El talismán

This is definitely not a bad movie despite what others think here. It's so short that if you have any preoccupation with boredom that is virtually destroyed. With that aside, what does this movie have to offer? It's not scary, unless you're under the age of the highest voting score here. If that really bothers you, then you might think of each villainous scene as cheesy.

This is essentially a mystery draped in the occult. A similar story would be The Ninth Gate. This is probably the kind of movie you watch in the middle of the night during October (while you're in the Halloween mood). It might bug you out more if you are half asleep, because you may have difficulty distinguishing between the dream and real sequences, and finally the last 10 minutes could be a little disturbing too.

The premise starts with a young man beginning class at an expensive international school for delinquents, and he also suffers from ominous nightmares. The flick doesn't waste too much time presenting the enigmatic main character (why is he attending this school, and what of these dreams?), and introducing an intriguing antagonist(why is he picking off people for?). Therefore, I find it hard to believe someone will have a hard time sitting through this, unless they don't like horror movies (there are supernatural evil doers), they've seen some think like it already (which I cannot come up with), or it isn't that flashy for them (this movie isn't out to dazzle you with special effects or cunning murder scenes, but it does have some respectable twists).

Arriving at a strange European college, a student finds that a series of bizarre incidents around the school is the cause of a summoned demon that is trying to open the gates of Hell to unleash Armageddon on mankind requires his services to complete the ritual and tries to stop it.

While this one may not be one of the best entries out there, there's some decent stuff here. One of the better facets here is the film's rather nice setup offering a lot of details that are brought together here. With the overall discovery of the demonic incantations being applied by the staff and students at the facility, the connection with the family backstory involving his missing sister and the fateful accident with his parents, and the interconnected tales within everything here, it all serves well enough here to generate a highly enjoyable setup that has a lot to like. Making the least likely person the head of the whole apocalyptic plan was a bit of a stretch to believe thinking about afterward, but it keeps the viewer hooked into thinking anything can happen as there's a lot of mystery wrung out of this that captivates what little attention that could have been given, and the storyline is pretty clever. The other effect aspect of this one is the rather effective atmosphere that comes about due to the fine apocalyptic setup. The overall mixture of sorcery and black magic, especially with the rituals being prepared here for the final ceremony, combines with the location being a great setting for some Gothic atmosphere. This comes about with its darkened hallways, eerie cemetery, and expansive rooms within to make for some decent moments at times when this one really gets its solid plot going as there's some general creepiness on display here. That's all given an emphatic boost with the graphic demon attacks involving the being viciously ripping people's hearts out that delivers some solid low-budget blood splatter for gore to help overcome the lack of other real effects here. With a fine Gothic-tinged finale also coming into play here, the film does manage to have some generally appealing factors going for it. That said, there's still plenty to dislike here. The main stumbling block is from the exceptionally short running time that barely gives this one an hour-long running time, with a rather inane amount of time spent on flashbacks that aren't that exciting or thrilling and never seem capable of giving the film any energy as it meanders on from one scene to the next. There is also no suspense whatsoever involving a rather unimposing supernatural killer that doesn't evoke fear at all. There were plenty of opportunities to provide some cheap thrills and instead relies on having some supposedly scary demon with glowing eyes popping up sometimes to kill people for a sacrificial ritual to give off scares. He never did, and his power simply sticking his hand inside your body and pulling out your heart in one piece was entirely laughable. When added to this one's low-budget gloss, comes up rather lacking in the end.

Rated R: Violence and Language.

If you like horror movies, you have probably seen this movie, done better, before. The special effects were weak, mainly red glowing eyes, and hearts being burned out of chests. The acting was half-hearted at best, the actors seemed bored by the whole affair. The basic premise of the movie, is two teenage siblings, separated by a mysterious event in the past, hold the key to stopping a (very small) cult from helping a fallen angel destroy the world. Naturally this happens at a boarding school somewhere. The accents in the movie were awful. The fallen angel resembled a constipated Uncle Festor from the Adams Family, but he was the most menacing and convincing character in the movie. Interestingly enough the talisman the movie is named after is a large pewter-looking necklace, that features an upside-down cross superimposed on an upside-down pentagram. There wasn't any real character development, so who cared who died or didn't, so it wasn't dramatic or spooky. There wasn't enough camp to make this it cheesy. No black comedy, to make it a cult classic, so I guess this just has to be a bad movie. Watch the original Satan's School for Girls instead. I think that may have been the inspiration for this anyway.

It's said that if you put a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters, one will write a shakespearean play. The other 999,999 are likely to write something like this.

The plot borders on the non-existent, the deaths are meaningless, the characters as 2 dimensional as the flaming-heart special effects. Overall, this isn't a film I'd recommend to the discerning horror film fan.

The fact it's rated "15" in England kinda lets on to the fact that it's no Elm Street, and the constant flashbacks take the film from the "mind numbing" category into the "annoying" one. The film features topics such as incest, demon worship and serial killing - seemingly, the base for a great film. However, the wooden acting (basing the film abroad gives birth to a new realm of stupidity in cheesy accents) and gratuitous special effects restricted to glowing red eyes and heart-ripping, mean that this film is as horrifying as...well....starring in it.

Harsh? Not really. If there's a plotline running through this film and not just a rehashing of more clichés than there are murders then I failed to notice it. The characters aren't fleshed out at all, the deaths follow no visible pattern and all in all the film is more predictable than a James Bond innuendo.

It's hard to come up with one word to sum this entire film up, especially without resorting to the libellous. I'd hesitate to describe it as "terrible" since it does provide some hints and tips to new writers how NOT to write a script. I'll settle for "laughable".

Granted, this is not one of the better movies to come out of Full Moon since their departure from Paramount. It isn't one of the worst, either. David Decoteau (under alias), directs this seemingly gothic movie. I say "seemingly" because, where is is dark and dreary (which I liked that), it still doesn't develop into the dark, gothic opus it really could have.

I have noticed...Quit a few Full Moon films take a really good idea, and destroy it with low budget films, full of bad acting, bad directing and silly scripts. I really feel they should allow outside talent. Anyway, this was a good idea, which is described in other reviews, so I will leave it out. The sets were very dark and gloomy, the cemetary was kinda creepy in that European cemetary kinda way. The Fallen Angel, was kinda silly looking, but worked on the budget. The blood spraying was utterly silly and the 2-dimensional CGI flames were just pitiful.

This really could have been a decent movie, given a bigger budget and a director that really understand the subject matter.

5 out of 10