A couple is frolicking in car in the woods. A woman covered in blood shows up. The guy goes after her and is killed and so is the girl later.
5 kids are traveling through Florida. The car suffers some damage and they make it to a gas/repair station. The creepy mechanic tells them the car needs a part that will arrive the next day and they can walk 10 miles to a motel or sleep in the garage. At the station arrives a nice girl all by herself. The nice, single, and innocent guy of the group approaches her for help. She agrees to take them to her place to spend the night.
Meanwhile we witness a couple of deaths by a guy in a red shirt and black mask. As the kids talk they find out where they are, a town that is somewhat well-known for some killings. The homeowner herself tells them how all this came about. A woman cheats on her husband. He discovered her with the other guy and flips out. She tells him her son isn't his but the other guy's. So he kills them both and dumps the bodies in a makeshift grave. He chains the son and keeps him in a cage. He also tells about the affair to the wife of the cheater. And builds this mask and killer outfit.
While the kids are in the girl's house of course the killer will appear. And we learn about him. There are a couple of slightly expected twists. The story ties in with the intro as well as some loose ends, for example the sheriff who has been out there worried looking for the kids.
Beware has a very good story and it's also told well. It also avoids the formula of who has to survive and who doesn't. Despite the story you can't really care much for it because the characters are weak, there's no lead, and you can't get yourself to care about any of these people. Another weakness is the poor look of the movie. The lighting is off, at times too bright, at times too dark, and the color isn't appealing. In the behind the scenes segment we see they had some fancy filming equipment, instead it looks like it was filmed with an old cell-phone. Not sure why the went for this look. It doesn't help the movie at all. The casting is also fairly poor. If you're going to film in Florida, why not cast some attractive locals? Instead we get a rather unphotogenic Mexican bunch. And I have no problem with this being a movie geared toward Latins, but you might as well learn from the Mexican entertainment industry the importance of sex appeal. The casting of the secondary characters is oddly enough much stronger. In any case, there are also some problems with the camera-work. For instance, the gas station looks like and is supposed to be out nowhere in the country. But some camera shots show this thing in the middle of a city. In turn it does have a surprisingly cool shot of the villain smashing through a window as a girl runs past him.
Beware suffers from poor cinematography, casting, camera-work, but has an excellent story. It's occasionally bloody and has a bit of nudity. It's not particularly scary and this isn't the kind of movie where the villain is cool. For all that we know about him, he doesn't really convince. For the tiny budget this movie has to be an accomplishment, but they could have made better choices that would have dramatically improved the movie.
