Satanic

The formula is pretty much standard. You take an up and coming young starlet (Modern Family's Sarah Hyland ) and throw her in a B movie. The film gets a bump in eye balls because of her potential star power and she gets to push away her TV star image and see if she has any pull with a wider audience.

On paper it makes sense, and the quality of the movie is almost unimportant. Well, this time the product is one of the most unforgettable films you may never see, and really all the sadder because the 1st ½ of the film did have promise.

The plot is simple - 4 young college students go to LA for a tour of Satanic sites, and my pet cat can guess how it goes from there. The actors have potential, and although Hyland is the star, Steven Krueger is by far the most interesting character, playing a 'nice' jock. His story could have been much more interesting, and they simply toy with his religious nature before forgetting it ever existed.

The director does a nice job building tension (or is it just boring?), until a very sudden and particularly still conclusion. I can't decide if the sound track and back ground noise are cool or super dumb.

The real fall of this movie is that is brings nothing new or interesting to the genre. There is basically 0 explanation and logic to several of the key parts of the film. Good horror is similar to detective films where the audience gets some joy out of figuring out the meanie, and coming up with a theory of how to protect themselves were they in a similar situation. Think of it as a choose your own adventure where someone else is making the choices, and it is fun to think about how things would differ had a character made the other choice. This film robs us of that, and it is why it ultimately fails.

Hello Sarah Hyland, we see you outside your comfort zone. Acting and tension 'B', directing, plot and enjoyment 'F'.

After watching this on Netflix tonight I looked it up here at IMDb to learn more about it. What I learned is that apparently I am about the only soul who liked it. I was not expecting much, but it 'grew' on me. Now, I will agree with others who point out the characters are --- mostly--- not at all likable. Seth is particularly unpleasant; who would put up with a friend like him? There is a very effective 'callback' at the end of the film to a minor event at the beginning and the filmmakers have done a nice job of whipping up a nightmare as the picture races to its end. I did not find the climax at all confusing... if you remember what a character said earlier about Hell. Perhaps this motion picture is not for everyone. But, that just means those of us who like it will enjoy it all the more. By all means, see for yourself and make your own call.

I made an IMDb account just to review this mind-numbingly boring film. Don't approach this film unless you have a gun pointed to your back: the plot might have worked had it not been for the extremely unlikeable characters. I usually like (or at least, can sit through) crappy horror, but I couldn't even sit through this one. Avoid at all costs.

A tour of LA's creepiest places leads to a chance encounter with a strange woman and a dangerous ritual for four visiting students.

The protagonists are unlikeable, and the time wasted developing them just makes them more so, but there's enough that's creepy and disturbing about Satanic to make it an acceptable horror film. Nothing you'll want to see twice, but if you and your friends just want a dumb horror movie, Satanic is better than a lot of things you could settle for.

At times, it feels like a vanity project for Hyland, whose character is the movie's conscience and reason and everything else that's supposedly decent and mature, but as with all vanity projects, it ends up a poor way to showcase her potential. When she wants to be cute, she's cute enough, but when she's scared she comes off as hysterical, and when she's righteous, she comes off as overbearing. It's hard to say how much of this is the fault of the script or direction.

Two young couples heading for a music festival find themselves in a nightmare scenario in Los Angeles after taking a day to check out some of the true crime hot spots in town. While one couple is straight laced and reserved, the other is attracted to Gothic culture and thrill seeking. Peer pressure and bad decisions lead to a nightmare scenario for all four teens. Satanic fits somewhere in between cookie cutter teen horror of the last 20 plus years and a cable television movie of the week. It isn't horrible but probably not worth watching again. If you've ran out of options and don't mind lowering your standards, this one shouldn't have you rolling your eyes too much.