Guardian of the Realm

I bought GUARDIAN OF THE REALM because I know the special effects supervisor Tom Seymour. I have to admit that I'm proud of the St. Louis natives Tom, Ted Smith and Wyatt Weed for crafting an entertaining film. It had humor, good makeup, limited but effective fight scenes and decent sound effects and music. The actors did a fair job with the material, which avoided most clichés. Glen Levy was a real surprise with his charm and humor, but especially good in his fight choreography. The armored demon was impressive, but overall, the set design and props were excellent. You can't expect too much for a movie of this nature, and the makers stretched the budget to the limits. You can tell that they love the genre, and for the most part, it was artfully done.

By no means was this a prefect film, but oddly enough it was very very watchable. The look of the film kind of distracts by its digital look but if it had been filmed any other way it probably would have been noted as bad. The leads were nice looking and the storyline was decent. The sets looked like they were in someones garage but were well done for what they were. The acting was OK. Not as bad as some and the acting could have used a little more rehearsal but the actions scenes were pretty good. Really enjoyed the costume of the main bad guy (girl) Nikki. Well worth a look if you have nothing better to do on a Saturday night.

So, let me start off by saying that this is not anywhere near as good as a movie with a proper budget and crew. However, for what it is, I felt like the director actually had some sense of what he was doing. The actors were at least likable and many of them came off as interested in what they were doing. While the acting itself wasn't stellar, most of the actors weren't so wooden like many other low budget movies. The lead 'demon' actress, Nikki, is played by a woman with a very thick accent and it can be a bit off-putting at times because it was obvious they only put her in for the sex appeal, but I have seen/heard much, much worse from much higher budget works (Pamela Anderson?). The two lead demon hunters worked well together and while I felt the chemistry was kind of forced by the writing, I actually felt a bit of attachment to both of them. I certainly wasn't cracking up laughing or balling my eyes out, but they were decent and fun to watch.

Watching this now in 2020, it would be unfair of me to say that the CG effects were terrible. Even by 2004 standards, this would have been panned badly, but I think for what they had to work with, they kept a lot of the effects to a minimum and that actually worked in their favor. They used a lot of nice looking costumes for the armor and demon effects and while in some instances you could plainly see they were just foam and rubber, it wasn't so bad that it distracted you from the rest of the movie. If I had to pin a look to this, I would say this looks about on par with the likes of Bibleman (a show I have not watched, but have seen enough of to get the idea). However, what makes this a step above is actually taking the actors off a soundstage to actual locations and having real things like bikes, cars, motorcycles, weather, etc and actually making them work rather than having the actor in front of a blue screen with a blurry background flying by. A lot of the demon makeup was very well done, especially the demon god when he shows up. Though, I will say one thing, the added "clink" sound they added to the armored demon was very annoying and was not needed, but the armor was neat looking and the actor playing in the suit managed to make it look like it was a big, hulking demon wearing armor.

The fight scenes, for the few there are, actually were lots of fun to watch. Everyone that had to fight actually had some very well done choreography, while (again) not up to standards with a well polished Hollywood movie, it was apparent that the fight scenes were done over the course of hours/days rather than "pull some punches and we'll cut the scene together". Some actual acrobatics were used and the sword fight in the end had very nice, thought out moves that made it fun to watch. There were a few moments where it was bordering on 'Power Rangers' type fighting, but it wasn't overdone or too over the top.

The story itself certainly wasn't deep or provocative and honestly, I don't think it needed to be. The writer(s) and director at least put some thought into the plot and while you might be able to guess what's going to happen next, you might not mind because it's done well enough that you can be like "that's how I would have done it", but there are a few points where it managed to surprise me with something even though I was able to call out a scene just prior, they would throw something in just a bit extra to be like "you saw this coming, but not this...". There are a few moments where a plot point won't go anywhere, but I get that from a lot of these movies, so it's to be expected (the one where Nikki up-chucks something into the demon's mouth is neither explained nor brought up again after it happens). One thing that the plot suffers from is a lot of exposition, while not as bad as some movies, there are a couple moments that could have been explained better or in a different way, but that's only a nitpick.

A lot of the camera work we done well enough, some establishing shots to set up a scene, framing was decent without any strange angles to make it "look like art" or edgy. Sound mixing was ok, I would have liked for a better voice for Nikki when she breaks out into her demon voice and the aforementioned 'clink' footsteps of the armored demon were really bad. I didn't notice an real issues with voices otherwise, music didn't overlap and drown out dialogue (as can be an issue in a lot of these movies) and I didn't see any boom mics getting in the way.

Overall, just a fun movie to waste a couple hours on. If you're expecting another "Blade" or "Ghostbusters", this won't be for you, but if you like cheesy B-movies that actually have some sort of effort put forth, you might actually enjoy this.

Guardian of the Realm has surprisingly good production quality and special effects considering its low budget. It is the story of a couple of demon hunters who are about to face the biggest challenge of their careers - an ancient demonic power has escaped hell and rallied a small militia of demonic minions at a local night-club.

The overall cinematography and effects is comparable to the TV-movie work of the Pre-Battlestar Galactica Sci-Fi Channel, though the cast isn't quite as talented as the typical Sci-fi channel cast. Most of the effects involve people morphing into demons and some well-done wire work. The martial arts choreograohy is also pretty good.

Thankfully, Guardian does not take itself too seriously. Though Glen Levy and a few other cast members are competent actors, the directing and editing do fairly little to help them convey their talent. Many of the performances are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and lend the film a cheap, exploitation B-movie feeling. This becomes more and more clear as the film approaches its utterly absurd climax.

This is definitely not a must-see, and whether you leave it on during a random channel-surf late at night is entirely your own decision. I suspect that most people will be LESS entertained by it than I was.

to say this movie is bad is an understatement. Guardian represents everything that's possible to be wrong with a movie, that's also its sole redeeming quality. The reason I gave this movie it's single star (aside from the fact that there is no option to put 0 stars) is because it has certain educational purpose. Robert Altman, when asked which movies influenced him the most, said: "the movies I hated the most," he'd see a film and think "I'll never make a movie like that." That's the case with Guardian. Watching it makes you understand how and why a movie can be bad (or oh-my-god-it-burns-my-eye bad in this instance). There is not single aspect I can start you off with, it's bad globally: every line is a cliché stolen from Buffy, Blade, or some other B vampire movie (and the ending is a word-for-word rip off from the first Blade -- I can't spoil the movie with this, it hits the bottom on the first line); the image is terrible, either they used magnifying glass for a lens or rented a wrong camcorder, because this is not shot on film with an HDCAM, not even on HDV or DVX from the looks of it; the cinematography is ...well, I don't think they thought about lighting; the set pieces and the makeup is admirably expensive for such a low budget, but the actors wearing the suits couldn't act their way out of a noose on the day of their sentence.

At first I actually thought I was watching a rerun of a Buffy episode, but then I realized that even Buffy wasn't that bad (and there weren't any commercials!). I watched further and I couldn't believe it was on a premium channel, on cable! But seeing this piece of s$@t make it this far, I now know that any film can find distribution...