The Cursed

BRAD THORNTON and LOUIS MANDYLOR star in what feels like a Stephen King story about a sheriff (Mandylor) trying to solve the mysterious deaths of townspeople and farm animals in Tennessee who have fallen prey to a blurry dark figure who seems to be impossible to kill.

With phony Southern accents for some cast members and CGI effects that are unworthy of even a made-for-TV thriller, none of it appears to be the least bit convincing. It doesn't help that none of the principal roles are played with any distinction.

Director Joe Bender must be partly to blame but the script is trite, shallow stuff with cardboard characters that have no dimension whatsoever.

Apparently, the scriptwriter ran out of ideas for the ending and leaves everything pretty much unresolved as to the fates of our hero (Thornton) and the town sheriff.

The Mandylor brothers, Louis and Costas, who aren't getting any younger or better in the acting department, costar in this no-budget demon-hunting tale set in a Steven King-type small town. The demon has been awakened from a long sleep by the arrival of a young writer, whose family was from the town and who is connected to it somehow. It starts off by killing some cattle and then tears up a whole bunch of people, including most of the cast, which isn't all that large. The script is pretty bad, the acting is wooden, and the special effects are just so-so. The demon itself isn't all that bad-looking and wisely is kept in shadow most of the time -- and frankly it could just as easily have been a werewolf. I think the filmmakers were influenced by the TV show, SUPERNATURAL. The ending is lifted from both John Carpenter's THE THING and THE FALLEN.

This is a fairly trite story line, about the unkillable evil, the same old super evil that cannot be killed. The treatment of the topic here is fairly clever, however.

We get more than one main character. In essence, we get an impression that the writer was alluding to "Lifeforce" in many ways, with one man a hands on operator battling demons in his life, and the other man an official who comes in to clean up. However, these characters are much more credible and identifiable than the ones from "Lifeforce".

The minor characters are plentiful. Some are three dimensional, but there are many who seem to be mere plot devices. These are minimal, and come across more credible, since they are demographic enough. For instance, there is one old demon battler, and three vigilantes who do the doomed vigilantes in the woods theme (which has become popular the past 10 years, but not trite yet). These are a minority, even in the small town, as there are nearly a hundred who meet to discuss action. Therefore, they seem a little more credible as a demographic.

The logical course of action is well thought out by the writer. Much of this is cleverly done. Near the beginning, a rancher tells the lawman that his cattle have been mutilated in a very unexplainable way. We soon learn this is not an isolated case, and the writer shows us very much in a few scenes. Someone is actually learning how to write at Sci Fi.

One hero has a lot of credibility, but the story seems to want to make him a cigarette smoker very badly, even though he is physically fit, lean, and a writer. Most of us have never even met a man who smokes who is lean, physically fit, and creative, nor one who is a jogger or writer. Also, he begins the day by waking up and jogging. Any one who jogs knows that this is unrealistic. Any one who did this would pull a muscle almost every time, and lose out on weeks at a time. The military purposely has GIs warm up with calisthenics before their jog.

But these are nit picks. Obviously one of the sponsors is involved with tobacco, so we can overlook this if it isn't overdone, and if the story is well done. This one passes the test, although the ending is a bit trite and over the top for this otherwise well written piece.

Arriving in a small town, a recently divorced man accidentally unleashes a demonic curse with a supernatural entity that is descended from a Satanic curse in his bloodline dating back centuries, forcing him into a deadly battle with the dangerous creature.

This turned out to be quite the decent and enjoyable monster movie. One of the better elements here is the rather impressive amount of suspenseful, enjoyable attacks in here which make this one highly interesting. The ability of having the attacks be mostly based on the fog-enshrouded locations that so prevalent in here so the opening attack in the woods where the guy searching for his cat only to stumble upon the creature in the darkness, or a later attack on the highway with all the different creatures getting involved in the incident both manage to incorporate those rather chilling elements to maximum impact. Other attacks, such as the ambush on the hunting party in the foggy woods as they prowl through the under-brush or the encounter in their house also showcase the film's penchant for creepy sections loaded with atmosphere so that tends to bring an overall chilling effort that has a rather frenetic pace to it due to these really chilling scenes. This one tends to go along at quite the great pace here which accounts for quite a few action-packed scenes that move the rather enjoyable plot along incredibly well. That has a lot to do with the concept of the curse here as well, coming off as a really different take on the whole cursed- bloodline angle and makes for a rather pleasing effort overall. Along with the creatures' look and the build-up in here to the finale, there's enough good parts here to make this quite entertaining. There's a few flaws here that do pop up, mainly in the few small attacks here that no mean nothing to the film as a whole. A couple of these attacks are just so short that it's impossible to get a sense of what happened, unlike past Sci-Fi Channel efforts where they played a fine role in the course of the film's events while others are edited so haphazardly that the disorienting nature of what's going on throughout here makes for some pretty troubling times with this. The other big flaw in this one is the fact that a huge majority of the attacks, fun as they may be, have an underlying sense of stupidity on the victims who continually wonder long into the traps and ambushes by their inability to recognize the danger of the situation. Add in some rather lame kills and a lot of off-screens ones as well and these do hold back the few flaws here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity and sexual content.

I gave this movie a high rating due to a number of things. First, I have to say, a number of people gave this movie a low rating because it was not a Steven King movie (although the fact is that most movies based on King's books are lousy). So comparing books to movies is not fair. Then, this movie's budget was $1,750,000 an amount that many movies spend feeding the crews. It is set in the deep south, not in some modern city, so the characters fit the settings. This movie is actually based on a couple of legends of the deep south, it is not an adaptation of anyone, including King's books. I found it interesting and unique, not what is now in style, such as the usual "lost footage" (the worse possible thing around) or "woman running through forest", as predictable as it gets. It's not a (teen) vampire movie, a person actually compared it to that. It's bloody and I liked the special effects. For the price they did a very nice job. I don't give many movies high rating, if they are lousy, I so state. Nice take on legends of the south, about evil plantation owners.