Satanic

As a horror fan, I tend to check out quite a few horror films. If I had a chance to "unview" this one, I would. The plot and writing are very poor. I realize the movie was made for a teenage audience, but still such a waste of time and money. Within the horror genre, good acting is not necessary (although appreciated). The performances here were so over the top and forgettable. The chills and scares were practically absent. You don't get to see much at all. I guess they kept the "shocking" scene for last, but for a more experienced horror viewer it didn't shock at all. It got so boring at some point I had to fast forward to see the finale, out of pure curiosity. Still a disappointment. If you're into the genre, just avoid this one.

A tour of LA's creepiest places leads to a chance encounter with a strange woman and a dangerous ritual for four visiting students.

The protagonists are unlikeable, and the time wasted developing them just makes them more so, but there's enough that's creepy and disturbing about Satanic to make it an acceptable horror film. Nothing you'll want to see twice, but if you and your friends just want a dumb horror movie, Satanic is better than a lot of things you could settle for.

At times, it feels like a vanity project for Hyland, whose character is the movie's conscience and reason and everything else that's supposedly decent and mature, but as with all vanity projects, it ends up a poor way to showcase her potential. When she wants to be cute, she's cute enough, but when she's scared she comes off as hysterical, and when she's righteous, she comes off as overbearing. It's hard to say how much of this is the fault of the script or direction.

The formula is pretty much standard. You take an up and coming young starlet (Modern Family's Sarah Hyland ) and throw her in a B movie. The film gets a bump in eye balls because of her potential star power and she gets to push away her TV star image and see if she has any pull with a wider audience.

On paper it makes sense, and the quality of the movie is almost unimportant. Well, this time the product is one of the most unforgettable films you may never see, and really all the sadder because the 1st ½ of the film did have promise.

The plot is simple - 4 young college students go to LA for a tour of Satanic sites, and my pet cat can guess how it goes from there. The actors have potential, and although Hyland is the star, Steven Krueger is by far the most interesting character, playing a 'nice' jock. His story could have been much more interesting, and they simply toy with his religious nature before forgetting it ever existed.

The director does a nice job building tension (or is it just boring?), until a very sudden and particularly still conclusion. I can't decide if the sound track and back ground noise are cool or super dumb.

The real fall of this movie is that is brings nothing new or interesting to the genre. There is basically 0 explanation and logic to several of the key parts of the film. Good horror is similar to detective films where the audience gets some joy out of figuring out the meanie, and coming up with a theory of how to protect themselves were they in a similar situation. Think of it as a choose your own adventure where someone else is making the choices, and it is fun to think about how things would differ had a character made the other choice. This film robs us of that, and it is why it ultimately fails.

Hello Sarah Hyland, we see you outside your comfort zone. Acting and tension 'B', directing, plot and enjoyment 'F'.

I was really enjoying Satanic, but it falls under the category for me as another film slain by its own ending.

It tells the story of two young couples on a macabre road trip to see sites of murders and general "Satanic" behavior. Along the way they come across a young runaway who changes everything for them.

Starring Justin Chon and Sarah Hyland it looks the part, is very well written and I was fairly gripped to see quite where this was going to go.

Sadly most of the movie is character development and fluff, when the story really kicks in it's a bit of a blink and you'll miss it situation so suffice to say it has chronic pacing issues.

And then the finale! I do hate it when an ending can kill an up to that point enjoyable film, but here once again we have it. It feels rushed, it feels poorly thought out and as if the creators simply ran out of ideas and tacked some random nonsense on instead.

I should be singing the movies praises right now, the majority of the film is great and in the right hands it could have been something special. Instead this poorly thought out little horror is mediocre and a marker for what should have been.

The Good:

Looks great

Solid cast

Some great ideas

The Bad:

Poorly paced

Falls apart at the end.

I made an IMDb account just to review this mind-numbingly boring film. Don't approach this film unless you have a gun pointed to your back: the plot might have worked had it not been for the extremely unlikeable characters. I usually like (or at least, can sit through) crappy horror, but I couldn't even sit through this one. Avoid at all costs.