Lillith

I wasn't expecting much from this when I saw it pop up on Tubi, but I figured I would give it a chance anyways. To my surprise it was better than I expected, still not great but better than what I was expecting.

Lillith is about a college girl named Jenna who after catching her boyfriend cheating on her, gets the help of a friend to summon Lillith, a sex demon to exact revenge. Needless to say it doesn't go as planned.

Lillith is for all intents and purposes a c-gtade horror flick. However I give it props for some ok make up effects, and a mostly entertaining story. What makes the movie particularly entertaining is the character of Lilly the Succubus who hams it up pretty well and makes for an entertaining villain. She's really the highlight of the movie with a decent amount of wit and bubbly personality to shine through. For a modern horror film I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

I stumbled upon the 2019 horror comedy "Lillith" here in 2021, without ever having heard about the movie. Needless to say that I opted to sit down to watch the movie, given the synopsis, it being a horror comedy movie that I hadn't already seen, plus I had the chance to do so.

While "Lillith" was entertaining enough for what it was, this was by no means a milestone in horror comedy. Writers Lee Esposito and Luke Stannard sadly opted to play it safe and bet on formulas that have been seen and done in other similar movies before. So "Lillith" didn't really offer all that much of anything new or innovative.

The movie had a fair enough cast of actors and actresses, all of which I weren't previously familiar with, and that is something I like in movies. So that was a definitely plus in favor of "Lillith". And I will say that the actors and actresses put on good performances, though they were somewhat restricted by a somewhat inferior script and not overly-well-written characters.

"Lillith" was watchable, but the storyline was suffering from being somewhat inferior and generic. And the movie was just rather predictable, which makes for a movie that you watch once and never return to watch a second time.

All in all, then this was a rather bland attempt at a horror comedy, one that came and went without leaving much of a dent on the scene. I am rating "Lillith" a five out of ten stars.

As low-budget B-movies go, this one was a lot better than anticipated.

The story itself isn't groundbreaking (invoking a succubus to take revenge on a cheating boyfriend), we've seen it before in some form or another, but then again the very first episode of Star Wars was about knights saving a princess, so originality is not always necessary.

Ok, so the production values were minimal. Lighting and sound could have used some TLC, the special effects weren't so special, and some of the acting was amateurish. However, Savannah Whitten was impressive in her role of the demon, invigorating the character with joyful abandon.

Without her, the movie doesn't work as a horror-comedy. But she makes the difference, if only because she has the most interesting lines to deliver, and she delivers them well, with rapid-fire precision.

For his first full feature as a director and writer, Lee Esposito shows promise. I haven't seen any of his other stuff, but it would be interesting to see what he could do with an actual budget.

In this instance, a rating of 6 is definitely a positive grade, as opposed to some highly-anticipated movies that can sometimes be a disappointing 7.

When a college woman (Nell Kessler) in the New Jersey/Brooklyn area discovers her boyfriend cheating she accepts her Wicca friend's offer to call on a succubus for succor. Havoc ensues.

"Lillith" (2019) is micro-budget horror with limited camera angles, dubious cinematography and, occasionally, lousy sound, but the story is compelling and the acting/dialogue good; some of the music's not bad either. Speaking of the acting, Laurence Fishburne's son, Langston Fishburne, is on hand for the small role of the professor. But it's Savannah Whitten who steals the show as the lust demon made flesh. People call this a horror comedy, but it's really only Whitten's succubus that's amusing (in a good way). It's a refreshing way to approach the material. After all, why wouldn't an immortal demon relish 'her' work with a diabolical sense of humor?

The setting and tone are reminiscent of "Decoys" (2004) and "Decoys 2" (2007) mixed with a little "Jennifer's Body" (2009), albeit without the budget. If you don't mind technical deficiencies, "Lillith" delivers the goods despite a muted palette. For comparison, check out "The Devil's Nightmare," aka "The Devil Walks at Midnight" (1971), which is an entertaining classic flick involving a succubus, taking place in a castle in Belgium (on the border of France).

The film runs 1 hour, 33 minutes, and was shot in the region of Cranford, NJ, and Brooklyn, NY.

GRADE: B-

After discovering her boyfriend cheating on her, a woman and her friends decide to summon a succubus demon to take care of him, but when the demon they brought forth is interested in playing games and toying with the rest of the student body must try to stop it before she kills everyone around them.

Overall, this one was just a generally decent enough effort. One of the better features here is the decided comedy take on the idea of having this demonic figure loose in the area and preying upon men the way she does. The exuberance and unrestrained glee with which she announces how she kills her victims or promoting her conquests to the group as if a puppy showcasing a trick to its owners adds a fun tone to the idea of the creature rampaging throughout the community. This becomes even more prominent once she turns her attention to the group and using her powers and seduction techniques to begin killing off her friends with a flair and style that's highly impressive, especially with the final confrontation that's the lone graphic encounter in the film. Combined with the great look of the demon in their make-up form, there are some likable factors throughout here. There are some issues to be had with the film. The biggest problem here is the wholly bland style and presentation that manages to get the film going which is nothing new or unique. The idea of a scorned woman looking to get revenge on a cheating boyfriend through the summoning of a specific demon to make his life turn upside down is quite commonplace and predictable in this kind of film there's little about this that sticks out from the dozens of other films involving this setup, especially with the films' other big problem in that there's a surprising lack of real sleaze or gore for a film about a sex-crazed succubus on the loose. The general setup and atmosphere here support this one really going into a darker and more overtly dirty territory, yet there isn't anything remotely close to steamy or graphic anywhere close to the encounters here. With the sex scenes filmed at angles that make it unclear if they're even removed any clothing at all and all the kills generally happening off-screen. Without these aspects in a film this familiar, the film doesn't really do much to stand out here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.