Day of Reckoning

A vote of 1 is too good for this movie. I stopped viewing after a few minutes.

You could tell from the start it was going to be awful with the cardboard acting.

The CGI must be an example of the worst CGI possible, it makes old Sinbad Plasticine creature look 100% real. ( I loved the old Sinbad movies as a kid)

Why do these people even bother? I downloaded it for free and feel cheated and criminal that it took space on my hard drive.

I worry about people that voted this above 1

I give this film 3 stars because most of the cast does a very good job in putting a sincere effort to make this work. They did not have much to work with, but they tried! The story line is pure Syfy routine, and the ENTIRE storyline is trite and formulaic, and which has been rehashed in every movie they have EVER made!

The negligent and estranged husband/father is the hero of the day and he and his ex-wife fall back in love like EVERY movie they have EVER made.

The constant flow of plot connivences is hysterical. When a tool is needed SHAZAAM it appears, when someone needs to be found despite chaos and crowds SHAZAAM they are found. Also events not logical to the plot occur to make a point. Example: ALL the demons are gone, but one "last" one appears, in order to kill the bad guy at the end.

People who do not like guns SUDDENLY become sharpshooters, even the mother and teenage son! It is all so contrived that near the end I almost shut it off!

One last point is the fact that the family who become the heroes is all white and the two Hispanic characters are portrayed as the evil and cowardly soldier and the dimwitted boyfriend of the mother!!!

GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!

I am a sucker for the horror genre, and I am the first to admit that I was lured in by the promise of the movie cover/poster. Especially because it did seem rather interesting, sort of a mixture between something demonic and zombiesque.

First of all, it was an uphill struggle to actually sit through the entire movie, because it was a massively generic storyline, which offered very little in terms of entertainment value, and even less so in originality. Furthermore, the storyline was horribly predictable, to the point of where you just shake your head well ahead of things actually happening.

But for a horror movie, then "Day of Reckoning" was scarily devoid of anything even remotely scary. And it would have served the movie well if they had opted to go for a proper storyline that could have bolstered the fact that this was intended to be a horror movie.

Furthermore, as a horror movie it is essential to have proper practical effects and/or CGI. Alas, it can be said in all honesty that this is something that "Day of Reckoning" didn't have. And it was showing blatantly on the screen, because the CGI was laughable at best, and it was super poorly animated to the point of being an eyesore.

I can't recall any of the acting performances in the movie, so it is safe to say the cast weren't particularly memorable. I am sure that they did the best they could given the severe restrictions they had anchoring them down.

Surpringly enough I managed to suffer through the entire ordeal that is "Day of Reckoning", but it was a very hard struggle. And I can honestly say that this is not a movie that you will return to watch a second time, providing you get through it the first time.

So you have monsters coming out of a hole in the earth every fifteen years. Salt kills them. And no one thought to dump salt water in the hole? Just wondering.

Part of me knew what to expect from 'Day of Reckoning' and that it was meant to be not take it too seriously and take it for what it is films. The idea was a good one and the cover looked cool and a little creepy, so while not expecting much part of me wanted to enjoy it.

While there are certainly far worse films than 'Day of Reckoning', even taking it for what it's meant to be it is a major failure and really not a good film at all. There are similar films and low-budget films that have been surprisingly average and above, so actually 'Day of Reckoning' could have been good with the right execution. Instead a good idea is ruined by the terrible way nearly everything is executed and the coolness and creepiness stays in solely in cover and doesn't translate in the film.

'Day of Reckoning' at least has occasional splashes of fun and some semi-decent scenery.

However, while there has been worse acting it is still poor, both bland and forced. None of the characters are easy to get behind or interesting, it's all very flimsy and any attempts to develop them feel like melodramatic padding. Their decisions and behaviours also don't make sense and they show very little emotion to tense or dramatic situations.

Nearly everything severely underwhelms. Not just being visually cheap and poorly acted and written even worse but what seemed like a decent, if very generic, idea was executed in typical fashion, with no imagination whatsoever and only occasional splashes of fun.

Faring worse are the production values, story and writing. 'Day of Reckoning', aside from the scenery, is drably shot and sloppily edited, but it's the truly abysmal special effects that are the worst. As the creatures were made on a low-budget it would have been forgiven a little if it was not great, but when the effects for the sharks look as if no effort was given in making them without looking so goofy and unfinished-looking that is hard to ignore or forgive.

Can say no better about the portrayal of the creatures either. They exude little personality either, no menace, not even any unintentional goofiness. Generally the attack scenes, apart from the odd mild amusement, are sloppily edited, too brief and devoid of suspense or sense of horror. Moreover, there is no attempt to give them any explanation or development so the motivations and such are confused and vague.

It is hard to not take 'Day of Reckoning' seriously, when it itself doesn't know whether to take itself seriously or not. Some parts make earnest attempts to not be stupid but come over as pedestrian and over-serious. Other parts go well overboard on the silliness that one is cringing rather than being entertained.

Really wanted to like the story here because the concept was intriguing slightly, but while it starts nicely the further the movie progresses the lazier, cheesier and more formulaic it gets and it gets stale quickly.

Overall, very poor. 2/10 Bethany Cox