Forsaken

This is one muddled mess of a flick. The latest woman doing the crab walk is the wife of a priest who loses his faith. He does so after his wife is diagnosed with brain cancer. There are some cool aspects but lost in a film that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It almost feels like 40 minutes got cut out, which was probably crucial to the plot development.

The music mostly drowned out any dialogue. The dialogue sucked anyhow. The picture was grainy as well.

I do warn you that another Ouija board is whipped out and again they don't end by saying goodbye. These are the same people that don't use their turn signals when making a turn.

I thought to myself, wow this film really isn't as bad as everybody has been saying! Then I realised I had just woke up and the damn thing was still playing. Indeed, to escape the awful film I had to create my own entertainment at the back of my eyelids, which was very enjoyable I might add. 8/10. I am a fellow horror fan and thought that the overall premise seemed reasonable and thus I gave it a shot despite the reviews and ratings. The acting in most parts was generic and resembled to me how most people talk the morning after inebriation. I am usually sympathetic and try to be open minded about film and actors as I somewhat generally understand how much work goes into making one however this felt more like an effort for those involved than a labour of love, from directing and cinematography through to acting. Well that is my first review ever completed. I just felt compelled to have a little moan ;P

I watched this film because I love horror flicks, and I hoped for a good one, boy was I disappointed.

The effects was decent, I was scared a couple of times, and the acting of the main character wasn't too bad, but that was it.

The script is so limited, that it's hard to grasp what is really going on here, and it boils down to a demon possession thing where no one understands what is happening.

Truly a dark story with decent visual effects, but it was boring to watch.

All in all it's a decent horror flick, but lacking a good story behind it.

There was no plot. Ex. When the priest was tied up and then all the sudden was at the burning cross...how did he get there? Why was his daughter having the experiences she did? What did it have to do with the rest of the movie? What really happened to the horse that was supposedly killed? Why was there a cult and what did it have to do with anything? Literally the worst movie plot I've ever seen. The only good thing is that it was kinda creepy and the makeup and effects were done better than the whole entire movie plot line. I'm a huge fan of horror. I watch it enough that it doesn't really scare me anymore, so a good story line is needed to keep me interested. I woke up today pretty hung over and decided to give it a try. At first I was stoked that it was actually creeping me out. It's been a while. I love the scare effect. But then, I was just sad cuz the movie makes no sense. If the producers of this movie see this, please do it better. Cuz it has the potential to really scare the crap outta me.

Possession films are not usually films habitually seen by me. There was something though mildly intriguing about 'Forsaken's' idea. There are examples of good films about possession, and while horror is not my favourite genre of film there is an appreciation for and there are classics in it.

'Forsaken' is far from a good example of a possession or horror film. It is a classic example of how not to do either, is a terrible film on its own and that it's low budget is not an excuse (seeing as there are films out there made on a low budget and still manage to be watchable). It doesn't even have a promising opening scene, nothing unsettling or suspenseful and bordering on the silly, atmospheric set design (the rest of the production values are just too amateurish to make me remotely appreciate it) or a watchable actor in a small role trying to do something with it to make things better.

Visually, 'Forsaken' looks poor. It is so chaotically and self-indulgently shot, sloppily and sometimes confusingly edited, there is such a dreary look to the lighting and the effects and such are a shambles. Whether the set or anything like that was good was hard to tell or appreciate because of bad everything else in the production values looked and when distracted by everything in the film being so amateurishly executed.

The music is often intrusive and inappropriate in mood and placement, generating absolutely no suspense because it makes it so obvious something bad or unforeseeable is going to happen. It and the bizarre sound mixing tend to drown out the dialogue.

Not that the dialogue was worth hearing. When it was not hard to understand (with it being rambling gibberish delivered in never other than mumbling), the dialogue is enough to make even the most childish child feel dumb and it constantly sounds awkward. It rambles and doesn't make sense with a lot of cheese and mawkishness.

Everything about the story execution feels stale and incredibly dull. Even worse is that it's often incoherent, with such aimless and all-over-the-place and sprawling plotting, and then it's too obvious to be scary, too dull to be tense or suspenseful, too cheesy to be fun and too ridiculous to be thrilling. None of those positive attributes are present at any thing and all the negative attributes are plastered all over.

Can't say much positive about the personality and development deprived characters or the flat direction and insipid all round acting where everybody mumbles their lines in an uninterested fashion.

Basically, a mess with few if any redeeming qualities other than it conceptually intrigued mildly. 1/10 Bethany Cox