Scourge

Let me start off by saying I didn't love, like, dislike, or hate Scourge. It left me with a very indifferent feeling.

Let's start with the pros. The concept behind Scourge is really cool and almost a fun idea. The effects and camera-work were well done. Some scenes were especially better than others (For example a scene in a mall involving an "infected").

Here are the cons. The acting is wooden and it's hard to get into the story when your characters take dramatic pauses after they say something that's supposed to keep you in suspense. The acting was especially horrid from the ladies in this movie. The story never get's as exciting as it should be because the script is so boring it leaves you wanting to watch an action packed movie as opposed to a slow-burn psychological horror. It tried to be a gory and action packed horror movie that was also psychological and slow burn which in my opinion failed because the two styles clashed.

I'd say skip it if you see it at stores and pick something up you'll know you'll enjoy. Even though it's technically sound it can't save awful actors and a lifeless script. Wait for it's syfy run.

An ancient pestilence called The Scourge has been set free in a small town after being entombed in a church's masonry for a century and a half...

We start off with a bit of promise because of a wild naked man. That always sparks my interest. But sadly, that was probably the best part of the film.

Is the actress who plays Lydia the worst actress ever? Possibly. But then again, the skateboard chick is pretty bad, too. These poor performances are unfortunate, because with better ones this might have been a decent movie -- indeed, we have more than passable blood effects and while the film is a tad heavy on the CGI... it is not the worst CGI you will see this year.

But seriously... How many times can you say "sweetheart" within five minutes? We need a script doctor.

Scott (Nick Rhind) has come to town, meeting his ex Jesse (Robyn Ledoux) in the process. Well, also in said town, a church has burned down, and it had entombed an ancient pestilence called "The Scourge", which has gotten loose, and starts turning anyone it infects into a hungry, belching, zombie like being that eats any kind of food, and attacks and spreads the parasite. Can Scott and Jesse stop The Scourge before it's too late, and rekindle their love in the process? Can they deal with Corrupt Sheriff Durst (Russ Ferrier)? Will you find any reason to care?

I will give "Scourge" this much: it does have a few decent gory scenes (best one: jaw punched nearly off), a sense of awareness, and the Canadian feeling of the movie doesn't hurt. Also, I like the feel of the movie at times, as it feels like the kind of unambitious but watchable B-Movies you'd get back in the 80's. Oh, and the CG creature effects aren't too bad. They aren't great, but they are better than a lot of low budget CG creations.

That's not to say that this is a good movie. If you took "The Hidden" and "Slither", and removed much that made them noteworthy, then "Scourge" is what you get. The whole thing is also a cliché as you get, and not in a good way. Corrupt police? Check. Bad boy with a past? Yep. Rekindled romance between bad boy and ex-girlfriend? Uh huh. Comic relief fat guy? You bet your ass. It also doesn't help that none of the performances here are worth a damn, especially two leads, who have the charisma and chemistry of dry cement. Watching them, I couldn't help but roll my eyes when they finally got together, and this is coming from a guy whose a bit of a romantic at heart. I normally love seeing two people get together, but not if I don't care about them.

I didn't really hate "Scourge". but that's because I didn't really give a s#!t about it either. If you're going to watch it, wait until it comes on TV, particularly the Chiller channel, which tends to pick up movies like this regularly.

As bodies start piling up, a couple realize their small town is under attack by a strange parasitic organism that feeds on it's host and then savagely kills them, forcing them to find a way of stopping the menace.

This was a pretty decent overall effort that doesn't really have all that many flaws about it. Among the better aspects here is the rather nice nature of the body-swapping parasite that attacks here which manages to keep this one with an air of mystery about it as to who is the next host of the dangerous creature, and the mythology surrounding that is rather nicely accomplished here. That also leaves the attacks to be developed quite well with the film resorting to simply miscommunication and obscure behavior at the beginning to really letting loose and showing off the deformed bodies as the parasite's activities get more pronounced and aggressive resulting in stellar action scenes as well. There's the fine jail-house ambush that results in the police chase through the streets upon the escape, a wonderful stalking scene in the bowels of a hockey arena following a great confrontation in the locker room and the finale in the motel room is really enjoyable with the change from the supposed seduction offering plenty of creature fun with the escaped creature switching around bodies trying to escape while the few known containment tactics are put to great use. Still, there's a few small flaws here starting with the silly need for the film to go so far into their back-story history that it tends to really grind the film to a halt since the initial outbreak and possession by the creature is done in the film's opening scene which is setting this up for a thrilling pace only for the love-struck romance to get featured and pull that down. As well, the decision for each of them to be in romances that are thrown away simply to bring them back together doesn't make much sense beyond adding to the body count and there's so much missed opportunities to be had from the fact that they stumble upon the creatures solely because their possessed activities are mistaken for cheating on them and then get swept away from there. As well, there's the film's incredibly lame and really unbelievable CGI present which doesn't make much sense at all and really does tend to expose the cheapness and limitations of the story by not really featuring all that many impressive attributes to the story whenever they're featured for its' not just for the creature and the gory aftermath of it's attacks but also for some really explosive action scenes which really highlights those issues. Otherwise, this one wasn't all that bad.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and male Nudity.

IMDb's synopsis for SCOURGE reads far better than the movie itself. An ancient evil is accidentally released in our time and jumps from body to body as it goes about doing something or other. I was never sure what. A young man is suspected of a string of murders, which actually is the thing jumping from body to body (through the belly button, I might add) and leaving each former victim dead dead dead. The creature is a close copy of the alien creature from THE HIDDEN, which also leaps from body to body as it goes about its business, which involves eating a lot, driving a very fast car, trying out sex for the first time, and running for president. At least that creature had a purpose. This one doesn't seem to know what it wants. The creature effects are not bad, but the acting is from hunger and there's little plot. I watched this on DVD one day and SPLINTER, about a parasite that attacks and absorbs people's bodies, on TV the next day. Watch SPLINTER instead. Or THE HIDDEN, which I first saw in the movies and consider a semi-classic, even if it is a knockoff of ALIEN and THE TERMINATOR.