Stickman - O Pesadelo à Espreita

So I stumbled on this little title last night as my partner and I were looking for something to watch. Now if you have read my past reviews you will notice that we watch mostly horror films, so we are pretty good judges of this genre. Firstly the film was simple in terms of story, the usual thing. This time an urban legend comes to life via a poem read out loud. The acting was pretty good all round, nothing really bad and nothing stand outish. The effects were mostly on par, sometimes when you see the monster fully the effects are below par and the tension goes away from the scene, this happened in this movie. Sometimes a film is better when you don't see the monster so much. One thing I found funny was when the main character aged ten years, she looked the same as she did earlier in the film, because they used the same actress, this scene little as it was didn't work. Not a bad movie overall, worth a loom.

I honestly enjoyed this movie,which is saying a lot when SYFY movies (and Canadian),are usually so bad.The acting was excellent and convincing,special effects were way above SYFY standard effects,as was the cinematography. Yes the story line was cliche'd as was the ending,but lets face it,you didn't watch it thinking this was going to be a masterpiece.I'm not going to sit here and over analylise it as one reviewer has,it's not that sort of movie,seriously dude,get a life.Take this movie for what it is,a pretty good horror movie worth a watch,enjoy.

For a tv movie this is not too bad. The acting and script are a bit shoddy in places, but it is worth a watch. Definitely not the worse horror out there. I give this 4 out of 10 because horror is my preffered genre and there ars many greats. 4 being enjoyable but by no means great. If this had a bigger budget and a better script then could have been 5-6

We have all seen that horror movie where some dumb girlfriend goes into the creepy dark monster dungeon looking for her equally dumb boyfriend who was just killed by the monster only to be killed by the very same monster as punishment for being dumb. That is this movie, so you have already seen this movie. If I had to write a 2 page essay on the topic of what was unique about this movie, I would receive a failing grade. There is pretty much no question that this is a somewhat late attempt to cash in on the slenderman meme. If I had to describe the personalities of the lead characters in this film, the phrase "very afraid and doesn't want to die" would be used repeatedly. Many characters literally have no distinguishing personality traits beyond that. At least in crappy 80s horror there would be the jock and the bimbo and the nerd and the coward etc. Different characters to create some variety and keep that character interactions dynamic. The monster itself is a cartoon and the practical effects were basically the bare minimum (blood splatter, corpse without its head, etc.). Expect a lot of off screen deaths.

Saw 'Stickman', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.

Giving 'Stickman' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'Stickman' is a great film because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.

'Stickman' started off quite well, the first twenty minutes or so starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected, and the music, which not the most memorable in the world, didn't detract from the atmosphere.

The setting is effectively spooky and some of the lead acting at times was not bad. There are spooky and suspenseful moments and it isn't dull. The direction doesn't feel phoned in and the storytelling in the first half does intrigue.

However, the story was severely wanting in the second half after starting off promisingly. It is very disjointed and after the promising start the final third especially loses atmosphere, one loses interest and things start to not make sense. Too much of the film is vague and doesn't explore some elements and story strands enough, some dropped soon after being introduced, go nowhere or serve much point.

Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air. Got the sense that the writers didn't know how to end the film. Would have liked much more tension and suspense, scares could have been more consistent and some weren't surprising enough.

Found too the script to lack natural flow and with a fair bit of cheese going on, and the characters bland with some adopting some annoying and not always logical decision making. The support acting is even more problematic than the second half's storytelling, at best it was poor and too often terrible.

Overall, better than expected but not great still. 5/10 Bethany Cox