Cruel Peter

It's a slow burn but it gets inside your head. Moody settings. Good timing too. Lots of flashbacks and reverse storylines that pops out just when you're about to scratch your head and wonder why or what.

The film is too dark. Not thematically, not figuratively, but literally *visually* too dark. Everything is too dark. It is so dark that it should be called 'Dark Peter.' The nighttime scenes are too dark; the daylight is too dark; interior and exterior shots alike are equally sodden with a filter of synthetic dusk-like gloom.

Perhaps the grader deliberately made it so dark to hide the plodding story, or the lugubrious tone, or the somnambulant editing. It was nice to see characters using BSL - a shame their doing so was obscured by a permanent shroud of (presumably) unintentional murk.

If you like looking at the world thru tights, or sunglasses at night, or a tea-hued gauze, you might enjoy this. But, even then...

Definitely a slow burn that picks up about an hour in. A possession horror that has sort of a family vibe especially the acting a lot creepier but along the lines of a lifetime movie. But as I said once "Cruel Peter" settles down and that softness dissipates and it really gets kinda creepy. It's sort of by the numbers though albeit a good storyline but heavily stamped with predictability. The special effects are pretty good, not great but between talking and walking rotting corpses, climbing on walls and demons voicing their dismay it should be enough satisfy the hunger for the average horror fan. I should note though that the film also suffers from some iso camera issues too many scenes were a bit too dark to fully enjoy but the effort is widely acceptable. I would recommend this film for mild horror lovers I'm more of a "Hereditary" "Midsommer" or "The Witch" fan so it didn't pierce my fear meter at all but for my mom or a kid under 15 it might be enough to make them reach for the lights.

Cruel Peter is a very flawed film that probably had some potential.

Its upsides are the production quality (except the CGI), music, and a couple of creative scenes.

Everything else is either underdeveloped for reasons unknown or suggests a kind of indifferent attitude towards the film.

For example, the film ignores important details and small things, which, by the way, are the building blocks of a good story. Like accents, looks, and at least, in some sense, some historical background.

The film is also overloaded with scenes that don't contribute to anything, some of these are 2-3 seconds long, and nobody says a word.

The acting wasn't so good either. Probably result in the direction. Richard Armitage-looking lead was constantly overacting, while his daughter mostly looked confused. Good effort by the Italian cast though, I wish the film had more of them.

While the visual style was interesting and added some flavor, for about 80% of the film, you can't even see it too much. The film is very, very dark. You can barely see anything at times. Half of the time, I wasn't even sure if it's day or night in a particular scene.

Overall, if the story was more creative and actually could get me hooked, I could turn a blind eye to the above problems. But in its current state, it just doesn't work.

A film that starts of well, with a fairly long period before things start happening, but then it just goes off the rails. It's as if the scriptwriter wanted to be lazy and use all the regular horror tropes, but then tried to make it appear different.

The result is a mish-mash of things, and the ending just makes no sense.

There is too much reliance on characters doing or saying things, that no normal person in the situation would do or say, in order to set up events. This always strikes me as lazy story-telling.

I'm giving it 5 for being reasonably well-acted and for at least trying to make use of the locations and sets.