It's a pity I couldn't rate this movie on the first half alone. As far as atmosphere, setting and just overall uneasiness go, this one really set the mood from the get go. I don't know where they filmed this place, but I'm not ever going near it. It was almost uncomfortable to spend viewing time in that decrepit monastery, with its dim lighting, peeling walls and overall dinginess of age and suffering. Blech. And that backdrop really served the movie well as the sinister storyline began to develop. That first exorcism was downright scary and uncomfortably reminiscent of the mother of all scary flicks, The Exorcist.
Yet for me, it started going downhill shortly after - right about the time, in fact, that the writers started to recall that they had a special effects budget that had to be used up. At that point, it became a kind of orgy of black vomit, bulging eyes and flies buzzing up out of corpse stew. As the story progressed, it became more cartoonish, until finally we wrap up with a depiction of the demon who looked a lot like The Terminator causing wholesale damage to the old monastery and the misguided souls to inhabit it.
I think this movie wandered off the path of potential greatness just by a few feet. I feel bad for movie makers in a way. Who can manage subtlety when a fickle and desensitized public demands jump scares, top shelf gore and hyper realistic CGI?
A ten for the first half hour, a four for the rest of it. If they'd stuck with The Omenesque pace they started out with and skipped the Nightmare on Elm Street crap, this one could have been a classic.
Yet for me, it started going downhill shortly after - right about the time, in fact, that the writers started to recall that they had a special effects budget that had to be used up. At that point, it became a kind of orgy of black vomit, bulging eyes and flies buzzing up out of corpse stew. As the story progressed, it became more cartoonish, until finally we wrap up with a depiction of the demon who looked a lot like The Terminator causing wholesale damage to the old monastery and the misguided souls to inhabit it.
I think this movie wandered off the path of potential greatness just by a few feet. I feel bad for movie makers in a way. Who can manage subtlety when a fickle and desensitized public demands jump scares, top shelf gore and hyper realistic CGI?
A ten for the first half hour, a four for the rest of it. If they'd stuck with The Omenesque pace they started out with and skipped the Nightmare on Elm Street crap, this one could have been a classic.