2013 that I've seen. Utterly pointless. no context, no speaking, lame acting, confusing moments ALL THE TIME and terribly horrifically annoying sound effects... not to mention mind blowing "in a very very very bad way" flashbacks that MAKE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! Not gonna find out either because I'm gonna stop watching this immediately! DO!!!!!! NOT!!!!! WATCH!!!!!! STAY AWAY!!!!!!!!!

Ohh yea.. An evil michael jackson looking fella makes a short appearance as well...for reasons unknown just like everything else. (Doubleface palm) because one facepalm simply just doesn't cut it. Thats my reaction to this entire "film" this excruciating mess!

I think most house cats would be able to edit a film more efficiently than this, by trying to sit comfortably on the software keys and then licking them.

In all fairness, if most of us tried to make a film, it would probably turn out looking as bad as this. Whilst watching, I kept thinking what I would have done differently, and in thinking like this I soon began to appreciate just how difficult making a good film would be. E.g. good acting is something we all take for granted in polished films, but when you see terrible acting, and try to think why its so terrible, you realise just how subtle great acting really is.

If I was the maker of this film, I would feel slightly ashamed at the awful reviews it has on here, and I wonder to myself how on earth I managed to actually make a film and get it listed in the first place.

Im sorry.. I love Horror Movies...and I am all for New talent coming along, even making movies on small budgets..and I have seen many good ones....But, THIS..... Dreadful start ...couldnt make head nor tail of it...had no idea what was going on...Acting...Bad...and i mean, Bad. The music was dire, and all the shaky camera shots ( trying to be arty i assume, but failed ) was making it very hard to watch. The blood effects, were bad too. sorry, i wouldn't even waste your time watching this... even i didn't make it to the end...i had totally had enough of it and the bad music . Seriously...I dare you to try and make it to the end of this drivel. There is nothing Original in this story at all..which is a shame for people trying to break into the Horror genre, or just movie making in general. This looks like it was made on a university Campus during Halloween week. Epic Fail. And I really do not like to see new up and coming movie makers Fail, but, honestly this did.

Horror is my favorite genre and normally i always watch a Movie to the End. This is the first time i couldn't, i managed to sit through the first 24 minutes.

By the way, this is my first review. I'm writing this one because i can not believe what i just saw.

This Movie makes you angry. I've seen a lot of Horror Movies and some of them were really really bad but this one is absolutely painful.

Annoying sound from the beginning, no plot recognizable and acting? Can't say, nobody was talking at all. What a mess of a Movie.

Don't waste your time on this piece of ....!

OK, so I've pretty much read all your posts aka reviews in regards to the average 10 to 15 minutes you invested in this movie. Yes I said movie. I feel a lot of you that may have crapped on the first 10-15 minutes are either impatient, or are some fan of the commercialized genre of HORROR, where the black guy always die...lol. I have to say, I pushed through the first 10-15 minutes, because I was just flat out confused. I later come to realize that, there is something here. I made it through the whole 77 minutes of this film. Not upset, nor satisfied. I was walking down the middle road with this one. Bad acting from 80% of the cast, so thank GOD, they didn't have much dialogue to add to the horrible acting. Some scenes were actually done pretty well. Some not so much. The Harbinger (old lady) looked to much like a Star Wars character I will not mention here...but you get the drift. But it added the darkness that needed to fit in the story line of this film. Good vs Evil....and how we live our lives of sin, day after day. When we think to ourselves at times....that another life can be spared in revenge of one being taken out of your life, by death or infidelity. The backdrop Sun under the trees was a little confusing within a good vs evil storyline like this, only because, the Sun is suppose to represent GOD in good, not in Evil. Sometimes the blood looked good, sometimes it didn't. The screaming was needed in parts, but could've been left out in others, many others. lol....I'm writing this at 5AM, so please forgive my sporadic rants and praises. I just watched something very taxing on the brain. If you're in film school, this film is probably something to watch as it has some good moments in film trickery....if you're the normal Joe or JADE...lol....this absolutely will take some strength to get through. There isn't any dolls on tricycles asking if you want to play a game....no men in hockey masks....no haunted houses killing families...just some unique thinking individuals trying something new in a genre that has been the forefront of cinematic innovation. Just my 2 cents...take it or leave it...middle road guys, middle road.

A lot of people on IMDb like to throw out hyperbole like "worst film I've ever seen". I've said it before, but if you can point to just one movie as the worst, you're clearly not watching enough crap. So what does that mean for The Taking? Well, it's not the worst, but it's probably in my top 20.

You're no doubt asking yourself "Can it really be that bad?" and surprised that you're concerned what a stranger on the internet thinks. It's not the wooden and unpleasant acting that does it. It's not the painfully bad "special effects". It isn't the complete lack of any comprehensible story. It's not the fact that the movie tries to come off as surreal by using horribly juxtaposed images and grating sound in an attempt to create a tense atmosphere. These things are all certainly true, but it's the way the movie combines these aspects into such a colossal pile of failure that almost has to be seen to be believe. Think I've overstating this? About halfway through the movie I caught myself thinking about what I had to do at work the next day. I was watching a movie, a medium that only exists to take your mind off of your own existence and live vicariously through a character or set of characters, and was thinking about something as mundane as work. I'm not even sure how bad a movie has to be before that takes place because it's never happened to me before.

Seriously, this is garbage.

This is a film about Carl (John Halas) and Jade ( Alana Jackler), two strangers tied to a tree. They are going to be killed by a group of what are apparently demon worshippers judging by the overuse of voice enhancers and backwards masking. That is pretty much it. Oh, there are some flashbacks. Film uses quick cut away scenes and stills.

Note: If you are sitting on the ground tied around the arms with your back to a tree and your hands are free. Just inhale to loosen the ropes and pull them up over your head.

There are worse movies out there. None came to mind while I was watching this one.

Parental Guide: F-bombs. Appears to have some quick shots of a sex scene from a male's nude behind.

When IMDb used to have a forum section for each movie, people would often make the clichéd "Worst movie ever" post. I challenge anyone who ever made such a post to compare whatever movie they were writing about to this one.

There are no redeeming features in this film except for the tittle and genre. It is across the board awful. The dialog is atrocious. The score is horrible. The script is nonexistent.

I can't fathom how this could ever have been made let alone distributed. It can only be because it's a great title for a horror film. Anyone who actually watched it would just be dumbfounded at what they had just seen.

THE TAKING is another dreadful indie horror flick that consists of people running around in the woods while being pursued by overactors. It's about a young couple who find themselves the victims of a creepy woodland family and who must strive to escape. There's some style here and the high resolution visuals make it look better than expected for an indie flick but I can't help but feel this would have worked better as a short.

I was astonished to see this movie rated this high so I felt it a necessity to add my 1 out of 10 stars to the tally. I have watched nigh 1000s upon 1000s of films, many low budget and I have yet to find a match for this one.For as bad as "Manos, the Hands of Fate" was at least it was laughable. This movie does NOT exhibit one redeeming quality what o ever. Stay away and save the time out of your life this would have sucked away!

It took me 20 minutes to realize that this is apparently not "The Taking of Deborah Logan", a mistake that cost me 20 minutes of my lifetime which I wont get back.

Unlike "Birdemic" this is not just a bad movie that you can stand through if you don't take it serious, this is plain unwatchable and probably to this date the worst movie I've ever seen. Watching a moving desktop background may be more entertaining than this "movie". I don't know if the screenwriter, the director, the editor and the cinematographer are the same person and in this case probably never got in touch with talent or taste but the guy who gave the OK to release this movie seriously needs to consider if he's in the right business.

The Taking has a logline of - Two strangers must discover a way to escape a sinister family who wishes to sacrifice their souls to an evil presence. Reading this you would imagine a fairly standard run-of-the- mill horror film, but that is probably as far from the truth as possible.

The film centres on Carl (John Halas) who is trying to find his fiancé and best friend after they have had an affair. But Carl ends up being taken prisoner by a strange family in a remote farmhouse. Carl attempts to escape but is recaptured and is tied to a tree and told he will be sacrificed in three days time and his soul taken. He is then joined by Jade who has experienced a similar capture and is tied to the next tree, she is coming to terms with the death of her young daughter just 42 days previous.

Carl starts to come to the realization that the reason they are there is more to do with the harbouring of revenge on those who have wronged them and they are trapped in something far worse than a remote farmhouse and their very souls are at risk. They are both forced to face their own demons in a series of horrific visions and encounters.

Well that is the basic premise and synopsis and I am keeping it vague as not to give any spoilers as The Taking is one of the most intense and exciting film experiences I have had in years.

You have beautiful bright colours , really sharp blood reds mixed with the gentle greens and earthy browns from the wooded surroundings. It is visually stunning and the swift camera work , often oblique angles and lightening fast editing makes this just a joy to watch.

Then mix in the absolute star of the show , the sound. There is no real score here , what you have is an all out attack of your senses. The sound is entrancing , it will be silent then leaves gently blow leading to a barbaric cacophony . You have almost audio explosions that mirror the increasing visual stimulus. The audial and visual mix is joyful, simply wonderful.

It is not so much a story but more an experience , from the start The Taking wraps it's dirty little fingers around your neck and starts to squeeze , it increases its grip throughout the film until 76 minutes later it releases and you are left to think what the hell just happened? Well in my opinion what just happened was a serious assault on my senses which left me feeling almost bereft but hugely fulfilled, I felt like I had almost lived the entire film and that is something BAPartists should be roundly applauded for.

I cannot praise this film enough , the acting is fantastic with John Halas totally nailing it. There are parts of the film where *The God* speaks and the words are subtitled on the screen as the voice is a huge distortion of sound , the distortion is reminiscent of the band Sunn O))) , and anyone who has seen them live will know what I mean. The distortion fits so well and is very unnerving yet subtly beautiful at times.

I must say that when viewing this I had to go and get my *good* headphones , as the TV was not doing justice to the insane audio. I really hope at screenings and festivals that this carries across as well as it should. For me this film is best watched alone in a darkened room with headphones cranked up and just go for it!

The Taking was shot on the Canon 5D Mark II in Northern Virginia right outside of Washington DC on a budget of $13k .

BAParts have really done something special here, years of planning and entirely self funded and I am privileged to have seen this so early on and to have been given the opportunity to review it. What Cezil and Lydelle have created here is stunning and huge praise to them for having the balls to buck the norm and just go for it. For a first feature this is far from a safe venture, in fact it is a statement of intent from BAPartists and a big middle finger to the boring and predictable filmmakers out there.

This is a massive recommend , part horror , part art-house and fantastic 9.5/10 .