Tonight She Comes

Saw 'Tonight She Comes', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.

Giving 'Tonight She Comes' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be a little better than expected, having seen a lot of bad films recently. Won't say that 'Tonight She Comes' is a great film (mediocre actually) because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings if not by much.

'Tonight She Comes' started off quite well, the first twenty minutes or so starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected.

The setting is effectively spooky. Initially, there are spooky and suspenseful moments, it isn't dull, and the storytelling initially does intrigue. Admired that it tried to be more than a standard horror, the supernatural element does intrigue.

However, the story was severely wanting in the second half after starting off promisingly. It is very disjointed and after the promising start the final third especially loses atmosphere, one loses interest and things start to not make sense. Too much of the film is vague and doesn't explore some elements and story strands enough, some dropped soon after being introduced, go nowhere or serve much point. Nowhere near enough is done with the more mystery elements.

Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air and it all felt abrupt. Got the sense that the writers didn't know how to end the film. Would have liked much more tension and suspense (where there is barely any of either), scares could have been more consistent (again nowhere near enough) and some weren't surprising enough and had no atmosphere, the over-obvious sound not helping. Coherence wasn't a strong suit either, where structurally it felt very random, disorganised and with little sense.

Found too the script to lack natural flow and with a fair bit of cheese and blandness going on, and the characters bland with some adopting some annoying and not always logical decision making. There is very little menace or urgency to the conflict, uncreative and unscary kills, the direction is phoned in and generally the acting is subpar. Some elements were overused and gratuitous, adding very little to anything.

Overall, mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Right from the start we're told this must be played loud as hell and then 70's grindhouse style titles are splashed on the screen. This tells me this flick is gonna rock.

Some friends and the mailman, get mixed up in a weird devil cult ritual with the local wackos. Things get very bad.

They come through on the soundtrack with the loud synthesizer type music and keep the violence gory. The effects were awesome with plenty of blood. They even use a totally naked woman smeared in blood as the demonic vessel who walks around taking peoples lives. So you'll have to put up with that for most of the film.

One aspect of the film you'll like is how they try and break every taboo imaginable just for shock value. For example the two girls are enjoying a bottle of beer as they drive down the road and a guy masturbates in the back seat of a mail vehicle putting the result all over the mail. This stuff happens in the first four minutes, so you know what you're in for. The end was cut short but overall a fast paced, kick ass flick. If you enjoyed Evil Dead this one will be right up your alley.

6 donations of period blood for the blood drinking ritual out of 10.

I have never been happier to see cast members die than in this trash film. Everyone is obnoxious and hipster to the nth degree. Just an annoying mess of poorly written and executed story. Ohh and the pseudo synthpop it should have died too.

I don't usually write reviews about films that I didn't like, but in this case I had such a nasty reaction to it, I thought I should come here and leave some of my impressions...

I really DO like the premise. It's very rare to see a truly creepy modern 'Devil Cult' film that is really effective, so I was honestly hopeful. I also really did like the Retro electronic score too. BUT... to me anyway, whenever film makers, despite a good premise or even some nice stylistic touches, like the soundtrack, immediately dive into the lowest, mind-numbingly STUPID behaviour and dialog, then they lose me right away. ANY Horror film where they immediately depict the young people as Oh-So-Excruciatingly-Hip with their bass level crude remarks, style, and manner, to me that honestly completely ruins whatever really GOOD story or any potential that a film may have. I like the review above by the fellow from New Zealand. He didn't really quite know what he just saw or if he really liked it, or if he could recommend it to others. He thought it was 'original', but not much else.

I think the reason why I feel such a strong negative reaction to this movie is because it's like the film makers come across as thinking that the audience is SO blindingly senseless, that we will automatically think it is SO cool to be barraged with painfully crude, UNrealistic dialog and behaviour. It's like we are supposed to 'buy' this idea that young people all act this way today, and it is somehow 'Normal' or expected. To me anyway, the characters come across as SO plastic and affected, and trying SO hard to be 'cool', that it completely takes a person right out of the movie and ruins any kind of resonance with the characters or involvement in the story.

Sadly, if the film makers would have just put the exact same story out there and pretty much developed the plot, tension, suspense, and even the violence in an ARTFUL way, WITHOUT all the 'cool' self-referential 'oh I am being so youthfully crude and hip' crap, THEN, sure, the story about a Devil Cult and the young people who fall prey to them could really have been quite good.

So, PLEASE... just leave out all the crude, supposedly 'hip' nonsense and give us characters, young or not, who ACT NATURAL & NORMAL enough, so that the rest of us can actually relate to them and buy into the story and the believability of who they are and what is happening to them. Otherwise, as far as I am concerned, the whole thing is pretty much just a pointless collection of crude, violent images strung together for shock value, and not much else because ultimately, you simply end up not giving a flying $hit for anyone here...

I fully agree with COVENTRY'S review above: Stupid, senseless, and above all, incredibly INSULTING to the audience that we have to have a story packaged this crudely for us to think it's so awesome. The current average '5' rating is honestly still far too high for this in my lowly and wretched opinion...

I normally do not go out of my way to write bad reviews of films I don't like, but this is one of the rare cases where I honestly felt so insulted by the style and approach of the film makers, that I just had to write this. Sorry the review is so one-sided, but as you likely can tell, this movie really provoked a VERY negative response from me...

This piece felt like it had half the tropes of every teen slasher movie thrown into it, mixed up in a bowl and splattered all over the place without a rhyme or reason. I was waiting for anything to be exaplained, anything at all, but got almost nothing. The acting is literally stupid, only somewhat developed characters being the redneck family, and when people talk about gore I don't see where they saw any. There's literally none even in the unrated version. Music and sound effects were the only thing holding this house of floppy cards somewhat together, especially with the retro vibe. In the end it's a shallow little piece in a shell that tries to be too ambitious. Recommended only for the soundtrack and if you're in the mood to go wtf?? and want to be utterly confused because of extreme stupidity of the characters or events every few seconds.