Post by BloodyMonkeyZ on Jan 9, 2017 23:08:10 GMT -6
Satanic tells the story of 4 college friends, 2 couples naturally, on Spring Break heading to Coachella. But, they have decided to go to LA and check out some crime scene/pseudo supernatural sites before making it to their final destination. Seth and Elise are into the scary stories, Chloe is going along because Elise is her cousin, and her boyfriend David just finds it all boring and contemptible.
Their road trip is tedious from the start with cardboard characters that nobody cares about from the beginning. When they get lost and we realize the driver, David, hasn't got his GPS active. It takes a minute for him to get it set up, and during that time we see a strange figure acting oddly through the window of a warehouse. Other than taking a picture of it, they ignore it and keep going.
The first half of this movie is the definition of what not to do in making a movie. Dreadful characters and dialogue, situations that make no sense and are stupid, and a plot that doesn't appear to be present.
To be honest, I almost turned it off. It was just so blah, blah, blah... The part that pretty much turned me off completely had to do with an occult shop. They go in and act like brats to the shop keeper, a gothic looking man, bald and tattooed and wearing all black. They leave in a huff, and David finally talks them into doing normal sightseeing. Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater, and Venice Beach. While on the beach the shop keeper is brought up again, and someone proposes the idea of going there and waiting for it to close so they can follow him home. When they take a vote on it, uncharacteristically, David wants to follow the bald guy home. At the home, they witness what looks like it is a satanic ritual and disrupt it, but Seth loses his phone at the site.
The next day the girl who was to be sacrificed shows up with his phone. And now it finally gets interesting. They let her stay with them overnight, and she starts acting really odd and kills herself. And this is where the movie should have started, with one caveat to that but it is a major spoiler.
If you made it this far, you need to keep going. Because the second half shows some actual story potential. Don't get me wrong, it completely fails to deliver on it. But it finally started trying.
After her death they are questioned by the police and told not to leave. They opt to stay at the home of David's friend (or relative, don't recall which it was now) and weird things start happening quickly. And escalate even faster. Finally they have had enough and decide to go home. On the road, Elise gets sick so they pull over. She rushes to a port-a-potty. While inside, there is screaming and weird noises. They open the door and find her gone. Seth freaks out, then hears her calling for help from the building. David and Chloe pause as she tries calling for help and he decides (inexplicably) to move his car ten feet further in the alley. They go in looking for Seth and get a call from him saying he is on the third floor. When they arrive there, they find his phone mangled, but no sign of him. As they head back downstairs, David vanishes in thin air. I have to say that the tension really ratcheted up several notches here. I was completely engrossed at this point (but the time track an my Blu-ray player was teasing me with the knowledge that I only had 3 minutes left of the movie!) Chloe runs to a window where she sees a car driving and starts waving to them only to realize it is David's car and she is the wild figure they saw at the start of the movie. A few moments later, Chloe finds herself in a room about 5 by 5 with no door or windows, as she panics it gets weirder for her. The screen flickers and we see her face, but her mouth is sewn shut. As the camera pulls back we see her arms are both cut off! An oddly elongated hand reaches out to her face, caressing it in a very creepy fashion. And then credits roll.
WHAT? We finally started getting into an interesting part of the story. We never saw what happened to the others she was with (yes, we do see Seth's body oddly mangled on the stairs, and Elise actually embedded in the ceiling.) This movie needs to be redone. Start with them traveling and seeing her in the window, then give a reason to meet the girl who kills herself. The crux of this movie is in the warehouse. I want to see what happened to each of them when they disappeared. And then, once they are all gone, what comes next. There is obviously something that comes next. That hand belonged to someone.
I am being generous with this movie in giving it 2.5 stars. Most of that is based on the potential of the second half. Pretty sure the first half actually would get a negative score on the scale. I would love to talk to some people who have seen it and get their thoughts on it.
Their road trip is tedious from the start with cardboard characters that nobody cares about from the beginning. When they get lost and we realize the driver, David, hasn't got his GPS active. It takes a minute for him to get it set up, and during that time we see a strange figure acting oddly through the window of a warehouse. Other than taking a picture of it, they ignore it and keep going.
The first half of this movie is the definition of what not to do in making a movie. Dreadful characters and dialogue, situations that make no sense and are stupid, and a plot that doesn't appear to be present.
To be honest, I almost turned it off. It was just so blah, blah, blah... The part that pretty much turned me off completely had to do with an occult shop. They go in and act like brats to the shop keeper, a gothic looking man, bald and tattooed and wearing all black. They leave in a huff, and David finally talks them into doing normal sightseeing. Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater, and Venice Beach. While on the beach the shop keeper is brought up again, and someone proposes the idea of going there and waiting for it to close so they can follow him home. When they take a vote on it, uncharacteristically, David wants to follow the bald guy home. At the home, they witness what looks like it is a satanic ritual and disrupt it, but Seth loses his phone at the site.
The next day the girl who was to be sacrificed shows up with his phone. And now it finally gets interesting. They let her stay with them overnight, and she starts acting really odd and kills herself. And this is where the movie should have started, with one caveat to that but it is a major spoiler.
If you made it this far, you need to keep going. Because the second half shows some actual story potential. Don't get me wrong, it completely fails to deliver on it. But it finally started trying.
After her death they are questioned by the police and told not to leave. They opt to stay at the home of David's friend (or relative, don't recall which it was now) and weird things start happening quickly. And escalate even faster. Finally they have had enough and decide to go home. On the road, Elise gets sick so they pull over. She rushes to a port-a-potty. While inside, there is screaming and weird noises. They open the door and find her gone. Seth freaks out, then hears her calling for help from the building. David and Chloe pause as she tries calling for help and he decides (inexplicably) to move his car ten feet further in the alley. They go in looking for Seth and get a call from him saying he is on the third floor. When they arrive there, they find his phone mangled, but no sign of him. As they head back downstairs, David vanishes in thin air. I have to say that the tension really ratcheted up several notches here. I was completely engrossed at this point (but the time track an my Blu-ray player was teasing me with the knowledge that I only had 3 minutes left of the movie!) Chloe runs to a window where she sees a car driving and starts waving to them only to realize it is David's car and she is the wild figure they saw at the start of the movie. A few moments later, Chloe finds herself in a room about 5 by 5 with no door or windows, as she panics it gets weirder for her. The screen flickers and we see her face, but her mouth is sewn shut. As the camera pulls back we see her arms are both cut off! An oddly elongated hand reaches out to her face, caressing it in a very creepy fashion. And then credits roll.
WHAT? We finally started getting into an interesting part of the story. We never saw what happened to the others she was with (yes, we do see Seth's body oddly mangled on the stairs, and Elise actually embedded in the ceiling.) This movie needs to be redone. Start with them traveling and seeing her in the window, then give a reason to meet the girl who kills herself. The crux of this movie is in the warehouse. I want to see what happened to each of them when they disappeared. And then, once they are all gone, what comes next. There is obviously something that comes next. That hand belonged to someone.
I am being generous with this movie in giving it 2.5 stars. Most of that is based on the potential of the second half. Pretty sure the first half actually would get a negative score on the scale. I would love to talk to some people who have seen it and get their thoughts on it.