Accidental Exorcist, the final film Sector 5 Films sent me to review, is really just a wonder of a movie in that there's absolutely nothing appealing about it. Oftentimes, it feels more like some sort of strange hallucinatory drug dream, and not in a good way. This is a woeful film and after watching it, I just can't see much to recommend about it.
Check out that DVD cover! Never seen a screaming demonic girl with whited-out eyes on the DVD cover of a horror movie before! What a unique idea!
The whole thing, I guess, is about this lousy, drunk, sick-looking guy named Vanuk who is supposed to be some sort of exorcist. He's really just a sad sack, irritable and kind of a loser. He looks like he has a freezer full of severed heads at home, and I don't mean that as a compliment.
He goes around doing 'healing' on people apparently possessed by demons, which is immediately unbelievable, as I can't imagine these families letting some dude with fucking fingerless gloves and drinking out of a hip flask alone with their sick children. If someone's drinking from a hip flask and has fingerless gloves, they're probably living under the awning of a barber shop and stealing cash from church rectories. They shouldn't be trusted to perform an exorcism. Just go to the real Catholic church like everyone else in these kinds of films. I mean, come on, the economy isn't that bad these days.
I usually like to go into detail about scenes in chronological order, but I can't do that with this movie, as for one it's far too repetitive, and two, I usually had no idea what the fuck was happening at any point. From what I can gather, he heals people who are possessed, and then the demons sort of enter him, making him sick and depressed. But tonally, it's just all over the place – some scenes feel like they're trying to be a dark comedy, and others are more like a dark-tortured-soul-seeking-redemption thing. There's no consistency. This movie is the young child mixing peanut butter and mayonnaise of horror films – it's completely incongruous with anything that makes sense.
I'll go into depth on this one scene: he goes to this family who hired him because their clearly obese, mentally incompetent adult son won't eat anything, but apparently that was an indicator that he's possessed, and not just that you can't cook worth a damn and this is probably child abuse of some sort.
But their insane logic proves true, as he IS possessed. The guy has a harness around his head and when they take it off, he bites his teeth down over and over again like a chattering monkey doll. But for some reason, when they try to spoon-feed him, he closes his mouth and won't let it happen. I know all of these pointless details because the movie shows it to you and repeats it multiple times.
Watching this scene, I really just reconsider if making this blog was ever a good idea. Is this what my life has become? What a bizarre scene. I just don't know what to say about it, or what it was trying to accomplish.
The medical care guy watching the man makes a big fuss about not leaving like Vanuk wants, but then Vanuk basically goes “come onnnnnnn,” and they stare at each other and then the caregiver leaves. What a riveting conversation. And I'm sure that guy's job is so worth being smug over and protecting like he's watching after a fucking United States President, right? Why was he being so adamant about staying for like a whole two seconds?
"I'LL DEFEND MY JOB TO THE DEATH... until you stare at me for a few seconds."
What follows is basically an incomprehensible fight scene in which the movie rips off The Exorcist shamelessly by having the guy talk in Vanuk's mom's voice or something, and then they start throwing food at each other and wrestling. It's beyond bizarre. I can't even say it's so bad it's good – it's just weird and I don't know how to feel or what to say about it. Sometimes, art is good when you don't know how to feel immediately. This is not one of those times.
Oh, and the movie does rip off The Exorcist pretty hard. The opening credit scene even rips it off with as much shame as a slacker high schooler copying his friends' answers and forgetting to put his own name on the homework.
If he walks into the letters, I'd do a mea culpa and admit this is a good movie and I was wrong.
Most of the whole movie is just like that one scene – gibberish, and much less coherent than the scene I described. I picked that scene because I could at least sort of tell what was supposed to be happening in a cogent sequence of events – not the case in the rest of the film. Most of it is a sloppy mish-mash of the guy drunk stumbling around and then some other acid-trip scenes of him performing “exorcisms.” There's no point in going through it like I usually would. The pacing is really off, too – the scenes vary in length so much that it gives the movie a kind of weird, off-balance feel, which could be good for a better movie. Here, it mostly just felt overlong and directionless.
Multiple times, the film fades to black on moments that seem sort of like the movie just ended, but then it comes back up with more, like the world's biggest cock tease. I was halfway convinced that the movie would never end and was being filmed on a live video feed somewhere, just going on and on as some sort of endurance test, maybe for prisoners of ISIS or something.
I was really just surprised it took over an hour for them to rip off The Exorcist in the most obvious way – having someone's head facing backward. That must have taken some restraint!
The film ends, and it doesn't really matter how – something about him going crazy, stripping naked and smashing everything in his apartment, then going to Hell. I don't really want or need to look much further into what this is supposed to mean. The movie didn't engage me on a level enough to try. Sorry, I guess.
People, I'm all for artists expressing themselves and all of that shit. This movie clearly wanted to do something kind of abstract and weird, but it didn't work at all. This was just nonsense, and there wasn't much to get from it at all. I appreciate any honest effort to make something good, but that's the only good thing I have to say about this movie.
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Back in the 1950s and 60s, Hollywood came out with a series of epics based on stories from the Bible. I admit to seeing only a handful of these, but I did watch "The Ten Commandments" (the 1956 Charleston Heston version) a little over a year ago and was very impressed with its grand scope and strong themes in regard to human freedom and faith in oneself. So while I did not exactly go out of my way to see the newest adaptation of Noah's Ark and I have mixed feelings on director Darren Aronofsky's previous works, I was at least a little hopeful that they would try to recreate the majestic feeling of these larger-than-life films.
Well, I did eventually see it. And it was...interesting...I'll give it that...
Before I get to the movie, a few housekeeping notes. First, this will be a full-film review, so there will be spoilers. Secondly, while this will mostly be in chronological order, I am going to jump around a bit to explain certain parts of it better. Thirdly, my knowledge of the Bible is very limited, so if I get some things wrong on that score, I apologize ahead of time even though I will not be talking about it much. This also means I am not going to nitpick at certain controversies that people have had about it, like the fact that they use the term "Creator" instead of "God."
Lastly, and in that same vein, I am not going to use this review as a forum for a theological discussion. It is outside the scope of this blog and this post would never get completed. Hell, it took me two years just to complete the "House of Wax" review! So it would be best to get this one out of the way. Now.
After a brief prologue, we are introduced to Noah, played by Russell Crowe. He and his family are basically nomads who wander a vast wasteland populated by now-decrepit cities. But when a flower all the sudden grows instantly from the ground and Noah starts having bad dreams, it appears that something is amiss. They decide to go find his grandfather to try and get an explanation for things. They also come across an orphaned girl named Ila, who they eventually decide to adopt. As they travel, they are chased by Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), a clan leader who had killed Noah's father decades earlier.
However, they are saved by holy hell what are these things...?
So, these things that lost out in meetings over the film's budget are the Watchers, who are fallen angels condemned by the Creator to life on Earth as weird stone creatures because they tried to help humans back in the day. Look, I get it, they are suppose to be ugly and unnatural. But seriously, these guys look like stop-motion monsters from a cheesy 1980s sci-fi movie. Are we really suppose to take them seriously?! Oh and two of them are played by Frank Langella and Nick Nolte. Whoopie-do.
Well, anyway Noah and his family get saved and they meet up with his grandfather, Methuselah, a powerful man who is shown in flashbacks to have defeated evil forces with mystical powers. So...if that is the case, why do they spend all their time wandering the desert hoping to avoid getting killed by savages? He seems like someone who would be handy to have around...and his place is a lot nicer too. Then again, once you get to know the character, you kind of question why they bothered going back to him...
In any case, because he is played by Anthony Hopkins, his first onscreen appearance consist of him standing awkwardly in the middle of a room just for the sake of being creepy.
"I am still waiting for my second Oscar, Clarice..."
His running gag - because, honestly, that is what it boils down to - is that he has not gotten out in a while and has a desire for the taste of blueberries (I guess human liver with fava beans and chianti are a little too exotic for someone his age). Anyway, he basically tells Noah that he should do what the visions tell him to do. So, why was his advice needed in the first place...?
Anyway, it turns out the Creator is going to wipe out humanity with a giant flood and an Ark needs to be built to house two of every animals plus a handful of human beings. I know, shocker, didn't that one coming! So Noah starts building the Ark over the course of several years and his kids grow up. Shem (Douglas Booth), the eldest, and Ila are now lovers, but it is a bittersweet romance since Ila cannot have children, a product of injures she sustained prior to being found by Noah's family. She is played by Emma Watson, who was Hermione in the Harry Potter series. So let's see how this adds up:
Gets attacked as a child. Becomes The Boy Who Lived. Later enables him to vanquish evil.
Gets attacked as a child. Becomes infertile. Feels she has nothing to offer for the future of humanity.
Yep, seems fair. Hooray, feminism!
But whatever hurt she feels is nothing compared to that of Noah's second son, Ham (Logan Lerman, a.k.a. the "Percy Jackson" kid). Why? Because he doesn't have a girlfriend and has teenage angst! The horror! There is also a third son, Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll), who is born during the construction of the Ark and...serves no practical purpose in this film. Well, he was in the Bible, so might as well just leave him in there...
As the Ark nears completion and the animals start arriving - scenes which are admittedly pretty cool - Noah heads out to find potential mates for Ham and Japheth so the human race can later be repopulated. Or maybe just to get Ham to shut up, I don't know. However, when he arrives at a human settlement, he is shocked by all the violence and depravity he sees and walks away empty-handed.
Ugh, worst grape-stomping competition ever.
Ham runs off and tries to take matters into his own hands by rescuing a girl from the settlement named Na'el (Madison Davenport). She gets killed in a stampede after only five minutes of screen time and we learn nothing about her, but I am sure she would have been a great character...*faceplam*
Anyway, as the rest of the family looks for Ham, Ila comes across Methuselah, who is still looking for those damn blueberries. He tells her that he has come to realize that he has had almost no contact with her during the building of the Ark. He apologizes by using his powers to make her fertile.
Wait...stop...
So let me get this straight...he has been living next to his adoptive great-granddaughter for roughly TEN YEARS without any real interaction with her. Why? Because he just never got around to it?! Did that take a lot of valuable time away from his normal routine of giving away obvious advice and blueberry hunting?! And his way of saying sorry is to make her able to have children, something that he could have done AT ANY TIME over the decade and spared her from all those brewing feelings of bitterness...???!!!
Well, at Ila seems to be cool with it because right after this happens, she finds Shem and they have sex right then and there. Yep, Ham has gone missing, they are surrounded by hoards of dangerous people, and the whole world is about to flood, but they are just going to take the "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus" approach: giving in to the slightest physical impulse for the sake of plot convenience! (Yes, I did just compare a Biblical film to "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus." Deal with it).
Anyway, eventually they do get everyone back together and they have this big fight with Tubal-cain's people. The stupid rock things, I mean Watchers, end up sacrificing themselves to save Noah's family and they ascend into Heaven for redeeming themselves. or just so we do not have to look at them anymore. Meanwhile, the flood comes in at full force and carries away the Ark, along with all its animal and human passengers.
The Biblical version of "Get in the choppa!"
Cool, Russell Crowe on a boat! You know what that means...! No, not "Master and Commander," I mean this:
Oh, and Methuselah gets left behind and dies. Or rather, he finally finds his goddamn berries (in a place not very far from his place that should not have taken a decade to find) and, apparently feeling perfectly content with how he has conducted himself over the years, willfully gets washed away by the waves. Normally I would question why there was no explanation for him staying behind, but frankly, given the nonsensical nature surrounding his character, I am willing just to send him off on his merry way. Believe me, we haven't even gotten to the "good" part of the movie yet...
Now, up until this point, I'm still sort of content with the film. It's not great and its flaws only get bigger the more you think about them, but it has decent special effects (other than the Watchers) and the plot still keeps me intrigued. But then Noah starts to lay out his game plan and this is where it really starts to lose me:
After Noah gives a monologue about...umm, Creationism?...forget it, not going to ask...he tells his family that the Creator is telling him that man has become too evil. So instead of trying to repopulate the planet, he tells his family that once they get back on land, they will live out the rest of their days with no more procreation before they die, effectively killing off the human race.
So...Noah is a religiously-inspired ecoterrorist now! But wait, it gets better! It is discovered that Ila is pregnant (I know, did not see that one coming either), so Noah, being the kind, gentle soul that he is, makes a deal: if she gives birth to a boy, he can live; if it is a girl that can procreate, she must be killed.
Who. Is. This. Psychopath?!!! Is he really that messed up in the head that he thinks his own family is not good enough to redeem mankind?! And as a result he is just going to basically hold them hostage, not knowing whether or not he might at some point kill one of them?! Wait, Russell Crowe plays a guy who takes direction from visions that only he can see and as a result endangers his family, including his wife played by Jennifer Crowley...
Huh...
Well, before I get any further with this, I should say that Tubal-cain is actually still alive at this point: despite being badly wounded before the flood hit, he managed to sneak onto the Ark while no one was looking. When Ham discovers him, he makes a deal with the boy to keep his presence a secret until he has healed enough to kill Noah. He then gathers his strength by eating the animals nearby. Remember, there are only two of each, so just killing one effectively causes an extinction!
Tubal-cain: the reason why we no longer have Jackalopes.
So what exactly is Tubal-cain's grand plan after he does away with Noah? In a nutshell, he is going to make the remaining females on the boat his brides, and he will repopulate the human race in his image. Okay, there are many things that can cause this idea to fall apart, but I am not going to bother listing them down. You know why? Because he cannot even get the first part right! His great idea on how to kill Noah: make him come down to where he is on the ark and then jump him. Yep, jump him. Oh, by the way, when he decides to launch this "attack," enough time has gone by that Ila goes into labor. So, in other words, he had NINE MONTHS to figure this out and he still screwed it up!!! Killing Noah in his sleep? NAH, let's given him the chance to fight back and see how that turns out. Well, as it does turn out, Ham changes his mind...for some reason...and ends up killing Tubal-cain himself. And so goes another useless character due to a complete failure to judge his basic surroundings...!!!
Honestly, was there really a need for a villain at all in this movie? Noah is pretty scary already! Which do you think is scarier? The guy who you know is bad and just need to find the right time and place to kill him? Or the guy who is suppose to be mankind's savior and yet he keeps his own family in a constant state of paranoia for nine months (hey, whatever happened to "40 days and 40 nights"... ah forget it...) and is willing to kill his own grandchild based on a hunch that only he knows about?!!!
*Deep breath* Moving on...
As I mentioned, Ila goes into labor and gives birth to...twin girls! Oh, the irony! The end result? Well, Noah looks into their eyes and sees good in them, so they and the rest of humanity get to live on after all. Umm...so he looks at them and sees goodness but not the other members of his family...you know what, we are almost done, so let's just get to it...
"So, that whole me going crazy and threatening your lives thing? We're cool, right?"
The family comes across land and start their new lives. Noah spends some time acting like a bum, feeling guilty that he did not fulfill the Creator's simple favor that he commit infanticide in order to wipe out his own species. But his family tells him to get over it, so he does. Ham goes off to be his own man or something. And...the movie ends.
Wait a minute. A guy who takes direction from visions that only he can see terrorizes his family in an isolated location, to the point where his son seeks the help of an outsider to help kill him, only for that said outsider to get killed really easily. Hey, this is not "A Beautiful Mind" at all, it's...
That's it! That is what it was all along! So that means...Stephen King wrote the Bible!!!
Or this movie is just weird, I don't know...
Wow, just...wow. You know one of the things about writing these reviews is that it gets you to think more about the movies you just saw, which can be both a good and a bad thing. With this movie, it is certainly the latter. The more I go into detail about it, the more I realize how bad it is. There are just so many plot holes, a number of supporting characters are useless, and the movie's namesake is such a despicable human being that you really cannot get behind him. Now I should say that making Noah a flawed character is not itself a problem; it should almost be encouraged because it makes him more relatable. But if you are going to make any story and you are going to purposely make a character with major flaws, you have to at least give a reason why your audience should still like him or her. Or at the very least give some rational reason why they are who they are, not take them so far into Walter White/Frank Underwood/Jack Torrance territory and then bring them back from the abyss, pretending they were a hero all along. It is disconcerting and ruins the whole point of what you are trying to get across. That is, if you had a point to begin with...
There is not much I can defend in this film, with a few exceptions. Some of the visuals are impressive, as I mentioned, and the acting is more or less decent. And I do not necessarily blame Aronofsky and the others for wanting to do something different with a story that has been told countless times and virtually everyone knows about. They could have easily have said "We have Russell Crowe and a multimillion dollar budget. Go see it." You can tell they were at least trying. But as I have said in the past, different is not always better, and this time it really did not work out. So let that be a warning to all those planning to see the upcoming "Exodus: Gods and Kings" movie coming out. It might be better than this film, but just be careful what you get yourself into.
As for this film...yeah, I do not recommend it.
Thanks, Yul Brynner. You know what, go see "The Ten Commandments" instead. It's 10,000 hours long, but it's all worth it. And it's not "Noah," so that's a bonus!
The pictures and videos in this post do not belong to me and are being used for entertainment purposes only. Please do not sue me; it says so in the Bible.
This is easily one of the better Denzel Washington movies, in which he plays a
cocky detective who ends up on the trail of a body-jumping demon called Azazel.
This is just one of those great bare-bones detective thrillers with a premise
that is original enough to stand out without trying too hard to be anything it
isn’t. All the tropes you would expect are in this movie – you have the stoic
and serious main character slipping to the dark side. You have the hesitant and
mysterious female lead who slowly opens up to the main character. You have a little
kid character, in this case Washington’s nephew. You have a stern boss and a
concerned sidekick character – the latter is Goodman’s role here.
The difference with Fallen is the quality with which it is executed and
the great atmosphere it exudes. The pacing is really good and keeps you on the
edge of your seat the whole time. There are no real unexpected twists, and yet
the story is told in such a way that you want to see what happens next anyway –
that is an impressive feat. The events that transpire are carried out with a
real seriousness and weight that make them compelling. It’s surprising how
credible they make a body-jumping Biblical demon seem, too, and it never comes
off as corny or anything. The scenes where you can’t quite tell who Azazel has
possessed are the best ones in the film. Creepy and atmospheric, keeping you
guessing.
Speaking of atmosphere, a word I have bandied about quite a lot
already, this film is flooded with it – I especially like the use of the
Rolling Stones song as a constant motif throughout. I don’t really know how
Azazel knows a Rolling Stones song. But it works as a suitably eerie repeating
theme throughout the film. And hearing John Goodman sing it at the end…that’s
just great, man. A lot of the movie is set in crowded, urbanized city streets
in the wintertime, which is good because the wintry setting bespeaks a cold,
frigid feel, and the crowded and urban setting makes Azazel’s people-jumping
skills all the more confusing and disorienting. It’s like he has a whole flock
of unsuspecting, helpless chickens to feed on.
Hey guys, ready for an awful Kevin Smith movie that besmirches
everything good he’s ever put to his name? I’m not, but I’m going to do the
review anyway. This is Red State.
You know, people should just stick to what they do best. You wouldn’t
ask a baker to write you an award winning novel and you wouldn’t ask a novelist
to bake a cake for your wedding. The same principle even applies to movie
directors who try and step outside what they’re usually known for. Kevin Smith,
for example, is a comedy director. He makes quirky off the wall comedies about
larger than life subjects with a lot of style and wit. Here, he has created a
god-awful ‘horror’ film with nothing resembling his usual awesomeness at all.
And alright, I’m all for people branching out every once in a while, but for
Pete’s sake at least try harder than Smith did here!
So the film starts off with some home video quality directing as we see
one of our main douchebags riding in the car with a woman who I presume is his
mom, although really they look about the same age. They pass by some fanatical
church protesters angry at gay people, and then he goes to school where his
teacher is so cool that she says curse words in class and uses colloquialisms
because that’s what Kevin Smith thinks happens in all schools…then at lunch the
douchebag meets up with other
douchebags who are totally different! Actually…no they’re not.
That's the smart thing to do! Why don't you just paint a big target on your chest while you're at it?
They talk about sex, use a lot of vulgar language and make plans to
meet up with some random woman on the internet for sex that night, because that’s
the only way they’ll ever be real men and have memorable times in high school.
Wow. So is there…anything likable
about them? Is there anything that doesn’t
make me want to stab them all through the jugulars multiple times over? No?
Okay then.
I know what you’re thinking here: doesn’t every Kevin Smith movie have characters that act like total
jackasses and talk about sex in rambling monologues? How is this movie any
different? Well, where Clerks used that kind of dialogue for humorous purposes
and backed it up with strong acting and directing, here it’s just like Smith
didn’t even give a crap. It’s got no style to it. This is just random, tasteless
nonsense. There’s nothing funny or interesting about it and it certainly doesn’t
draw us into the characters, so why? I guess it’s “realistic” in some fashion,
but even that’s a stretch to say. Realism only goes so far until it starts to
actually detract from the film.
So our three cancerous blobs sneak out and go to a trailer in the
middle of nowhere where an ugly middle aged woman answers the door with a
bottle of cheap beer in her hand; isn’t this sounding sort of like a really
awful Superbad rip off right now? This whole opening is kind of like that –
like if Superbad took itself really seriously. And I don’t think anyone ever
really wanted to see that, Kevin Smith!
The picture of romance.
But never fear, because Smith does
change it up afterwards by introducing the plot twist that the whole online sex
thing was really a scam; shock and awe…the kids are kidnapped by this cult of
religious nutbags led by Michael Parks, who…was in some movies, I guess. And I
mean this character is just asinine
to the extreme. It wouldn’t be so bad if what he was saying was cut down to
just a minute or two, but Smith keeps the camera on him for like 15 minutes
while he just rambles on and on and on about how homosexuals are bad and
whatever else. Pretty much you can just sum it up as “Blah blah blah blah blah…”
There’s nothing of any worth here.
Easily the most annoying character I've seen in a while, and I watched REPO a few weeks ago.
And you’re tired of this after like the first 2 minutes. WE GET IT. Kevin
Smith is making a commentary about the Westboro Baptist Church and other
fanatical religious sects; it’s not like he’s saying anything controversial
here! So why all the babbling? Why are you making us sit through this torture, Kevin Smith?
"Duhhhhrrrr, don't make me think; I just came from a baked yams and honey and Bud Light and cowboy hat rodeo!"
Shame on you Kevin Smith…shame on you.
So yeah, as you can gather, there has so far been nothing in this movie
that even merits a light hearted joke or jab. Which is sad. But don’t worry, we
have some real raising the stakes moments coming up! Like when the church
people kill a guy by tying him to a cross and putting a bullet through his head…
…and when they kill the cop who comes to visit even though that will
CLEARLY, OBVIOUSLY cause problems. That’s great. You know, if these people are
so gun happy, how have they even survived this long? I also love how when one
of them gets killed by the hostage kid that escapes, the old lady who we first
met starts freaking out and acting like it’s a Shakespearean tragedy. Because,
you know, bad things usually never
happen when you take people hostage and try to kill them. THAT’S JUST
PREPOSTEROUS!
Also the sheriff can’t mobilize his forces because Our Lord and Master
Michael Parks blackmails him about being gay! Good law enforcement? What’s
that?!
Oh boo hoo, you whiny little jackass. Grow a pair.
Oh, and because this movie has absolutely no idea what it’s doing, it
actually hid a John Goodman performance way far back into its recesses. Wouldn’t
one good actor be the thing you want to focus
on, Kevin Smith? I know you like being edgy and off-kilter but…seriously. It’s
John Goodman! He plays a cop who is under pressure from the bureaucracy to…be
bureaucratic more often, I guess. They go to the crazy cult church and the
crazy people start a shootout with them! Because again, they’ve somehow
survived this long without blowing themselves up and I guess they were just
tired of NOT being blown up.
Then as if the movie wasn’t insulting enough, we get one of the younger
girls freeing the only main character left and trying to force him to help her
save her younger cousins. Yeah, because I’m really gonna have sympathy for any
of these wretched characters now; that’s a laugh. Of course the main character
actually agrees, which is one of the only things I liked at all in this. This
plot thread could have worked, but never underestimate Red State’s mediocrity
as both characters literally get killed off in their next scene. Yes, really.
Having plots that go somewhere is tough I guess
Hey, taking this movie too seriously? It’s OK, we have a scene where
Michael Parks asks that crazy fake-prostitute lady to get him tea during a big
battle scene. Hooray for incompetence!
Ugh, alright, I am just about sick of this…the movie ends with the
government putting Michael Parks in jail and putting John Goodman in another
department different from the one he’s in now. I really can’t even bother to
talk about this one anymore; it’s just that bad.
Red State is total ass, and I can safely say that Kevin Smith has been
caught red handed with this one as
there just isn’t any quality to be found. Every plot thread brought up is
quickly dismissed for no reason and without any fanfare, like the movie just
couldn’t wait to shoot itself in the foot again and again and again, like a
suicidal Looney Tunes character that won’t bleed out no matter how many times
the gun sounds off. It's preachy as hell, too, and doesn't have anything really interesting to say on top of that. Yeah, religious fanaticism is BAD. Did you know that?!
The characters are awful…they really expect us to care one wink about
any of these horrible, horrible people? Are we supposed to root for the idiotic
dolts who tried to solicit sex over the internet, or the ridiculously heinous
church cult members who are about as likable as dried up gum on the bottom of
my shoe? The acting is Z-grade garbage, the writing is bland at best, the
directing is an immature drunken mess…where’s the quality? Where the hell is
anything in this movie that I can enjoy even one little bit? John Goodman is
pretty good, but then, they don’t even use him to his full potential. What
would Jay and Silent Bob have to say about this?
This review was co-written by Sol and Tzeentch. It is our first collaborative effort, with all three of us contributing to the jokes and observations therein.
Uh…well…yeah, I don’t even know; just start the review.
The Haunting of Molly Hartley starts out with some GRIPPING TENSION by showing us a hot chick in the woods following a trail of little post-it notes on string. Because…that couldn’t ever go wrong, right? If I saw post-it notes attached to string, I’d follow them without any question or hesitation too! Oh, wait; no I wouldn’t. I’m not a complete idiot. She eventually comes to this cabin in the woods and, like any other sensible person would do, she approaches, is attacked by a cheap jump scare, goes in, and is attacked by…wait for it…ANOTHER CHEAP JUMP SCARE!
Seriously, what kind of Neanderthal actually needs a sign on the door to tell them to enter? Isn't that common knowledge by the 21st century?
Oh, wait, this jump scare is actually her boyfriend, who apparently thought it was a romantic idea to take her out in the woods and scare her on her birthday in a desolate cabin far away from any civilization. Good thing these people live in idyllic white suburbia – otherwise they might actually be in danger of this plan going wrong somehow! He tells her he wants to marry her, but then an Ed Harris stand-in barges in and takes her away. Apparently this is her father, who is so broken up that his daughter, who is about to have her 18th birthday, is actually portrayed by a 25 year old actress, he tries to kill her.
I guess the pretentiousness of this camera angle killed the girl, not that knife...
After that bit of awkwardness, a title screen informs us that our crash course through cinematic pointlessness has arrived in the present day, with our titular character, Molly Hartley (Haley Bennett). Gee, since her name is in the title, it must mean she’s a really important and pivotal character, right? Nope, she’s just an average horror chick, with nothing too extraordinary about her at all. And while I’m at it; good luck finding any ‘haunting’ in this movie, either…but we’ll get to that later. I apologize for the divergence, but if you had seen this movie, you’d want to skip ahead as fast as possible too.
So Molly is starting out at a new school in a new town, where at school she quickly makes friends with the nerdy and completely unlikable Bible-thumping Jesus-freak girl of the school, is scorned by the snooty blonde girl and is hit on by the most awkward guys on this side of Steve Carell, whose idea of flirting consists mostly of bugging her to get in his car incessantly and making horrible jokes. God, this guy is so annoying that he’s like one of those little Chihuahuas who just won’t shut up until you give it a piece of ham.
"Will you go out with me? Will you go out with me? WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME? WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?!"
Oh yeah, and Molly also has some seriously freaky visions and headaches!
"Welcome to Xavier's School of Mutants, Molly."
Coincidence? I think not.
The movie just kind of…stumbles along blindly for a while, as we learn that Molly’s mother tried to kill her for some reason and was sent away to an asylum, declared crazy, and Molly is still pretty broken up about it, if you consider seeing constant hallucinations of her everywhere “being broken up about it.” One day in class (apparently the only class any of these kids have to attend, as we never see any other ones), the teacher hands out Bibles to help them understand Milton’s Paradise Lost – seriously, I’m pretty sure high school students can get the basic gist of the poem without Bibles to help. I know it’s a heavily religious text, but still.
"Oh, the humanity..."
Then of course you get one idiot acting like it’s a personal affront that they have to have the Bibles at all, and the stuck-up religious chick says that the Bible is the truth and it’s insulting that they have to read it like it’s ‘just another schoolbook’…god, this character is terrible. I really have to say something about this, because it’s really bugging me now. This character is garbage. I don’t even care if people want to tell me they know people like this, and that means it’s realistic. It’s annoying and lessens my appreciation for the movie every time she opens her mouth. Realism doesn’t always mean ‘good,’ or even ‘tolerable.’ Sometimes, as here, it just means ‘this is hideous, annoying twaddle and I wish it would stop abusing my ears.’
So Molly gets a nosebleed and has to go to the bathroom to clean up. She has a panic attack and thinks her mother is after her or something, but it’s really all just in her head. But she does have some kind of seizure and passes out. They do the logical thing and send her straight to the school guidance counselor’s office – yup, they don’t even send her to a hospital or anything. They just send her to the guidance counselor. Because the guidance counselor is a perfectly fine substitute for someone who should be able to administer serious medical help. Who wrote this movie again? Monkeys?
After that contrived scene we go back to Molly’s room, where she takes off her shirt in front of the camera – yeah, a 17 year old girl’s partially naked body is the fanservice in this movie, did you think it could get any less charming? – and puts on some different shirt, then going and taking some pills from the sliding glass cabinet in her bathroom. There’s another cheap jump scare that I think the movie stole from The Grudge, before she has another panic attack and this time faints. She actually is taken to the hospital (wait! What about the guidance counselor?! Can’t she help?) this time, where they tell her that the reason she’s been seeing things and having scary The Grudge-esque jump scares is actually because she has a small tumor in her brain.
…yeah. I’m dead serious about that – a tumor. I have to give this movie credit for not taking the obvious route. I mean did they really just say that the root of all the supernatural crap happening in this movie so far isn’t actually real, but the result of a tumor? What a refreshingly realistic twist! Let’s see how that logic would hold up in other movies:
"There is no Freddy, Nancy; you just have a tumor!"
"...oh. Then how did I get these cuts and burns on my arm?"
"You abuse yourself in your sleep. You're actually crazy and need to be locked up."
"...oh."
"Jack isn't possessed. He just has a tumor!"
"Oh. Well, how does that help us get out of this situation when he's carrying around a big ax?"
"....good point."
OK, so she gets back to school and finds out that everyone’s talking about her because she got sent to the hospital, even though it happened at home and you’d think people would have something else to talk about. But she gets a warm welcome back from creepy stalker boy, who actually stops her by putting a Lacrosse stick in front of her and blocking her way. It’s a good thing she somehow finds that charming, because he invites her to his random Tuesday night house party that very night. She decides to go when one of her friends goads her into it.
At the party, creepy stalker boy gives her a drink which I initially thought probably had some kind of sedative in it, because after all his badgering to get her in his car, I figured he had gotten desperate. But after the school’s #1 snooty blonde girl starts picking a fight with her, I think the drink had some of Captain America’s Super Serum in it, because she just breaks the girl’s arm like it’s a twig! Then she decides she doesn’t like having superpowers and leaves the party in a hurry. She travels through the bad part of town:
One hungry dog behind a fence? THAT'S JUST GHETTO, MAN! GET OUTTA THERE, WHITE GIRL!
After another panic attack, in which she thinks her mother is attacking and trying to kill her (not much imagination for panic attacks), she goes home and the scene cuts to the next day, where at school she’s hassled by boring conversations with the guidance counselor, the creepy stalker boy and the irritating religious girl, all of whom want nothing more than to help her. How about just leaving the poor girl alone for five seconds, guys? I mean…geez.
Then at home she’s confronted by another spooky vision of her crazy mom trying to kill her again. Oh, wait. It’s real this time! Yes, it’s actually real now…how confusing. The mom starts telling her all this stuff about how she died when she was born due to the mother’s water breaking too early and there being no-one around to help. She says that a strange woman offered her a chance for Molly to live again, except at her 18th birthday she would turn evil. Because the mother was an idiot who listened to random strangers proposing ridiculous and far-fetched schemes…yeah, now Molly’s soul belongs to Satan.
OK, so that’s all fine and dandy, but here’s my problem with this whole scene: Molly’s mother waited until now, long after she had been hospitalized and had to get a nurse to break her out, to tell her this whole story, this whole explanation behind what’s been going on all movie long. She didn’t think to tell her the backstory the first time she tried to kill her (i.e. when Molly still trusted her mother…); no – she waits until the last possible second before her daughter’s 18th birthday, when this whole evil-conversion/soul-selling thing is supposed to happen. There are so many things that could have gone wrong here. What if the nurse didn’t want to break her out of the asylum? What if she was somehow set back and didn’t make it in time? What if Molly’s father had been home and caught her before she did anything? This makes no sense and the movie is dumb and wretched.
So Molly kills her mother by accident, then her father comes home and tries to have her committed, and so she hits him and knocks him out – because THAT won’t make them think she’s crazy at all! Molly runs around trying to get people to help her. First she tries the awful Christian girl, who actually takes her to be baptized (is she even licensed to do this? She’s just a high school kid). Unfortunately, it was all a trick, because awful Christian girl actually knows someone at the mental institution Molly’s mother was at, how convenient. She tries to kill Molly but Molly uses her super strength powers to break away, running away in a hurry.
She then meets creepy stalker boy and tells him the whole story, which he takes very readily and tells her he’ll take her away from her situation and they’ll run away together. Gee, guy; what if she’s lying and actually IS crazy? That’d be a bit stupid, then…but it’s OK, because SHOCK AND AWE! He’s in on it too! Except he, along with the school’s guidance counselor, is actually aligned with the Devil and wants her to change. That makes no sense, but OK. She turns evil, starts dating creepy stalker boy, becomes a valedictorian and locks her dad in a mental institution AND…then the movie’s over.
Almost like an Obama rally, huh? HUH? *crickets*
No, I’m serious; that’s the ending. And there are two things I want to bring up with this.
1.OK…her life is actually better after this evil conversion. Seriously, she’s now a valedictorian, dating a rich guy who is, in all reality outside of being evil, a really successful person, and is more confident and self-assured. In what alternate reality are these bad things? Is the movie trying to suggest that she was better off as a depressed, borderline psychotic loner with few friends and a bucketload of teenage insecurities?
2.THE ENDING IS BASICALLY ROSEMARY’S BABY. Seriously; lead female protagonist who has sensed all movie that something is horribly wrong is suddenly confronted with the fact that everyone she thought was inconspicuous is actually conspiring to some evil satanic power. IT’S THE SAME THING. NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL. Has this movie no shame?
"I'm ready to use this, you know..."
So, yeah, this is ridiculous garbage. The story is boring and the movie as a whole is soulless and vapid, as well as outright offensive to the viewer’s intelligence at several points. It could have even been a good movie! Maybe if they actually elaborated some more on this whole devil-worshiping cult thing, it might have been something interesting. But no, we just get Milquetoast Horror Generica: White Boy Edition #5775. It takes itself way too seriously and has a billion plot holes but no likable characters - not exactly the best trade. It’s just a pointless, unpleasant movie to watch, and I think it should have been axed in the drawing room before its evil was allowed to manifest, just like Molly’s mom in the movie tried to do to her. That would have been a mercy-killing.
Some of these images - the ones not from the movie - are not mine, and they are copyright of their original owners.
This is a very religious thriller. And by that I mean, it is religious in the way that I am praying I never have to see it again, and it’s a thriller in the way that I was thrilled when it ended. People…this is Legion.
The movie kicks off with some narration from a woman. As the movie assumes we care about this disembodied voice we do not even know, the woman starts to talk about how her Mom used to tell her bedtime stories about the Apocalypse when she was a child, saying that “God just got tired of all the bullshit.” Well, if that’s true, then how come The Last Airbender was allowed to be released the same year as this movie? I think the rumors of God’s tiredness of the bullshit have been grossly exaggerated. And for that matter, her mother told her stories about the Apocalypse as a kid? That…doesn’t exactly seem like the ideal reading alongside The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.
Thinking that it has appropriately set up for the actual film, even though it really just created more questions, the narration stops and we’re shown two cops cruising through the city. One of them is a fat guy who talks about how much he wants to just kill all the homeless people in the town. That’s your law force for you, folks, always looking out for the downtrodden and the weak! Truly these are the guys you want to entrust your safety with! The two cops run into this guy who blows up a building and try to apprehend him when he gets the jump on them. The other cop then has a seizure and turns into a bad special effect with pointy teeth and dilated eyes and says that someone is coming. I really hope he means someone who will make more convincing and scary effects.
About as scary as a Rankin-Bass Christmas cartoon.
Then we fade to the next scene, at a little diner in the desert, where a bunch of people are stuck there, including a family of middle class white people with a slutty daughter, a black guy with a gun and the staff, one of whom is played by Charles Dutton. You may remember him from such classics as Gothika and D-Tox! Not exactly a stunning resume there, but OK! The other cook is played by Dennis Quaid, who is one of those actors I’ve seen before but who never left a huge impression on me. Like a…really unimpressive thing…oh, screw it; he does a pretty good job and this joke is aborted.
We also have his son Jeep – what, are we going to have characters named Truck and Pit Stop next, too? On second thought I don’t want to give them ideas. He’s in love with a rebellious pregnant chick named Charlie, who is so rebellious she SMOKES EVEN THOUGH SHE’S PREGNANT! That’s smart! Apparently Jeep loves Charlie even though the baby she has isn’t his, and even though she really just kind of takes him for granted. Legion, everybody, the supernatural religious thriller with the most gripping family drama ever! You’ll also be on your seat as you witness the incredible tension of the white suburban family, who are worried that their daughter is dressing like a skank.
There's a nice view in this desert diner. Maybe tourist income will increase after all.
Outside, Dennis Quaid chastises his son for not fixing the car, and the conversation then somehow turns to Charlie, prompting Quaid to deliver a monologue about responsibility and one’s lot in life, and other inspirational stuff. And I’m going to warn you now that this is what takes up a lot of time in this film – inspirational monologues. They mostly have nothing to do with anything and are there to make the movie appear to have some kind of depth.
Everything cooks along until the generic old lady that’s in every modern horror movie ever comes into the diner. They’re all being nice to her until she freaks out and starts telling Charlie that her ‘fucking baby’ is going to burn. Goddamn Jesus freaks. Then the lovable old bat starts crawling on the ceiling, biting peoples’ necks and generally doing all the other things that born again Christians are known for.
…wait. Something’s wrong with that sentence.
Yes...truly THIS is the work of a loving God. Man this movie is stupid.
She bites the father of the suburban family and then gets shot by the black guy with the gun. They all pile into the car and try to take the father to the hospital, but are stopped by a swarm of angry insects. Apparently somebody forgot to hire an exterminator. I guess money’s pretty tight out in the desert when you only have a shitty diner to rake it in. They all come back to the diner and hole up there, but not before the Archangel Michael appears and starts talking in the hallowed language of Cryptic Speak to Raise Suspense. Meaning, we get no explanation for anything until AFTER we have a big, traumatic fight scene! Oh yeah, and the suburban white guy daddy gets the axe.
He doesn't look so bad...but 2 seconds later:
"I COULD PROBABLY FIT AN OCEAN LINER IN MY MOUTH!"
And yes, those are the best special effects this movie has for us. Kind of puts the movie’s suspense to a grinding halt, doesn’t it?
Then Michael gets to the Big Explanation, the exposition-festival that every one of these movies has where we get to know what’s going on! Basically God has lost faith in humanity and is now sending angels to kill them all. Why can’t he just snap his fingers and zip the whole planet out of existence? I hear vengeful tidal waves are in this year. Oh, and the unborn baby inside Charlie is apparently the savior of mankind. Because they did it in other movies, so I guess they had to do it in this one in order for it to fit into the Phoned In Apocalyptic Thrillers Club. New members accepted quarterly.
There’s one scene after that where the suburban white mommy is sitting at the bar and Dennis Quaid hands her a beer. She immediately starts getting depressed looking at the beer can because her husband was the beer drinker in the family and he’s dead now. Isn’t that just like…the most overdramatic slippery-slope of association ever? It’s like looking at a toilet seat and going, “That toilet seat was left up instead of down. My husband used to leave the toilet seat up! MY LIFE IS AN ENDLESS VOID OF MISERY AND TURMOIL!” I mean it’s just so silly!
Then Michael talks to Jeep and tells him, without mincing words, that Jeep is the reason he still has faith in humanity. Pre-etty tall order there, guy. I mean, that’s a lot to take in! Oh, and then we get Charles Dutton telling us another little personal inspirational anecdote. In this one, he says that his father used to tell him that if he didn’t wake up in the morning, he had to be proud of what he had done in his life. Even at 10 years old or whatever. Yeah. Real stand up father there, huh? What’s up with these peoples’ parents?! Did they just all get together in secret and decide to traumatize their children for life and never let them have any fun? You don’t want to think about what you’ve accomplished in your life when you’re a little kid probably dreaming about baseball and Transformers and stuff! What kind of parents are these bungholes?
There’s this other really overly long scene where some travelers get ambushed by the possessed people, which raises another plot hole: These angels are surprisingly easy to defeat. For an all powerful deity who wants all mankind exterminated, he sure didn’t send his best guys if a bunch of average Joes in a diner can beat them all. Oh, but there’s a kid with a knife and a poorly done scary voice, I guess we’re supposed to be SO SCARED WE CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT!
It's like a demonic Stewie Griffin...
Michael points a gun at Dennis Quaid and threatens to shoot him if he goes outside and helps his friends being attacked. I just hope he’s better at gun control than Vince Vega from Pulp Fiction after his divine intervention.
The baby is born, and then we get the arrival of Sloppily Written Plot Point, or Gabriel, the…co-angel of Michael who does want to follow what God said and do his work. Gabriel kills off Dennis Quaid, kills Michael and chases down Jeep, Charlie, the skanky daughter and the baby as they try to drive away. They have some drawn out and boring fight scenes, Michael is resurrected somehow, and he decides not to kill Gabriel because “that’s what the Lord really wants.” Huh? I thought he wanted to wipe out humanity. What changed? Oh well. We get our main characters riding happily into the sunset with the exact same narration from the beginning played all over again, because…this is a fucking cheap ass movie; I don’t know. Lovely. But at least everything ended OK and the world is nice and happy again!
Until the next time God loses at poker and decides he hates mankind again. Didn’t think about that, did you?
