Pernicious

Supernatural horror that tries to incorporate too many elements. While not 'perfect', I wouldn't say its 'dreadful'...true, it could have been better. But if your sitting around looking to watch a horror movie, there are much much worse ways to spend your time. At least it wasn't 'formulaic'...well, not TOO much.

OK. The 'good'- 1) Pretty girls 2) creepy supernatural legend 3) exotic location 4) insane gore, ala 'Hostel' 5) nice twist AT THE BEGINNING, 6) The protagonists are smart, not like the typical 'tripping in the forest' or 'looking in the basement when they should be running the hell away'. Btw, did I mention it has some really pretty girls ? (no nudity guys).

The 'bad'- 1) Uneven acting (mostly from supporting cast), 2) Stilted dialogue and story after the first third of the movie.

As I said, it definitely could have been better. But you gotta love these people who continually pan certain horror movies as 'awful' and 'avoid at all costs'...its entertainment people !! You don't like it, turn it off and watch something else...or better yet, make your OWN movie. To say you want the 'two hours' of your life back...gimme a break...your life isn't all that exciting if you're sitting on the couch surfing for movies to watch.

Bottom Line: Like a 5 course meal with some of the courses a bit 'off', leaving you savoring the good bits and wanting more.

The American Alex (Ciara Hanna), Julia (Emily O'Brien) and Rachel (Jackie Moore) travel to Thailand to a voluntary work and they lodge in an isolated house where they find a golden statue of a girl. They meet three British guys and bring them to the house for one-night stand and they have a dreadful nightmare with them. In the morning, they find that they have been stolen and the guys have gone missing with their jewels and the golden statue. Soon they meet a witch that tells a story about abused children called Kumari that return as a revengeful ghost. Further, they find that they are in danger.

"Pernicious" is an awful movie with terrible story, characters and performances. I was lured by the fake reviews in IMDb and wasted my time watching this film. The characters are detestable with their arrogance and stupidity with the exception of Julia and in the end I was expecting for their soonest death to end the film. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): Not available

Three American fitties, Alex, Julia and Rachel (Ciara Hanna, Emily O'Brien and Jackie Moore), travel to Thailand in order to teach English to children (and to pick up sleazy British guys in bars for casual sex), but find themselves menaced by a Kumari, the vengeful spirit of a young girl who was sacrificed in a bloody ritual.

Borrowing heavily from post-millennial horror hits The Grudge and Hostel, James Cullen Bressack's Pernicious is a wholly unoriginal torture porn/creepy girl ghost story that tests the patience from the word go. Its three central girls might look great in a pair of tiny shorts, but they're unsympathetic characters, behaving in an irresponsible manner that is bound to end badly; the torture element is suitably nasty with fine gore effects by Jerami Cruise, but it's nothing we haven't seen many, many times before; and the supernatural scenes are totally predictable and scare free, supposedly nail-biting moments including the old 'it's under the duvet' trick and the tried-and-tested 'bathroom mirror reveal' (yawn!).

Just about bearable thanks to the lovely ladies (alas, no nudity!) and the gore (best bit being the shot of a pulsating brain in an old woman's crushed skull), but don't expect Pernicious to deliver anything remotely original.

Now this movie although a 'scary movie' is not very scary at all (at least for me, I've seen over 700 horror movies so I suppose I don't scare easily anymore but I don't think anyone is really gonna clench to their seats with this one).

But it still kept my attention somewhat throughout the running-time which is a bit of an accomplishment at least, granted the pretty faces helped a lot with that and it's also visually fairly competently done... The scenery is nice and scenes of gore and blood are good fun, even though the jump-scares are less successful.

The acting is... so so at best but yeah seen a lot worse when it comes to that as well.

The music is a little overbearing at times, over-dramatic and loud.

The script is, again I've seen movies with worse lol, but yeah nothing to spend your last money on and probably a movie that only holds up for a one time watch.

And yeah I wouldn't call it "good" but it kept my attention somewhat so it's not all bad either, in the end I can only give it about 4 or possibly 4.5/10 though.

Pernicious starts off like a rather naff TVM. Three models (supposedly teachers) rent a house in Thailand and experience some weird goings on, before shrugging them off and going shopping/clubbing. This pretty much continues for a good part of the film before they can ignore it no longer.

Actually the above précis makes it sound more interesting than it really is. There is no real script or acting to speak of, just by the numbers progression. I thought for a moment the film was dubbed because some parts have badly out of synch speech. After every trauma they remain immaculately presented, with not a hair out of place, and strangely unmoved by their experience.

There are a few scenes of Herschell Gordon Lewis style camp ultraviolence, which although obviously fake, is the only redeeming feature of the film. However, they jar with the pedestrian pace and made-for-TV style nature of the rest of the film.

Overall, although not terrible, you need to be seriously bored to bother with this one.