The Crooked Man

There is a story here. Not an original one but it's good enough. Children awaken a curse and years later they're dealing with the last of it. Kills, haunting stuff inter-people dramatics etc.

But this movie makes so many bad decisions. The Crooked Man should have looked fine, but not only do they just put him on screen all the time, they put a terrible looking effect on him too.

(There are scenes where he's more out of view and it looks actually good. Those are rare.)

The opening scene really matters for the story and not only is it done poorly, later on you see better shots of the same scene. They should have reused those at the start and even if not, we didn't have to know that.

And it's got a lot of that and it's noticeable. Good lesson on what not to do for a director when everybody else seems to be at least showing up.

"The Crooked Man" has got to be one of the worst horror movies I've ever sat through. The storyline felt weak and uninspired, and the special effects were terrible, so noticeably bad that they constantly pulled me out of the experience. The characters were flat, and the acting didn't help either. Honestly, there was nothing remotely scary or engaging about it. If you're looking for a good horror flick, you'd be better off skipping this one altogether. It's a waste of time and does no justice to the genre. Even background noise would've been a better use of my time than watching this mess unfold.

And those kids will be some of the only people to attend your funeral services. That and Michael Jai White. Why did the pizza man even exist in this movie? I can talk all day about how silly this movie is. There are so many scenes. Like when the girl sees the earth tear open and asks a pedestrian who is casually jogging "did you see that?" Or when she gives the description of the crooked mans home "two rocks near a tree in the woods" and her friend knows exactly what shes talking about because he saw something like that as a boyscout. If this movie was making an attempt at parody, it was very subtle. I give this movie 4 crooked sixpence out of 10.

Average horror flick that is passable for a TV movie. Its one redeeming feature is the unusual special effects applied to the villain. OK as a B movie, or as the first in a horror flick line-up night on Halloween.

So toward the start of the movie, one girls asks, "Have you heard about the song that kills you if you sing it?" Hmm... substitute "video" for "song" and "watch" for "sing," and you have a used premise. And the Crooked Man himself bears a striking resemblance to another legendary figure that kills people. There IS something of a plot here-kids unwittingly unleash an evil force, it kills a bunch of people until the protagonists (this is NOT a spoiler alert) figure out a way to stop it, and then they do. Somehow, the fact that the production values are pretty good and the cast is adequate makes this even more frustrating.

I'm glad Michael Jai White made some pocket change for his blink-and-you-might-miss-it appearance. But they really didn't give him much to do. He didn't even take his shirt off.

(Well, I was at home with a cold, and it let me pass two hours without having to think. That's my excuse. If you watch this movie, what's yours?)