Queen of Spades

Fun fact to start off: using a mythology/theme or whatever you want to call it, that other movie(s) have used, does not make this a remake of said movie(s). But I get if you feel there are similarities. They are kind of obvious or come with the territory.

That being said, this is another horror movie that starts off quite interesting and then continues with characters doing something they just shouldn't be doing. But then again, if we didn't have those scene that are extremely cringe worthy ... well the movie(s) wouldn't happen ... so either cut this some slack and go with the flow or don't watch it at all.

Of course there are more flaws ahead and this does not have the best actors (although for horror movie standards they are not so bad either) or the biggest budget. But it works with what it has, the shock effects are working most of the time and the twists are nicely put along the way.

Just really didn't care for it. It didn't seem scary or spooky or have any plot that was original or in any way different from norm. The acting wasn't great. Just not much to it and definitely no UMPH.

I've seen both the Russian Queen of spades and queen of spades the dark rite. While those movies were...ok. The first being the better of the two in my opinion.

This version was simply not good. Bad acting, the protagonists' ill placed teen angst against her mother (for some reason) along with the anger of her friend against her mother. None of the actors seemed to know how to display any sort of emotion. Just dry, dull performances and direction. Terribly predictable, terribly acted. Just plain terrible.

This one is a hard pass, my friends.

Queen of Spades had me interested, but while I was watching it I kept wondering how much better could this have been if there was a proper budget attached to it. Clearly no special effects, some make-up and the necessarily distorted voice and that is it, the rest, camera work and actors doing their job.

So all in all a quite practical movie, with an overused plot, the same development of such productions, but I have to admit the execution was not bad. Not great, not good, but not bad, this is why I rated it 4 stars, cause it had something going for it, just that they took absolutely no chances with this film. At any given point during its runtime, you're able to predict the next 2 even 3 moves that will be soon to come, and the ending itself, I mean come on, one last moment to shine and they didn't even go out with a spark.

Queen of Spades is the same movie you've seen during the 80-90s period, so definitely not something to recommend unless you want to hook up on some nostalgia. Again, not the worst of movies, but adds nothing new to the haunting formula.

Cheers!

This is just a run of the mill possession story.

What? This is actually a rehash of the Russian horror movie Pikovaya dama. Chyornyy obryad (2015) (aka "Pikovaya dama. Chyornyy obryad"). This version does not require subtitles.

This is not as good as most or more original of the genre. It is kids playing with a summoning spell that of course summons. Naturally, they must all die. Will they take it in their stride or try to undo what they have done?

There is nothing exceptional so people that like this stuff will either praise the movie for following the standard formula or diss the movie as nothing unique including the acting and storyline.

The actors are not known except for a few contemporary movies that you may have watched. The main queen Ava Preston does have 30+ credits to her name.