Oh, horrid film, where did you go wrong? I hope I have enough fingers to count the ways. There is a point during film-making when a director or producer can simply say "Stop". There is no harm in that, nor is there any shame. This should have been one of those films that somebody, anybody, should have said, "we need to stop now". From the uninteresting characters, to the lackluster story, to the very poor production, the lines between avant-garde horror cinema and cheaply made movies became hazy.<br /><br />There are three ways to completely destroy the power of a film without touching the story and those are through sound, sight, and mind. If a movie sounds great, you have captured some of your audience. If it looks good as well, you have captured even more and finally, if you can keep them mentally involved than you, as a director, should have most to all of the audience in your hands. Sadly, 13 Seconds did none of the above. The sound was horrendous. Synchronizing your actor's voices to match what they were saying when filming and the emotions they were feeling is not hard. Apparently, director Jeff Thomas decided robots could make this English spoken poorly dubbed in English feature. There was no emotion behind anyone talking, even our main character Davis. I found myself laughing whenever anyone opened their mouth. I couldn't tell if anyone was actually interested in what was happening, or if the amount of beer drinking that occurred before the dubbing was finally taking effect. Second, the sight of this film was just as bad as the voices. No apparent acting classes were needed from any of the actors or from the demons. There needs to be some level of class with the both the actors and demons, but in this film there were not. Davis, Jeff Thomas, was trying hard to be exactly like Bruce Campbell, which only lowered this film further into the pit of disgust. Everyone else seemed like they were going through the actions that were given to them that minute and trying to remember what exactly they were doing. There were no genuine moments in this film visually, just non-actors remembering to be robots. Finally, the mental involvement is key. I am not talking about just story here, because you can have a bad story but still keep people guessing for more. I am talking about just the apparent want to see what happens. Does your audience want to see what is going to happen next? In this film, my answer would be "no". The ending does provide a moment of shock, but you need to force your way through an hour and a half of sludge just to see it  and it really isn't that grandiose.<br /><br />With these three elements lacking considerably, you may be thinking what is the value of this film? I was amazed to see that it had won some awards in the horror circuit because, to me, it showed the poorest of the poor. While I would agree, that the ending (without giving it away) was creative and inventive, what filmmakers need to realize that you need to have a complete film to blow us away. Do not just pride yourself on the ending because you are going to have upset people like myself that could tell that you spent more on that then you did the rest of the film. I have heard other critics say that this is like a low-budget The Sixth Sense, but for me it was not even in the same ballpark. Half the fun of The Sixth Sense was the action leading up to the surprising ending (which wasn't even that shocking), and that is where 13 Seconds suffers. Thomas' film has nothing to offer in the middle except for a very muddled story in which you nearly need a PhD in pagan culture to fully understand. I think I would have been more impressed by the ending of this film if there was a meaty center instead of all that gristle and grime.<br /><br />Was this the worst film I have seen this year? After a day of thinking about it I can say "no", but would I be truthful to myself? There were some interesting scenes, which did showcase some of Thomas' potential, but the blatant disrespect for everything else just hurt those good points. I had trouble coping with the voices and the constant clichés that Thomas tried to repetitively use. There just seemed to be too much running into rooms and shadows lurking in the darkness instead of character development and understanding. I needed to know who these people were and a better explanation of the immediate story. Thomas seemed and felt unfocused in this film giving us not enough in one area, while completely destroying another. Inconsistency is what hurt this film, but what destroyed it for me were the small bits that could have easily been changed to construct a decent film. I wasn't happy, and I don't think many will be with the final results that 13 Seconds has to offer.<br /><br />Grade: ** out of *****