VOD Review: Satanic (2016)

"Well, that was underwhelming."

(aka Why?)
Release Date: July 1st.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Anthony Jaswinski.
Directed by: Jeffrey G. Hunt.
Starring: Sarah Hyland, Steven Krueger, Justin Chon, Clara Mamet, and Sophie Dalah.

Satanic was originally supposed to come out last August, but was pushed back nearly a year. Now, movies get delayed all the time, and that doesn't mean that they're complete shit just because they do, but having seen this generic shocker, we're pretty sure that it sat on the shelf for so long because they knew it just wasn't that good. Shocker, I know.

Five friends on Spring Break are heading to Coachella, but the plan is to stop off in LA first for two days of occult sightseeing, because it sounds much better than shitty Coachella does. They rent room 204 at The Flower Hotel, where some girl named Lainey Gore slit her throat for Satan, and proceed to try and contact her via Parker Bros. Ouija Board.

"KEEP TRYING, MORTICIA, YOU'VE ALMOST GOT IT!"

As if that isn't edgelord enough of them, they head over to the local Satanic church to take selfies; visit the scene of the Manson Murders, to take selfies; and visit a local Satanic thrift shop, where they act like assholes to the dude who works there, and almost get stabbed for their efforts. Later that night, after deciding that all of this isn't quite enough, they follow the dude from the Satan shop out into the boonies to a ramshackle cabin and interrupt the Satanic Sacrifice party that he and his 20 closest, creepiest friends are having, because the guy was an asshole, and he's got to be taught a lesson!

Had everyone died right then, as a sort of "this is what you get for being retarded" kind of lesson, we'd have probably given this movie a B+.

DON'T DO IT, MAN, SHE'S TOO HOT TO KILL!

But no, it doesn't end there. They girl that they "saved" from being sacrificed contacts them (via the cellphone that one of them left behind while escaping the Satanists), comes to hang with them in Lainey Gore's room, leads them in a group ritual, and then proceeds to slit her throat with the parting words of "I'll see you soon." That's when things truly get Satanic, as the disposable teens are haunted and hunted down by some ghostly force that begins killing them off, one by one.

Finally.

YEAH, US TOO.

This could have been a good movie. It was written by the guy who write The Shallows (which we really liked), so we know he has it in him to construct a solid story; and it was directed by a guy who has directed a ton of hours worth of TV, so we're not sure what went so wrong here. Come to think of it, this movie played like an over-long episode of some teen-friendly CW show, so maybe it was generic by design? If so, then kudos to all involved.

The story itself isn't all that bad; it's the typical "Idiot teens get stalked and slashed" kind of story, and those can be entertaining enough, even if most of them are generic as hell. Satanic though, doesn't do what most Teen Terror flicks do to make themselves tolerable, which is show a bunch of kids getting naked and getting killed in horrific ways. When people die in this movie (which save for one, doesn't happen until the last 20 minutes or so), we see nothing. One of them goes into a port-a-potty, and disappears; another goes off alone, only to show up dead later; yet another simply disappears; and the Final Girl, which you can probably guess is Sarah Hyland's character... well she gets to be a part of a cheesy twist that leads to an ending that is open to interpretation. 

If we have to sit through a movie with a half-assed script that is populated by unlikable, generic characters, at least give us some blood & gore to make it all worthwhile. Visceral thrills, you know?

While the story isn't that great to begin with, it's really the characters that make it such a painful watch. All Sarah Hyland's Chloe really does throughout the whole thing is scream, and she's the best of them; Elise, her cousin, is one of those goth posers who tries to act smarter than she is, and is way too-creepy-for-you, but ends up being tits on a bull when the actually Supernatural shit starts to go down; David is a dude-bro turn who whines the whole time about how lame his girlfriend's goth poser friends are, and about how bad he wants to go to Coachella, which should tell you everything you need to know about him; and Seth, the asshole, needs-to-catch-a-smack-in-the-mouth hipster, is too cool for everyone, has respect for nothing, and spends the entire movie making us ask "How does this tool have friends, let alone a girl who actually likes him?"

Sophie Dalah's crazy Satanist chick was the best character in the movie, and she basically existed as a plot device. The girl out-acted everyone.

DON'T WORRY, GIRL, YOU'VE STILL GOT MODERN FAMILY...

The throat-slitting part was pretty cool, but aside from that, we get very little in the way of gore, unless you count a pool full of CGI birds and blood, which you shouldn't.

YOU CAN'T SAY THAT SHE'S NOT COMMITTED.

Sophie Dalah gets mostly naked and kisses some girls, but that's it. 

YES, YOU WERE THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE.

This movie really could have been a decent B-Grade Supernatural flick had the characters not been so annoying, and had they, you know, actually shown the killings happen on-screen, but as it stands, it's a bit of a disappointing mess. You can give Satanic a rent of you want to, but waiting until it hits Netflix might be the best was to view this clunker.

D

Satanic is available now on VOD, as well as in limited theaters.

The girls of Satanic.

Theatrical Review: The Witch (2016)

"Why yes, we would like to live deliciously."

(aka The Settlers.)
Release Date: February 19th.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Robert Eggers. 
Directed by: Robert Eggers.
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, and Black Philip.

Have you ever seen that DirecTV commercial with the Puritan settlers? The one where they settle for cable, offer their neighbors salted meats and homemade hats, and where taking a lick off of the family lolly every Harvest Moon seems like a genuine treat to them?

Well, The Witch is a lot like that, except in the movie, the Puritan settlers aren't quite so jovial; there's a witch in the nearby woods who wants to eat them; there's a lot more death; and there's this creepy goat named Black Phillip who lurks around and looks at everyone like he wants to kill them... and maybe eat them too. Goats eat anything, you know.

There's no family lolly though.

I went into The Witch knowing as little about it as possible; I'd seen one trailer and a few pictures, but I did my best to avoid reading any plot details or spoilers, especially when it came to the advance reviews from last year's Fantastic Fest. The buzz surrounding the movie was extremely positive, and that's all I needed to know to get me excited to see it.

With this in mind, I've left the plot details below a bit vague; there's a lot that happened in the movie that I'd love to talk about, but The Witch is exactly the kind of quiet, plot-driven movie that deserves to be seen unspoiled.

After a Puritan family is banished from their community because the father is stubborn and prideful, they're forced to move out into the remote countryside. They build their home near a creepy-ass forest that's rumored to be the home of a witch, but their belief in God is unshakable, so they're not afraid of any damned witch!

ARE THEY PRAYING TO THE FOREST?

After a few months of country living, we find eldest daughter Thomasin out by the edge of the forest, playing peek-a-boo with her infant brother, Sam. In the middle of the game, the baby disappears, and we see a black-cloaked figure of a woman taking him deep into the woods, and yes, we do find out why. The family is devastated at the loss of the baby, and even though they decided that it must have been a wolf that carried him off (?!?), mom casts a suspicious eye at Thomasin, because she just knows that it's her fault. We know it's a witch though.

PURITAN PORN?

Soon after the disappearance, their crops begin to die, the animals on the farm begin acting oddly, and the two youngest children, Jonas and Mercy, begin acting in the creepiest of fashions; they claim that the family goat, Black Phillip, talks to them; they claim to know that the witch of the woods has taken baby Sam; and they claim that Thomasin is in league with Satan. All of this sets everyone on edge, causing them to fight amongst themselves. Then, eldest son Caleb disappears.

And that's all you get.

YE OLDE FINAL GIRL.

The Witch is a genuinely scary movie, and a disturbing one as well. Everyone out there won't agree with the "scary" part, and it didn't have us hiding under our seat or anything, but this is one of those movies where the setting, the bleak atmosphere, and the goings-on pulled us into the movie, and allowed us to feel the unease and fear that its characters did.

Even though The Witch is a genuine Horror movie with evil creatures and beasts and all, there's a genuine vein of psychological Horror that runs through it which provides just as much terror as any of the Satanic stuff does. Evil witches aside, this movie is as much about paranoia destroying a family as it is anything.

This is also a gorgeous film which boasts some stunning cinematography, and a fantastic score that almost feels like its own character for all of the creepiness that it brings to the story. The visuals and music absolutely set the mood in this one.

THIS MOVIE EVEN FREAKED THE RABBIT OUT.

Writer/director Robert Eggers spent a lot of time researching 17th Century New England in order to make the movie feel as authentic as possible, and it shows. Witches, folklore, Puritanical beliefs and behaviors, vocabulary and grammar; it's all as authentic as it can be, and his research creates a dark, gloomy world that feels real, and more importantly, dangerous. This is one of those well-crafted movies that feels as if it were a factual account of real events. It's all fiction, of course, but I'll tell you that it sucked us right in and made us believe in its world, its characters, and the danger that they were all facing, in a way that few films do.

The cast is fantastic in this one too. Even though it was hard to make out some of the words that came out of the character's mouths at times, Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie (both Game of Thrones alumni) were compelling as parents who dealt with the tragedies that befell them in very different ways. Newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy knocked it out of the park as the tortured daughter who is hopelessly caught between the religious beliefs of her parents, and the evil that is growing all around them. We're probably going to be seeing a lot more from her.

"I'M NOT A WITCH!"

With the Olde Worlde English that the characters spoke in the movie, it was really hard to tell what the hell they were saying sometimes. Maybe even 40% of the time.

WHAT DID HE EVEN SAY?

This movie needed more Black Phillip.

THAT'S ONE MISCHIEVOUS GOAT.

A witch makes some skin cream out of people, a crow eats away at someone, a kid throws up some nasty stuff, and a few people are stabbed to death with various implements. All of it is shown in a pretty graphic, matter-of-fact kind of way, with no cutting away.

SHE'S SEEN SOME SHIT

Anya Taylor-Joy gets naked, but most of it is obscured by shadows.

WELL, SOMEONE'S GROWING UP AWFUL FAST.

There's always a witch in the woods, so you should really live in the city at all costs. Also, we would really like to live deliciously.

YEAH, PRAYING ISN'T GOING TO SAVE YOU.

Yeah, we're giving The Witch an A+. I don't really hand that grade out very often, because to me, it speaks of a certain level of perfection that most films, even the best of them, seldom attain. This witchy, Satanic masterpiece really deserves the praise though. This is not a perfect film; everyone is going to find different things to love and hate about it. For us though, The Witch is a gorgeous, moody, horrifying film that took plenty of familiar tropes and made them its own, and in doing so, gave us an experience that felt very different and fresh from the norm. This is exactly the kind of Horror movie that we love.

The Witch is the perfect kind of movie to watch on a quiet, dark night, and you definitely should when it hits VOD two weeks from now.

A+

The Witch is in theaters now, and will be hitting VOD in a few short weeks on May 3rd.

The bewitching Anya Taylor-Joy.

Theatrical Review: Regression (2016)

"Emma Watson needs to start doing nude scenes. It's just time."

When I was a kid in the 80's, people somehow got it in their minds that Satanic Cults were everywhere across the U.S., and that they were abducting, molesting, or murdering children during their dark rituals.

I actually remember seeing so much of it on the news, talks shows, and magazine shows like 60 Minutes, that I actually became paranoid about it for a while. If I was crossing an empty parking lot at dusk, and a creepy van drove by, I was sure that it was Satanists coming to get me so that they could sacrifice me to their dark lord.

I was like 10, so don't judge me too harshly on that one.

I'm not sure how it all got started, but I'd guess that it had to do with fundamental Christians deciding that Satan was destroying the fabric of our perfect society by way of Heavy Metal music, Horror films, and Dungeons & Dragons. They worked everyone into such a tizzy about it that there were a crazy amount of sexual abuse allegations leveled against Daycare Centers. Google "The McMartin Preschool Trial" and read what that bullshit did too innocent people.

The point is, that Satanic Panic bullshit was a very real thing in the 80's, and as worked up as everyone got about it, it turned out to little more than a bunch of asshole adults coercing fake memories out of kids with the use of Regression Therapy.

That's kinda what this movie is about.

***This review will contain plot SPOILERS that could potentially ruin the story for you, so proceed with caution***

It's 1990 in Minnesota, and Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke) is a hard-nosed detective who plays to win! So when the virginal Angela (Emma Watson) accuses her father of sexually molesting her (which he admits to, even though he can't remember doing it), Kenner is on the case. He turns to a British psychologist to help get to the bottom of everything, with the use of regression therapy... which forces repressed memories stored in the subconscious to come to the forefront. Sounds legit.

"TRY TO REMEMBER ALL OF THE HORRIBLE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO YOU IN EXACTING DETAIL."

As Kenner and Dr. Brit uncover more of the details of Angela's case, it becomes apparent that a Satanic Cult was involved, which terrifies Angela to death. She claims that she was a part of ritualistic abuse at the hands of the Cult that included the sacrifice of animals and babies, and blood orgies in the name of Satan, and the fact that she's discussing any of it with Kenner makes them both targets for some sort of Satanic death revenge.

"KISS IT. EVERYONE ELSE HAS."

Kenner is initially skeptical of Angela's Satanic claims, but after some mysterious phone calls, some odd people staring at him on the street, and an attack at his home, he ends up becoming a paranoid believer in all things Satanic and evil. Was he molested by a Satanic Cult too? Was he part of a Satanic Sex Cult, but just forgot about it?

Watch and find out!

MAYBE TAKE THE HEADPHONES OFF WHILE YOU'RE SNOOPING AROUND THE LAIR OF A SATANIC CULT!

Regression is more of a Psychological Thriller than it is any kind of Horror flick, although the movie does explore plenty horrifying topics. It's a well-made movie that makes a pretty bold statement about the dangers of psychology, specifically the since-discredited technique of regression therapy, and by the end, it becomes more of a Drama than anything else. A Good Drama, mind you, but a Drama none the less.

There were plenty of eerie moments throughout the film that gave us the willies though, and in that way it felt like a pretty effective "Horror" movie at times.

"SO... DESCRIBE THAT SATANIC ORGY ONE MORE TIME IF YOU DON'T MIND."

As I mentioned above, the whole Satanic Panic thing was very real in the 80's, and it was blown way out of proportion by the media, which ended up working plenty of people into a paranoid frenzy in which many lives were ruined. After a few years, when most of it was revealed to be total bullshit, the regression therapy that was used to uncover much of the supposed ritual abuse at the heart of it all was derided and discredited by medical professionals as being some sort of subliminal coercion.

If nothing else, Regression does a great job of illustrating that point, and giving the whole thing weight.

"AGAIN?"

Ethan Hawke was great in this movie, even though most of the material he was given to play his character delved heavily into stereotypes. Emma Watson was also great playing the innocent victim who may in fact be a manipulative shrew. We'd love to see her play the "Bad Guy" more often.

What Regression doesn't get right, is that it's predictable. It starts out strong, and then fizzles out near the end, not taking many narrative chances along the way. It's a great story that has all of the ingredients for a top-notch Thriller, but it just doesn't do as much with them as it could have. The dialogue could have been better too.

THE FACE OF AN ANGEL?

For all of its faults, Regression was a pretty good movie that managed to keep us interested throughout. If you look at it as a fictional portrayal of some very real things that happened in American history, and don't expect an all-out Horror flick, then you'll probably dig it.

If it happens to be showing at a theater near you, you could do worse than to go check it out.

C+

Regression is in Limited Theaters now. *Only about 100.

Oh, Emma.