Charismata

Sometimes you have the most fun through accidental circumstances. I admit I watched this because I was forced by a friend who usually has very bad taste! I hope he is reading this. Maybe he has found me one of my favorites of the year.

English detectives chase a killer that may or may not be a demon. Can you guess the twist?

Sometimes obvious but also very good fun. Lots of black humor and a heavy creepy atmosphere throughout with strong surrealism. Strong Argento and Bava influences in presentation. If you are a fan you will love this.

The London location is cool. The villain is very entertaining and old school diabolical! I have lived and worked in London and I tell you both are accurate! Haha.

I watched this in America but can't find anywhere in Germany. What gives? I think this would play very well here and England is a lot closer than New York. Also, I want to watch it again when I am not drunk to make sure I enjoyed it as much as I did. It's one of those !

In an absolute vacuum, with no other reviews or movies to go on, this gets a 9/10 easily.

The acting is very good, the film is well made and there are bits of humor throughout.

I'm really tough on movies and I thoroughly enjoyed Charismata as a great way to pass a Saturday afternoon.

A rookie female detective cracks under the pressure of dealing with a constant stream of misogyny from her douchey colleagues while hunting an occultist serial killer who turns his supernatural(?) powers against her. I enjoyed this.

The good

Like the other Brit film Kill List from a few years ago, there is a weird, gritty-yet-off-kilter vibe running all the way through this. Like David Lynch directed an episode of Cops, but in England. I liked.

Sarah Beck Mather is just superb as the lead. One of the best female horror leads in a while. In the first scenes she looked as bitchy as the men, but you soon see that this is a shield she puts up and she's already close to cracking.

The bad

Pacing problem. The first part was very slow and the gloriously fun last part seemed rushed. If they took 10 minutes from the start and added 10 to the end then the movie might have been outstandingly good.

The ugly

After using some really effective practical effects for most of the run time, the last minute was full of schlocky low budget horror CGI.

Overall. Not quite as good as Kill List, but still pretty good and well worth your time.

Even if you never had to learn police work like the rest of us plebs, anybody with a TV knows that it takes three bodies to make a serial killer. You know what I'm saying, you're just being pedantic.

Take the brilliant movie "Se7en" and replace the two inspectors Somerset and Mills with a duo that can't get along and where one of them is female, then you get something similar as "Charismata". Only it's far from brilliant in terms of acting and the narrative. And even though Mills was a bit cocky and a wiseass in "Se7en," there was also mutual respect. That doesn't really apply to Rebecca (Sarah Beck Mather) and Eli (Andonis Anthony). Eli is an arrogant and obnoxious guy who always sees an opportunity to belittle his partner.

But honestly, most people in this film are blessed with an ugly personality. The two inspectors, who assist in the investigation, constantly spit sexist statements and never take Rebecca seriously. She's the daughter of the commissioner. So remarks about her job being dropped in her lap, are commonplace. Even the pharmacists are terribly unfriendly and snippy. I'm starting to believe the U.K. is inhabited with bad-tempered and unfriendly people. But believe me, the constantly unfriendly atmosphere started to annoy me.

Also in "Charismata", they have to deal with an insane serial killer. The victims follow each other rapidly. The one murder even more horrifying than the other. Unfortunately, the first one shown, is the only one that's off the same level as those in "Se7en". A dark room in a dilapidated building where the rats have feasted on a half-decayed corpse. This looked fairly realistic and horrifying. The satanic images and carved numbers in the wall make it mysterious. Unfortunately, the design of the following victims wasn't so successful. They were just stand-ins covered with lots of fake blood. Probably the budget for special effects was already exhausted after the first corpse.

What are the most successful aspects of "Charismata"? First, there's Jamie Satterthwaite, who plays the snobbish Michael Sweet. A yuppie and partner of a company trading in real estates. And their estates are mostly the location where a victim is discovered. Michael Sweet is for me the most sublime appearance in this movie. His charisma and mysterious smile. He's as innocent as a lamb and laughs off every accusation. A character who could easily play the role of Bateman in "American Psycho".

The next positive point in this movie is the way in which Rebecca's mental instability is portrayed. The reason why she has a psychological problem is solidly substantiated. A messy divorce. A brutal ex. Selling her apartment goes awry. Unfriendly colleagues who treat her disrespectfully. And then also a stressful case with a serial killer with nauseating crime scenes as a result. Then there's the fact that she takes antidepressant medication with a lot of alcohol. So it's no surprise she's having hallucinations. And those hallucinations are worked out magnificently. No exaggerated effects and some adequately executed scare moments. Or aren't these hallucinations?

Is "Charismata" a decent film you should definitely watch? Looking at the plus and the negative points, you'd say that it's well balanced. Such that it can be called an average film. Indeed. Even though the acting is sometimes of a "Coronation Street" level and the story is rather superficial, you can't say it's extremely bad. But that feeling is completely undermined by the terrible, meaningless ending. It's flat n'inane beyond belief. The run-up to this wasn't bad. It even became gross at a certain moment. But the denouement creates some forehead-frowning, after which you wonder why on earth you've watched it. It seemed as if the makers realized they needed an end and there was no creative inspiration left. Too bad, because the film surely had potential.

...but the marketing is TOTALLY misleading. The DVD box basically is for a different film! It's like the producers chickened out at the last minute and did desperate packaging to boost sales.

What it is, is like a 90 minute X-Files episode, but in England, and Scully is the main character, and Mulder is a sexist bully a-hole, and all the cops are sexist bully a-holes, and the perp is a sexist bully a-hole satanist. And Scully has to deal with all the gaslighting and like save the day.

Good acting, especially Scully who is GREAT. Good cinematography, good special effects, no silly jump scares, surprisingly funny at times, overall very underrated.

I hated the ending. The last minute was like the producers chickened out again and left something for the gore kiddies. Would have been 9/10 with a different ending.