The Bell Keeper

A cheap B-movie horror about some friends going out to film in the woods in search of a legendary bell. The story goes that those who ring the bell are thereafter cursed by a demon, and of course these numbskulls have to go and see for themselves what it's all about. It's business as usual for the genre, with a small cast and only middling scares, although it's surprisingly well paced which means it's more watchable than some. The biggest surprise here is a rare foray into the horror genre for former wrestling star Randy Couture, best known for THE EXPENDABLES movies; he gives the best performance here and is quite likeable.

A film with four teens - 2 girls and 2 boys who are dating couples - plus Liam, who is the brother of one of the other guys. There is also a weird filling station woman, 2 dumb-ass redneck local cops, a girl looking for her missing brother and an immortal called Hank the killer.

The film begins with the two couples being typical whining females and unfunny males. They are a cringe quartet who are totally unlikable and whom you hope are killed off as soon as possible; because they just get on your nerves.

From that bad start the film goes on and on and on, but does not get any better. Its a shame really because I thought that the plot outline was good, a story that could have made a decent film. Unfortunately there was just nothing in the input given by any of the cast and, it just dragged on slowly. To me it rated as a C film and I stuck with it to the end and was very thankful when it ended.

No tension, no scary moments, no shocks and no horror...so no point to it having been made!

Light, watered down horror that would appeal more to Elsie and Molly generation than seasoned hardcore fans-it wouldn't look out of place on Netflix.

Like most horrors I've seen of late its a hodgepodge of other horrors with all the stock characters in place. I was reminded of the similar horror I watched on 26/9 called ' She Came From The Woods' in its young characters being picked off by a malevolent entity but that film had humour, sympathetic characters and a witty script. It knows it's target audience and sends up the genre-this comes reasonably close.

Being Halloween today I fancied something silly and forgettable-I got it here.

It's not a 10, I was just trying to get someone's attention. It's not horror, it's horrible.

I agree with the other reviews, but maybe, in the light of current events and considering all the fuss in Hollywood about A. I doing human tasks they should take note, see this crap and try to come with something better.

Bad CGI triggers my anxiety and puts me in a very bad mood, but I understand that maybe we are not there yet, but the basics of cinema and performing it's being around for ages. Making something this bad triggered something worse.

My point is that there's no reason for movies to be this bad.

I'm going to only mention that here, some things are not that bad. The acting of the main two kids is believable...and that's about it.

The rest is awful, the acting is worse than those late night infomercials from the 90's.

And what's with the eyebrows on the blonde couple?. The cute black guy, is so gay that is cringy and he is not even supposed to be gay. The " vegan" girl is just irritating and like the gay guy, it's not supposed to be that way. I guess this happens when you try too hard.

A wasted opportunity for the lady from The Nun, and Chaz Bono.

And to the "non- A. I" writers, what is a ghost, who lives in a house, defecates and lives like the living?... I really don't get it.

I truly hope someone would force Fren Drescher to watch this, because I honestly think that a toaster would make something better than this.

It's kind of hard to forge a decent horror film, when the concept is to make a cheap pastiche, based on an idiotic premise.

The whole thing is effectively a mash-up of Evil Dead and Knock At The Cabin - which is an act of blasphemy in itself.

And tries way too hard to force a horror-comedy angle into the storyline...which just doesn't work.

Because it makes the whole thing seem confused about what it wants to be.

Does it want to be a comedy? Or serious horror?

One can only assume they've tried to make it the best of both worlds.

However, these two different paths mix like oil and water in this example.

With the crux of the storyline coming off extremely forced at best.

It's just not a very good film.

But I guess that's what you get when you try to emulate a hack like Shyamalan.

It's not surprising that this was made by the same director who brought us the travesty that is Snow Falls (among other awful 2023 releases).

And while it might not be as bad as that film...it's still pretty bad.

2 out of 10.