Curse of the Sin Eater

I consider that the concept or the main idea is interesting. One poor boy assuming other's sins in exchange for money, it sounds interesting. Of course.

However, the movie is slow, full of drama, no action, no horror. Every single time that a "ghost" appears looks like a low bugdet movie. Without the ghosts, the movie would be much better. Plus, you can see a color change on the image when a ghost appears, that is terrible.

I didn't like the movie, and I feel angry because as I said, the initial idea is promising, but everything goes down while the movie is playing.

In conclusion, well idea, bad execution.

Sin Eaters exist in folklore, and take on the transgressions of a deceased person. It's a notion full of possibilities for a modern horror film. But they are never realized here. There is not enough horror to call this a horror film, and not enough suspense to call it a thriller. The main inspiration seems to be Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, with a stern-faced housekeeper overseeing a forbidding mansion. But even this isn't fully exploited. A few setups show some promise to bring this up a notch, but the execution is lacking and the ideas are never fleshed out.

Basically, it feels like a made-for-cable film on a tight budget. The acting from everyone is bland. Nothing in it is particularly memorable or noteworthy. It gets three stars because there is lots worse on streaming services, but there is also lots better.

When I sat down to watch the 2024 movie "Curse of the Sin Eater" from director Justin Denton, I had never actually heard about it. But the movie's cover proved interesting enough, and the fact that it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, and given my fascination with the horror genre, of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch the movie.

I literally had no idea what I was in for here, so writers Adam Davis and Will Corona Pilgrim essentially had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

The narrative is a slow burn. You need to venture well over halfway through the movie before things start to happen. And truth be told, I have to admit that my interest in the story was waning at that point. So writers Adam Davis and Will Corona Pilgrim sort of dropped the ball and never got it back on track.

The cast ensemble in the movie were all actors and actresses that I wasn't familiar with. And that is actually something that spoke in favor of the movie, as I enjoy watching unfamiliar talents on the screen. And I will say, that despite a subpar script and storyline, then the acting performances in "Curse of the Sin Eater" were fair.

Visually then you're not in for a grand experience in horror cinema. There were some simplistic special effects throughout the course of the movie, but it was hardly sufficient to boost the movie up and out of the mediocre lane.

My rating of director Justin Denton's 2024 movie "Curse of the Sin Eater" lands on a three out of ten stars.

I don't agree with the <5 rating this movie is getting. I always read some reviews before i rite mine to see what others say in cases like thins, and the one thing I will agree with is that it is somewhat predictable in areas. I mean, what exactly would you expect if you ate and took on the sins of another, but I really think people should know what they are getting into when they watch a movie about something like that. Let's face it, if another Friday the 13th came out, wouldn't it be predictable that Jason would kill a bunch of people, get killed in the end, but not really killed? All of that being said, I found Curse of the Sin Eater to be a worthwhile watch. It's not going to go down as one of the greatest movies of all time, but it's a LOT better than some of the stuff they throw at us these days!

Why should Robert Eggers have all the historical fun? Director Justin Denton has unearthed a pretty obscure historical practice that (apparently) was in use in England, Scotland and Wales through the 19th century: The estate of a wealthy decedent could pay someone of lower means to eat a meal off the body of the decedent, thereby transferring the sins of the dead person to the payee. The rub, of course, is that in a Christian society, the payee not only carried the burden of sin into the next world, but now was something of a social pariah in this world as well.

The moral economy of this practice would seem to be rather rich and interesting. And the fact that Denton chose to create a film around that practice deserves more than a little credit. "CSE" is not just another haunted house flick. The two primary actors in the film are Carter Shimp ("Rick Malone") and Antonette Morro ("Elizabeth Laidlaw"). Malone plays a young construction worker who just happens to land a temporary gig at the palatial Chicago-area estate of "George Drayton." Malone harms himself on the job site, and it is Morro who escorts Malone into the mansion to clean himself up. Malone proves himself to be something less than 100% honest; but this only serves to intrigue the dying Drayton. Drayton makes Malone the titular offer; and it is Morro who subsequently shepherds Malone through both the terms of the "deal" and the consequences of that deal.

So far, so good; and the first 1/3 of CSE is quite engaging. Where matters start to falter is in what follows. The "consequences" of the deal are often literal and religious: literal hauntings of sins past that, in turn, cause Malone to unravel in somewhat predictable ways (drinking, etc). However, with one exception, it is not clear what those sins are or why they would cause Malone to become increasingly unmoored psychologically. There are also several sub-plots that are given only cursory treatment: Malone's lapsed religious faith; his relationship to his (now deceased) mother; and his relationship to a former girlfriend "Tanya." The last of these would seem to be particularly important in view of what transpires in the last part of the film (though, again, it is difficult to piece together).

All of this is to say is that I was expecting a more metaphorical and "post-Christian" treatment of sin eating (if we may call it that). The Japanese kaidan and onryo films, for example, famously use ghosts and hauntings as only slightly veiled metaphors for exploring the dire moral consequences of fraud, revenge, infidelity and so forth. The central moral element in CSE - a devil's bargain of worldly power in return for one's sense of self - would seem to be similarly rich as a thematic matter. But the consequences of that bargain are too often engaged as the monster-of-the-week variety.

Bottom line is that this is a very well-made, well-acted movie. I just wish the writing and thematic focus had been a bit sharper.