I have had this movie on my shelf for years, and have never watched it until tonight. It's dubbed, so I've been blessed with overall lousy voice acting. The kind of acting where everyone talks like they're trying to be understood by very young children or senior citizens going deaf. Since it's dubbed, I won't allow it to influence my rating.
This movie has three gears:
1st Gear. You're watching a scene that hilariously misses the mark. It only takes one tiny thing to make a dramatic scene unintentionally hilarious.
2nd Gear. Slow scenes that make you wish the movie would just get on with it. Poor pacing throughout.
3rd Gear. Scenes that explore an interesting religious idea that really, really grips you.
The following paragraph contains a relatively minor spoiler (the spoiler is inconsequential to the overall plot, but it does remove some of the suspense surrounding the main character's arc.):
I love the idea that demons are actually pious religious fanatics that are spending eternity serving the God the best they can, hoping for forgiveness that will never come. I also love the idea that the one rebellious demon girl that breaks the law and runs away from Hell is the one that earns God's favor. She has a very hamfisted way of applying God's will, though. Without going into details, you can see Veronica's point of view but there are scenes where she comes close to going too far, and you kind of worry just how flexible her barometer is for applying her incredibly zealous and overly pious judgement. She's a religious zealot. We already know that's not a good thing.
Not only that, but the overall story's actually good, which can be hard to see when you have to deal with overwrought, and often banal dialogue, though the majority of that is from the demoness, which doesn't understand how humans talk as a point of her character, so a lot of it is somewhat forgiveable. One thing that this film succeeds at is making you very uncomfortable with the alien nature of this demoness when interacting with humans. That was very well done.
Visual effects are overall bad. On the plus side, they're all practical effects. Makeup and gore effects are really good, though there is one awkward gore scene. Costumes are hit and miss--the horns and ears are good, but the wings look a bit too much like they were from Jo-Ann's Fabrics. The angel's costume also looks like a cheap cream cheese commercial. At least they had the good sense not to give her wings, too, or that would have ruined what little believability the costume still had.
Ignoring the voice acting from the dub, the overall acting ranges from half-way decent to idiotically terrible. Veronica's voice actress actually does a half-way decent job, although I can't really say it's actually good.
I mostly enjoyed this movie. There's enough fun, silly, campy parts to make up for the parts that drag.
This movie has three gears:
1st Gear. You're watching a scene that hilariously misses the mark. It only takes one tiny thing to make a dramatic scene unintentionally hilarious.
2nd Gear. Slow scenes that make you wish the movie would just get on with it. Poor pacing throughout.
3rd Gear. Scenes that explore an interesting religious idea that really, really grips you.
The following paragraph contains a relatively minor spoiler (the spoiler is inconsequential to the overall plot, but it does remove some of the suspense surrounding the main character's arc.):
I love the idea that demons are actually pious religious fanatics that are spending eternity serving the God the best they can, hoping for forgiveness that will never come. I also love the idea that the one rebellious demon girl that breaks the law and runs away from Hell is the one that earns God's favor. She has a very hamfisted way of applying God's will, though. Without going into details, you can see Veronica's point of view but there are scenes where she comes close to going too far, and you kind of worry just how flexible her barometer is for applying her incredibly zealous and overly pious judgement. She's a religious zealot. We already know that's not a good thing.
Not only that, but the overall story's actually good, which can be hard to see when you have to deal with overwrought, and often banal dialogue, though the majority of that is from the demoness, which doesn't understand how humans talk as a point of her character, so a lot of it is somewhat forgiveable. One thing that this film succeeds at is making you very uncomfortable with the alien nature of this demoness when interacting with humans. That was very well done.
Visual effects are overall bad. On the plus side, they're all practical effects. Makeup and gore effects are really good, though there is one awkward gore scene. Costumes are hit and miss--the horns and ears are good, but the wings look a bit too much like they were from Jo-Ann's Fabrics. The angel's costume also looks like a cheap cream cheese commercial. At least they had the good sense not to give her wings, too, or that would have ruined what little believability the costume still had.
Ignoring the voice acting from the dub, the overall acting ranges from half-way decent to idiotically terrible. Veronica's voice actress actually does a half-way decent job, although I can't really say it's actually good.
I mostly enjoyed this movie. There's enough fun, silly, campy parts to make up for the parts that drag.