Delivery Macabro

Personally,I enjoyed this movie a lot!It had its share of gore and laughs,with smart references to other horror movies,led by a nice cast with some solid acting. What I didn't like that much to be honest though,was the ending.The last few minutes spoiled it for me,and hence the 6 and not an even higher grade.

2019 Oak Cliff Film Festival Greetings again from the darkness. Hail Satan! This is definitely the first screening I've ever been to where those are the words the director used to introduce her film. Director Chelsea Stardust is quite passionate about her film, and most of the audience shared in her enthusiasm after experiencing this crazy, wild ride of pizza, secret devil-worshipping societies, virgin sacrifices, campy blood-splattering gore, and upper class hobbies.

Written by noted horror writer Grady Hendrix and Ted Geoghegan, the film introduces us to Samantha (an all-in Hayley Griffith). She's a twenty-something who dreams of Australia, and somehow thinks taking a job delivering pizzas will get her there. She's in such dire straits that she doesn't have the 5 bucks she needs for gas in her Vespa, plus her co-workers stick the new girl with the "no tip" deliveries. I assume there really are classless people who stiff delivery folks, and it's easy to understand why Hayley bangs on the door of a Park Cities mansion after getting the shaft on a 5 pizza delivery.

It's that knock that transforms Samantha's bad job into a matter of life and death. Rather than interrupting a high society neighborhood tea, she stumbles into a Satanic cult led by Danica (Rebecca Romijn, X-MEN). And guess what? It's virgin sacrifice night! And guess who qualifies? That's right ... it's Samantha, our no-tip pizza delivery gal. After a sequence featuring Danica's husband (Romijn's real life husband Jerry O'Connell) and one of the more gory and impressive practical effects of the film, Samantha manages to escape the hell-house mansion.

Soon she has teamed up with Judi (Ruby Modine), who just happens to be Danica's daughter. Judi's inside knowledge proves quite helpful in finding loopholes for temporary reprieves, although the devil-worshippers stay focused on offering Samantha as their virgin sacrifice to Baphomet. While all of this is happening, there is a power struggle within the coven between Danica and Gypsy (a wild-eyed Arden Myrin), adding one more wheels-off element to this carnival of comedy-horror.

Clearly this is campy, but given the low budget constraints, the film's effects work very well, and Ms. Romijn, Ms. Griffith and Ms. Modine (Matthew's daughter) are quite effective in their roles. It's curious just how incredibly naïve Samantha is for her age, but this movie isn't really about thinking and analyzing. Instead, sit back and enjoy the wildest ride you are likely to get from a Vespa-driving pizza delivery person (and please tip these folks!)

Upon starting this, I was pretty much in agreement with myself it was gonna be absolute rubbish! I was pleasantly surprised! The characters are fun and the story is exciting. I'm really glad I stumbled across this film.

In my opinion it has a fairly fun, light hearted approach to something much darker, there in lies the comedy. Some of the scenes are insane and the lead actors fit their parts well.

It's certainly something different and a fine low budget Horror-Com! Better than most others!

For the first 30 minutes of Satanic Panic, I was all in. The characters were interesting, the story was plausible in its own wacky way, and the pacing was pretty good, supplying both some creeps and laughs along the way. Somewhere by the middle of the movie, I found myself scratching my head as things just happen for no reason with very little explanation at all. While some of these things are pretty cool (trees in the forest spouting arms and grabbing people like something out of Disney's Snow White), most of them come out nowhere and makes it seem as if the writers got bored and started throwing everything in they could think of just to keep things interesting.

This isn't to say that Satanic Panic is a bad movie. Even in its most confusing and bizarre moments, it has enough energy and spark for 15 other indie horror films.

Occult themes, practical FX, retro synth soundtrack... Of course I was looking forward to "Satanic Panic". However, I was ready for just a slightly more powerful punch.

Make no mistake, it's an entertaining horror comedy, with the horror parts, in the sum, being better than the comedy bits. Can't promise a laugh-out-loud moment, because for me there wasn't one. The funniest bits are in the 1st half of the movie. A lot of "Satanic Panic" resembles old-school, starting with, of course, Practical FX (quite a lot of gore & it's good), that retro-type synthwave original score, the very theme of witches and covens, and ending with the poster. So you know, lovers of all this will be more or less happy - I was. The characters are simple and very much clicheic, as is the plot, even though it's going to hide that to the very end at which moment a little voice in your head might say "Well I guess that's that". My point is, I was craving for a climax that would top the prior crazy moments in this flick. No matter the characters, the actors and their performances were quite fine. And fun. Probably a little more fun for horror buffs, because there are some familiar faces. On a side note, in the end I was a little disappointed with the main character, I feel like there could've been more to her story. As for the visuals, the cinematography was fairly simple, saturated, colorful, low-budget but creative. The gore was great though, classic, proven to be great kind of stuff. Gotta love the gore.

Let's put it this way - if I dissect "Satanic Panic" into bits and pieces, there's a lot of flawed ones, but overall it's a great, fun, no-brakes kind of entertainment for anyone who's into horror enough. My rating: 6/10.