The Crooked Man

There is a story here. Not an original one but it's good enough. Children awaken a curse and years later they're dealing with the last of it. Kills, haunting stuff inter-people dramatics etc.

But this movie makes so many bad decisions. The Crooked Man should have looked fine, but not only do they just put him on screen all the time, they put a terrible looking effect on him too.

(There are scenes where he's more out of view and it looks actually good. Those are rare.)

The opening scene really matters for the story and not only is it done poorly, later on you see better shots of the same scene. They should have reused those at the start and even if not, we didn't have to know that.

And it's got a lot of that and it's noticeable. Good lesson on what not to do for a director when everybody else seems to be at least showing up.

And those kids will be some of the only people to attend your funeral services. That and Michael Jai White. Why did the pizza man even exist in this movie? I can talk all day about how silly this movie is. There are so many scenes. Like when the girl sees the earth tear open and asks a pedestrian who is casually jogging "did you see that?" Or when she gives the description of the crooked mans home "two rocks near a tree in the woods" and her friend knows exactly what shes talking about because he saw something like that as a boyscout. If this movie was making an attempt at parody, it was very subtle. I give this movie 4 crooked sixpence out of 10.

Average horror flick that is passable for a TV movie. Its one redeeming feature is the unusual special effects applied to the villain. OK as a B movie, or as the first in a horror flick line-up night on Halloween.

Saw 'The Crooked Man', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.

Giving 'The Crooked Man' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'The Crooked Man' is a great film (mediocre actually) because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.

'The Crooked Man' started off quite well, the first twenty minutes or so starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected.

The setting is effectively spooky. Initially, there are spooky and suspenseful moments, it isn't dull, and the storytelling in the first half does intrigue.

However, the story was severely wanting in the second half after starting off promisingly. It is very disjointed and after the promising start the final third especially loses atmosphere, one loses interest and things start to not make sense. Too much of the film is vague and doesn't explore some elements and story strands enough, some dropped soon after being introduced, go nowhere or serve much point.

Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air. Got the sense that the writers didn't know how to end the film. Would have liked much more tension and suspense (where there is barely any of either), scares could have been more consistent (again nowhere near enough) and some weren't surprising enough and had no atmosphere, the over-obvious sound not helping.

Found too the script to lack natural flow and with a fair bit of cheese and blandness going on, and the characters bland with some adopting some annoying and not always logical decision making. There is very little menace to the villain, the direction is phoned and generally the acting is subpar with Michael Jai White being little more than a barely used commercial device seemingly.

Overall, mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

This is truly the worst movie I've ever seen. I feel bad for the actors, the writing is so bad it's painful every time someone speaks. The storyline is directionless and plain boring. Don't waste an and hour and a half on this.