Knights of the Damned - Il risveglio del drago

I wish I could give this film a negative number of stars. Speaking as someone who goes looking for bad fantasy films to watch on purpose, this car crash of a film was so bad I wanted to gouge out my eyes with broken glass. So bad, it wasn't even entertaining.

Poor Ross O'Hennessey- his acting was like a paradisaical island in a sea of effluent, as all the other actors were awful. But you can't polish a turd, and that dialogue was a steaming pile of it.

CGI so awful they could have gained better results with sock puppets. Dialogue written by a three year old. Upbeat acoustic blues in ye olde tavern, played on a glossy guitar.

It looks like a bunch of GCSE media students put in all the things they like (zombies, knights, dragons, warrior women) in a blender and mixed them all up, but forgot how to work a camera or edit video.

It's like someone once heard a fantasy film described to them and thought, 'I can do that'. No. No, you really can't.

PS: I am under the distinct impression that anyone giving positive reviews are mates with the production crew. I'm surprised they have any who want to speak to them after this.

I love a bad movie, this is a bad movie, but not the sort to be enjoyed. It has taken elements that are currently popular and shoe horned them in to a movie very poorly. Even a porno version of Game of Thrones or Walking Dead (Series that this is trying to be) would have more story to follow than this.

I was initially hooked in by how awful the first scene was, it's truly awful but is funny. Slo mo was used on everything, someone had brought a camera that can do 120fps and they were making sure they were going to use it. There is a clip of the guy slipping on a rock in super slow mo only for it to turn out to be nothing… slipping on a rock…. totally pointless. This is how I felt about most of the content of this movie thereafter, it shows us something only for it to be pointless. There was loads of stock footage of bears and wolves in completely different environments adding nothing to the story (if you can call it that), just put in there for the trailer perhaps.

It feels like every part of this film was done on the cheap, like it was some sort of 'Challenge Anika' attempt, where they have 24 hours to make a film from start to finish with just the contents from an old garage to use as props and GCSE students to help out.

I did feel very sad at one point upon seeing the old Blue Peter presenter Tim Vincent had lowered himself to acting in the film. Part of me feels he was only brought in to exploit Blue Peter skills to make some of the paper mache props.

The biggest moment and shock in the film was that it's the first in a trilogy or at least it thinks it is. If they get the funding for another one of these, then everyone should buy themselves a camera with slow-mo functionality and have a go at making a truly terrible movie of their own.

In summary, it's bad, really really bad… seriously, just terrible.

Unfortunately the production values of this overshadow any redeeming features of the plot (so much so that I couldn't find any). Most of the acting was wooden, with the exception of one or two of the main characters. Some of the effects were moderately good (notably the blood splatters), but the CGI dragon was not-so. The sound editor ought to be shot, with most of the dialogue being drowned out by the music or, when there is no music, too quiet to hear. When there is music, most of it is fitting - except for in the tavern, when some sort of silly pop ballad played (which, one would assume was being played by the bard at the inn, on his modern guitar). I also can't believe they were that worried about marking their furniture that they had green baize on the bottom of some of the cups. Fortunately, Cosmeston medieval village pulled off the best and most authentic bits of the setting, but sadly the castle that features towards the end has far too many modern fittings, lighting, cables and other acoutrements to make me take it seriously, at which point I just started laughing about how little attention to detail there was and the fact that the gardens were floodlit, and the corridors contained a gazillion uplighters. The odd use of some sort of Chinese spear by someone in western gear also stuck out as particularly jarring!

Anyone who can independently fund, produce and release a film using a small budget deserves huge respect. Especially given the fact they have so little talent at their disposal.

I saw the 2.5 rating but I weighed that up against the idea of potentially seeing some "hot" amazon warriors fighting dragons. Who wouldn't like that?

Unfortunately those amazon warriors were about as convincing as the UK's current response to the Covid pandemic. I would urge people to avoid this film and frankly I've been too generous with my rating.

Why is it bad? Awful, awful sound, criminal acting, terrible script, painful and at times childlike direction and a meandering storyline that is just banal at best. Give it a miss and definitely under no circumstances pay to watch this.

Here's the thing. The main/lead actors were god awful. No effort put in and sounded/looked as though they were reading the script for the first time there and then! Maybe they were? Clearly this was a money grab which is a shame because maybe this film could have been something had they put the effort, time but most importantly passion in. A fellow reviewer mentions the "bar scene". Yes, it was pretty awful but I thought the supporting artists (or extras) did a better job than the main cast. In fact, in all the scenes the extras did better. That's saying something. The main actors should be embarrassed of their panto- style acting. Why they were cast, who knows?! The camera work was shoddy and this whole film is offensive to indie film and passionate film makers. I'm only giving it a 4 because I know some (not all) of the extras actually put the work in and cared about the film.