Ciaran the Demon Hunter

Strange film, not sure how to categorize it; part horror, part fantasy; a love story; a story of an unfulfilled life. Definitely Art-house, low budget and an no big name stars, but I have to say I really enjoyed it and have watched it twice because I kept trying to figure out some elements that confused me. The music was great, the cinematography was strong, especially in the beginning. I could see this as a TV series like Buffy.

When I rented this, I was expecting a horror / fantasy film. Well it really isn't. This is a Art-house film that has horror and fantasy elements, at least that's the best way for me to describe it. Possibly more of a chick film than for men. I noticed how all of the female characters are in love with Ciaran. The story is interesting and maybe more European in design since you have to think about the scenes, where American's need everything dumbed down to follow anything today. There's metaphorical scenes such as a floating rose in water with it's dark shadow lurking below... good stuff! This made me really pay attention to each scene and what meaning was being conveyed. It was very unpredictable and I gave it another star for that, I had no idea where it was going and it held my attention completely. The strong music score really helped. The film didn't feel low budget except for some of the film noise in dark scenes, not too bad. I felt the cast (British and American) was very solid. The lead Peter Morton and "Willow" Joanna Wood really shined. I won't mention the VFX's used but they were good, I felt the film could have had more VFX, it was a bit short in length, but all in all for a low budget production it get's 8 stars from me.

I've always been a fan of exorcism flicks.. so I rented this film and got to say it was entertaining and much better than I thought it might be. There's just so many "B" movies today in the horror genre that are seemingly made for a few scares, some shock / ultra gore, or some other cliché horror edification. Ciaran the Demon Hunter rises above all of this with an interesting story that blends life, fantasy and desires with horror. The story is about Ciaran a man of druidic ancestry from the Emerald Isle. Give it a go... you may find this as enteraining as I did.

Myth is good and in the wake of Peter Blatty's The Exorcist, we've seen a number of sequels, prequels-- none of which measured up to the original. Then we have the Irish fantasies based loosely on folklore surrounding the Celtic notion of the Se, many of which are terrible, stereotyped or used as a boilerplate for a knock-off horror or ghost film. What we have here in this film is a hybrid that meets neither of the generic criteria and takes itself too seriously. The story line goes from confusion to chaos as contradictions and non sequitur occur, ending up in a jumbled up mess that never resolves any of the conflicts. Make matters worse, the exorcist is not even an ordained priest but a shaman who craves to be a rock star with two teenybopper sprites as sidekicks.

If you want decent fantasy, check out Robocop, Peter Weller in Buckaroo Banzai who is not only a scientist, CIA operative but a rock star as well.