The Wicked Within

One of the things you have to accept about 'possession' movies is that they are generally similar. It is, therefore, what differs that usually determines whether they are decent or another forgettable story.

This movie actually has something that makes it different - the ending is actually not bad at all. The problem is though, almost the entire film until that point is so poor.

The dialogue come across as though written by someone who does not know how conversations should sound. The characters don't react to anything that happens - you have shocking revelations and events and they just continue on as though someone has told them the weather forecast.

The concept of this story was decent, they just really needed someone who could actually write dialogue to fill out the spaces between plot points. The dialogue made the acting - which wasn't fantastic - look and sound even worse.

DON"T WASTE YOUR TIME.Lazy, lazy writing. It's too bad, this movie started strong with family drama, mystery and secrets which lost steam about half way through, becoming nothing more than a "Mysterious Evil Spirit With Unlimited Unexplained Power". It's almost a modern cliché now, evil spirits that can do anything they want with no limit or rules. If there's no way to defeat the spirit, no "it can't go into the light/cross water/stand up to love/etc., why bother? Just shoot every character in the head, no reason to give a crap about doomed, stupid people. A weak attempt at a double twist ending is the final insult to the audience. Pointless and stupid.

I don't even know where to begin - I started watching totally blind, no reviews read and no word of mouth.

It just doesn't make sense - establishing some things as facts and then from scene to scene acting as if no revelations or oddities had occurred.

Seems a waste of a good chance for the team to make a solid movie, most of the elements are there but it falls apart due to horrible storyboarding/writing/editing (could be any of those things... or all of them).

2/10 just because it begins quite well.

My quick rating 5,3/10. This time of year it seems the possession films come out of the woodwork. That being said, this movie does little to stand out from the others as far as the actual possession goes. A year after the death of one of the characters child, they all get together for the holiday and things go awry. The possession more or less just "happens" from there and the woman that ends up as the "host" (Sienna Guillory) does a good job acting a bit off the wall when need be. Some of the funniest lines do come from the demon but not in a comedic way. Meaning for me, timely swearing and divulging of peoples secrets. So as my one line states, the whole movies focus is upon ridding the demon from Bethany once and for all (without being killed) and of course all leads up to a climax. I will admit the trip is more or less just there for the means to getting to the destination. Enjoy.

Following a tragic car accident, a family trying to grieve over the death of one of their children who was involved learns that one of them has become possessed by a demonic being looking to torment them and causes them to rely on a priest to battle the evil.

This was quite an enjoyable and highly surprising effort. One of the better elements present here is the fact that this one really does manage to work with the slow-building plot line rather nicely without really upsetting the film really working out a rather great way this goes about bringing the different details of what's going on here. Starting off with the freaky occurrences with the knife at the dinner table and the possession sequence in the bedroom, this turns out rather fun as it transitions away into the actual possession enables for the more lively as she turns against the family and begins not only tormenting them with the secrets and how the different physical torments she concocts makes for a really enjoyable time overall since this really makes the film pick up the pace with its action. Content to play it more low-key rather than going full-bore with the possession. There's plenty of great scenes here with the séance they conduct which comes off rather well with the demonic voices and blood-spurting around the room making for a great time along with all the different torments, the different confrontations along the way that makes for a great showcase of the demons' strength and vindictiveness and gives this one some pretty enjoyable moments throughout here with her attacks. As it slowly gets into the actual exorcism and the attempts to get her cleansed while she goes out on the rampage against the others it makes for a really exciting time here leading to some really fun action as they all continually stumble across her victims and kills piling up around the house which adds an extra urgency to the actual exorcism attempt, while all together having these help the film's pacing by having such great scenes play out in delivering a great bunch of action in the second half to counter-balance the somewhat slow beginning. That is one of the film's few minor problems, in that there's not a whole lot of action happening here in the first half which makes this tend to feature a somewhat lapse beginning where it doesn't quite get off to the start it really should. Focusing on the interspersed scenes of the psychiatrist that goes nowhere and the revelation of the investigation after-the-fact don't offer up any kind of emotional resonance that's being set-up with the storyline about the possession taking place due to the death in the family, a thread itself that isn't all that well thought-out since it's still a mystery why this one takes on the possession as it does here when being tormented would've been far more feasible so that doesn't really solve much of the problems here. The last problem with the film tends to revolve around it's rather confusing decision to keep almost all the deaths off-screen rather than up-front on-camera. Quite often throughout here they tend to stumble upon the mangled bodies of a friend and it leaves a big gaping hole as to why it never showed that occurring on-screen rather than doing it in this manner. Still, this one was quite a bit of fun.

Rated R: Graphic Language. Violence, suggested Rape and strong adult themes.