Santet

Another bad horror flick! They just don't make them like they used to..Horrible storyline and even worse acting. The scary parts are not scary, neither are the culprits portraying them.

I got roped into this atrocity by one of those click-bait headlines promising to show you the "best horror movies you've never heard of." Wel, it certainly showed me several I'd never heard of, but none of them were anywhere close to "best," especially this clump. Evidently, the very strangely put-together star, Kelley Brook, has been in a few TV shows or something, but I don't know how or why. She can't act. She can't even act like she can act. She was even more lame than the poor Indonesian dude who played her husband. In fact, the only real actors in the film were the kids and I'm hoping being in this thing doesn't ruin their future. There's seriously no scares, no story, no magic, nothing supernatural, or anything else that would make this be called a horror movie. Avoid this at all cost.

Reading some online reviews of this film, you would think it is the worst thing ever made, and that top-billed Kelly Brook is the worst thing in it.

I found 'Black Magic' (otherwise known as the more memorable 'Santet') well-made but run-of-the-mill, with a succession of unexplained horrors afflicting each member of the central family one by one. In-keeping with its rather generic title, there is little original here, but the setting of Indonesia for its main location gives the production a look unlike most other cursed family horrors of this type. Kelly Brook makes a fine job of the constantly horrified wife and mother Laura, and only Marcelino Lefrandt as her husband Rendy lacks a certain gravitas as the main male lead.

Well orchestrated twists and turns abound here, the only problem is that the succession of characters being mortally injured and then fighting fit before being mortally injured again, acting as if possessed and then coming round before being possessed again, has a certain repetition about it - but I've seen a lot worse than this.

This is supposed to be a film about a son and his family returning to Indonesia to care for his sick mother. This happens not long after his father died at home from a fall off a balcony. There is more to the mother's ailments than simply being sick. It is black magic.

This film has some major issues. Let's start with the acting. I am not familiar with Kelly Brook and I don't know that I will ever have the desire to see her in anything else. Nothing about the way she acted came across as natural. It was very easy to see that she was forcing herself to play the part rather than make us believe she was actually her character. It was pretty bad. If I had to name the best actors it would have to go to the kids. They at least showed future potential.

The production quality may be debatable for some but I thought that it was filmed ok. The audio seemed a bit strange to me. I can't really pinpoint what the problem was but it was off. The special effects were not impressive yet there were times where there could've been some semi-horrific stuff thrown in to make this "Horror" movie an actual horror movie.

The story is a hot mess. I don't mind not understanding certain aspects of a story being elusive in as long as it either comes together in the end or it has been set up to add more horror by not understanding the whys.

I'll give my final thoughts on it here because pass this point I'll have some spoilers. This was a film that needed a lot of work. It could've been much better and it is disappointing to see films not reach their potential. It just didn't work for me.

*************************************SPOILERS***************************************

So, we find out that the reason for the black magic may have something to do with a former employe by the name of Amber who worked for the son's father. In the final climatic scene, we learn the family maid, Fatma,(I guess that's what she was or maybe a house manager.) had a relationship with the son's father and Amber was the product of that relationship. It is implied that the son had killed Amber, thinking that she and his dad were having an affair. Fatma had been the one using black magic to exact revenge for the death of her daughter. That's it. No more explanation than that.

Where was the rest of the story? Why did the son think that his dad was having an affair with Amber? How long ago did all this happen? Why did the son dig all the holes in the yard? Was she buried there?

Really?

Wow a current low budget horror film made in the Philippines. Is Kelly Brook nuts? She must REALLY need the money. It's freaking dangerous over there. I guess she's too dense to read the news.

The movie's idea of possession is you scream and can't use your left foot.

No one in this film can act. AT ALL.

The one thing I can say in favor of it, they've learned to make sharp images since the 70's when those grainy, scratched grind house prints were churning out of the Philippines.