The Chosen

A curse occurs in a family where everyone's age looks misleadingly too young or too old. It's one of the strange things about The Chosen, the leads seem very young for their characters who are playing the uncle and mother although they're more fitting as siblings. Furthermore, the brief jump scares occasionally turn into unintentional comedy with stiff acting and awkward scenes as though these events are pranks gone wrong instead of genuine haunting.

To its credit, the setup for the premise is decent. It's a more unique twist of the usual possession plot. There's a good use of family bond here, the two leads can at least produce on-screen platonic relationships. It's definitely aimed towards the younger audience who can relate more. However, the acting isn't superb all around, thus more character it tries to introduce the more they become like strangers bumping into each other.

Any attempt at horror quickly fades. The sudden pop up of random lady or the child staring bizarrely only makes it uncomfortably odd, far from creepy. Later on it relies on cheesy CG and unconvincing practical effects that utter hamper the tension. Drama between the characters is inconsistent, the development sometimes happens too sudden or just inexplicably arbitrary.

It's a missed opportunity since there's a good foundation for horror here, but with such shoddy presentation The Chosen is devoid of any thrill.

How can I put this? You know how when you go to the dentist to have root canal work done and the dentist tells you that you may experience some 'discomfort' afterward and what he really means is that you'll be in agony once the anaesthesia wears off and you'll just want to lie down in a dark room and pray for death rather than live through one more second of the pain shredding its way through your nervous system? Yeah. This movie. This movie right here is like having root canal work carried out on your soul. Forget it. Don't watch it, don't look at it, don't even bother reading the rest of this review. For real. You will find no redeeming qualities in this movie. Okay, so maybe the main guy was OK acting wise. I do have one question for the movie producers...what was with the end credits soundtrack choice? Really? You're gonna hit us with some trap rap hip hop tune that was in no way related to anything that happened in the movie and really really really didn't go with the atmosphere (or lack of) that you tried (and failed) to aim for? Nope. I'm out. NEXT!

Well, it was at least amusing for how pathetic it was. But my friends and I couldn't finish it because it got boring after a little while.

When I found "The Chosen" I had no knowledge about it at all. I didn't know who starred in it or what it was about. I just happened to find it in the horror section. And being a horror fan I needed very little persuasion in order to pick it up and give it a go.

I must say that I found the story to be rather interesting. It was a good story concept and there were some rather twisted and disturbing elements to it, such as having to sacrifice your own family members in order for a single person to remain alive and having to pick out which ones to sacrifice. It should be said that the story was rather predictable, so don't expect any curve balls here.

The acting in the movie was adequate, although I wasn't familiar with anyone on the cast list. Which, in itself, is a plus for me, because I like watching new acting talents in movies.

For a horror movie that involved a hellish entity, then it was a movie that was rather scarce on special effects. Sure, there were special effects and CGI in the movie, just used in moderation. Which was a shame, because it felt like it held the movie back.

The movie was in overall adequate, but at times it felt a bit forced and rigid at times. Whether that was because of the director or the writers I do not know. But it was an enjoyable enough movie for what it turned out to be.

As for the ending of the movie, well it made very little sense to me, so I guess that whatever the writers were aiming at was lost on me.

All in all, "The Chosen" scores 5 out of 10 stars from me.

This movie was mostly people talking and dumb music, terrible waste of money, I switch my ticket for another movie, this is misleading, I thought it would be a movie instead it was mostly music playing and people talking about the birth of Christ.