Satanic

I was really enjoying Satanic, but it falls under the category for me as another film slain by its own ending.

It tells the story of two young couples on a macabre road trip to see sites of murders and general "Satanic" behavior. Along the way they come across a young runaway who changes everything for them.

Starring Justin Chon and Sarah Hyland it looks the part, is very well written and I was fairly gripped to see quite where this was going to go.

Sadly most of the movie is character development and fluff, when the story really kicks in it's a bit of a blink and you'll miss it situation so suffice to say it has chronic pacing issues.

And then the finale! I do hate it when an ending can kill an up to that point enjoyable film, but here once again we have it. It feels rushed, it feels poorly thought out and as if the creators simply ran out of ideas and tacked some random nonsense on instead.

I should be singing the movies praises right now, the majority of the film is great and in the right hands it could have been something special. Instead this poorly thought out little horror is mediocre and a marker for what should have been.

The Good:

Looks great

Solid cast

Some great ideas

The Bad:

Poorly paced

Falls apart at the end.

I made an IMDb account just to review this mind-numbingly boring film. Don't approach this film unless you have a gun pointed to your back: the plot might have worked had it not been for the extremely unlikeable characters. I usually like (or at least, can sit through) crappy horror, but I couldn't even sit through this one. Avoid at all costs.

It seems like one of the hardest things to get out of Hollywood or an indie producer is a decent horror movie. "Satanic" is yet another in a long line of below par, forgettable horror movies made in the past 10 years. But at least it's not another crappy found footage film.

The production values on this movie are pretty good... again, no shaky, hokey found footage documentary-style garbage. Sound editing is pretty solid. The movie poster is ridiculous, but the movie looks and sounds pretty good.

But the story is weak... the story that picks up with Alice in the hotel makes no sense, and there's not much attempt to explain any of it. And these characters are awful. From the start, the four travelers come across as a bunch of self-absorbed, arrogant jerks. Seth the "goth" guy is particularly punchable. David and Elise are okay, but the former is pretty unbearable at the start. The tighten up a bit and get better as the trouble starts hitting them, but by that point I really had lost all interest in them. Some people have mentioned Sarah Hyland as being a star of some sort, but I've never heard of her or seen her show, and in this movie she's just your average "good girl" that you get in a horror movie... ends up being the Scream Queen. But she's not all that impressive... more irritating towards the end than anything else, really.

And the ending... meh.

If you don't expect much from your horror movies and are a very generous sort, it's possible you could give this a 4, I suppose. I was originally going to give this a 1, but that's not fair given the number of staggeringly awful horror films out there (like "American Poltergeist", "Ouija Experiment 2", etc).

Pretty average movie overall sub par story line somewhat offset by good acting.

I don't think it deserves the particularly scathing reviews on here - the story line was a bit muddled but the acting was actually quite good. The characters are played quite well and the main actress (Sarah Hyland from modern family) does a brilliant job in this.

It has some scares in it probably not as much as your used to from your average horror movie though. Its kind of creepy but again not as much as your average horror. Where it shines is the few scares it does have are very well placed and managed to give me a couple of jolts. There's a lot in this movie that you have to piece together for yourself - the movie itself doesn't seem to really care whether you got the plot point or got lost along the way and explains nothing.

All up 5/10 - 7/10 for the acting, 3/10 for the story line.

After watching this on Netflix tonight I looked it up here at IMDb to learn more about it. What I learned is that apparently I am about the only soul who liked it. I was not expecting much, but it 'grew' on me. Now, I will agree with others who point out the characters are --- mostly--- not at all likable. Seth is particularly unpleasant; who would put up with a friend like him? There is a very effective 'callback' at the end of the film to a minor event at the beginning and the filmmakers have done a nice job of whipping up a nightmare as the picture races to its end. I did not find the climax at all confusing... if you remember what a character said earlier about Hell. Perhaps this motion picture is not for everyone. But, that just means those of us who like it will enjoy it all the more. By all means, see for yourself and make your own call.