Baphomet

I was looking forward to this movie. The acting was comical. None of it is redeemable except for the title.

At just over an hour, this film's pace is a little too brisk for its own good. I could have used a little more development on the evil cult, especially with some more personality to some of the members. It's cool to see 80's Italian exploitation star Giovanni Lombardo Radice in an American movie and in a decently large part as the main antagonist. I got a kick out of hearing Radice's actual voice and thick accent and whiney demeanor, which serves to make him somewhat of a sympathetic (or just straight-up pathetic) figure rather than the all-powerful mage I'm sure they were going for.

Horror fans will also notice Chromeskull himself Nick Principe in sort of a thankless role as one of the cultists who gets in one good scene toward the end. I'm pretty sure a lot was left on the cutting room floor in favor of making this an action movie, which is unfortunate because its strongest scenes are the ones high in creep factor.

The first half of the film builds some decent tension, but unwravels a bit when it slips into action-exploitation territory toward the end. When the shooting starts, the realism and scares drop to off the chart, but the film is just so gonzo (people get killed by dynamite, snakes, sharks, and random eyeball explosions!) that it didn't lose my interest. There's an interesting twist I've not seen in any other movie, namely an upside-down take on PET SEMETARY. I'll grant it that the movie is very unpredictable as it doesn't really follow the usual conventions and a has a few hilarious out-of-nowhere moments.

Sure Dani Filth is kinda wasted and some of the acting is a little flat (the lead girl Rebecca Weaver is okay when she's speaking lines, but looks bored and unsure of what to do with herself when other people are talking). However, the film kinda works as a throwback to Lucio Fulci / Lamberto Bava type flicks from the 80's and features a better musical score than usual. I was surprised they didn't go the hard rock route and feature a bunch of Cradle of Filth songs and torture porn.

Baphomet is a roller coaster ride to hell full of the occult and evil scenes, a slick horror for a new age , great storyline mixed with spine chilling soundtrack...unlike some horror which aims to just shock and compete for the most gallons of blood used in one film , baphomet has its own unique style of horror more like a hammer horror for the 20th century.

Director / producer / writer matthan Harris has done a splendid job in telling a story of evil and magic combined told in a chilling but fun way... not only has he created a master piece but also stars in it , great casting and special appearance by the master of evil from the vocalist of cradle of filth Dani filth.

Ritual sacrifices , satanic cults , ingenius deaths , witches , and the devil himself what's not to like , oh and a killer shark.

Crack open a bottle of red grab some munchies sit back and enjoy the ride.

Pete Matthews.

I looked at the cover and it looks cool but even just based off that it is about a satanic cult who sacrifice people is very inaccurate and honestly kind of offensive that they are just adding to the hate against satanist. I don't know if the creator did any research but it seems like they just looked at a picture of him and said "let's make him a villain" when he is not even evil and really represents equality. Baphomet is not a good or bad deity but certainly not a villain at all. It's like the creator has no idea of what he is doing when it comes to stuff like this. This is just weird to do. If you are going to make it about a deity do it right and don't do this.

Granted, when I saw the title of this movie and seeing that even Danni Filth was in the movie, I have to admit that I was interested. Sure, I am not considering him to be particularly skilled in acting, but the "Cradle of Fear" movie was at least so gory it was fun to watch. Sure, I had my initial doubts about the movie, but of course I opted to give it the benefit of the doubt and gave it a chance.

So I sat down to watch "Baphomet" from writer and director Matthan Harris. But boy, oh boy, this was a swing and a miss.

Sure, there were some elements to the story, such as the tragic losses of lives that plagued the family, that were interesting. But that was about it, because everything else in the movie was just downright rubbish.

First of all, the movie portrays Satanists as being laughable cultists with nothing else to do than spread havoc and cause evil. And then there were the thing about Satanists controlling sharks. That scene made me laugh so much. Sure, the scene itself actually looked good, but the concept of it was just ludicrous.

The acting in the movie was a mixed bag of nuts, so to speak. Rebecca Weaver (playing Rebecca), Colin Ward (playing Jacob) and Gerardo Davila (playing Sheriff Widley) actually put on good performances, while the rest of the cast were putting on mediocre or downright lousy performances. And the performance put on by Dani Filth, well that was just laughable at best. I wonder if he signed up to the movie given its title, and he hadn't read the script. Then when he figured out what a train wreck he was going to be in, he just couldn't get out of his contract and put on the most wooden performance possible and looked like he didn't want to be there for even a second. And then there was the Satanic cult leader Henrik, played by Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Wow, just wow, Giovanni Lombardo Radice put on the most rigid performance in the entire movie.

While "Baphomet" definitely has an interesting movie cover and/or poster, then the concept of the movie was just lukewarm. However, the entire movie is permeated by a sense of this being a high school movie project.

Visually then "Baphomet" was actually quite alright. Sure, there wasn't all that much of special effects, both CGI or practical, to be seen throughout the movie. But whatever was there, actually looked quite okay and served its purpose quite well.

The dialogue in "Baphomet", as written by Matthan Harris is wooden and rigid. And it feels like it was written by a pre-teenager having to write a school play and settling on writing a horror play. It just had that particular immature feel to it. The dialogue did in no means serve the characters well.

"Baphomet" is listed as a horror / thriller. Sure, I suppose that it would be categorized as such, but it just failed to provide me with proper entertainment as such a movie.

Some of us suffered through the 1 hour and 12 minutes of amateurish rubbish here in "Baphomet" so you don't have to. Take heed of the low rating the movie has managed to acquire here on IMDb, because it is with good reason that it has ranked so low.

My rating of "Baphomet" lands on a two out of ten stars. This is without a doubt a laughable horror movie that paints Satanist in a bad light. And it makes for a terrible movie if you are looking for a properly acted horror movie with a properly written script.