Possession films are not usually films habitually seen by me. There was something though mildly intriguing about 'Forsaken's' idea. There are examples of good films about possession, and while horror is not my favourite genre of film there is an appreciation for and there are classics in it.
'Forsaken' is far from a good example of a possession or horror film. It is a classic example of how not to do either, is a terrible film on its own and that it's low budget is not an excuse (seeing as there are films out there made on a low budget and still manage to be watchable). It doesn't even have a promising opening scene, nothing unsettling or suspenseful and bordering on the silly, atmospheric set design (the rest of the production values are just too amateurish to make me remotely appreciate it) or a watchable actor in a small role trying to do something with it to make things better.
Visually, 'Forsaken' looks poor. It is so chaotically and self-indulgently shot, sloppily and sometimes confusingly edited, there is such a dreary look to the lighting and the effects and such are a shambles. Whether the set or anything like that was good was hard to tell or appreciate because of bad everything else in the production values looked and when distracted by everything in the film being so amateurishly executed.
The music is often intrusive and inappropriate in mood and placement, generating absolutely no suspense because it makes it so obvious something bad or unforeseeable is going to happen. It and the bizarre sound mixing tend to drown out the dialogue.
Not that the dialogue was worth hearing. When it was not hard to understand (with it being rambling gibberish delivered in never other than mumbling), the dialogue is enough to make even the most childish child feel dumb and it constantly sounds awkward. It rambles and doesn't make sense with a lot of cheese and mawkishness.
Everything about the story execution feels stale and incredibly dull. Even worse is that it's often incoherent, with such aimless and all-over-the-place and sprawling plotting, and then it's too obvious to be scary, too dull to be tense or suspenseful, too cheesy to be fun and too ridiculous to be thrilling. None of those positive attributes are present at any thing and all the negative attributes are plastered all over.
Can't say much positive about the personality and development deprived characters or the flat direction and insipid all round acting where everybody mumbles their lines in an uninterested fashion.
Basically, a mess with few if any redeeming qualities other than it conceptually intrigued mildly. 1/10 Bethany Cox
