Heks

Cheaply made, horrible acting, insulting jump scares that aren't even scary, boring and awfully executed plot from the beginning to end. I sat through this excruciatingly mediocre movie because I just took in account the movie rating and not read the reviews. Pretty obvious now that the reviews with more than 3 stars are completely fake.

Viewer beware.

Again with the fake ratings. Don't be fooled this is a BAD movie with absolutely nothing good or interesting about it.

I found this movie interesting yet a tad confusing. I think my partner enjoyed this more than me since, being from Africa she understood more of the folklore behind what was going on when I was a bit lost since it wasn't explained very well.

So i feel very conflicted about this film. Obviously being South African i want our films to be good and give them the benefit of the doubt but my god was this the most generic jump scare-type horror movie.

I dont think i've ever sighed so many times during a film just because of how predictable the "scares" were going to be. I think the story, writing, pacing and the performance of the film could've been way way better. I was confused half of the time thinking "wtf is this film actually about?" The concept was solid, I just think the execution of it all wasn't done any justice

There are some positives from it in my opinion. Most of the technical side of things were done well. Even though its not groundbreaking cinematography, i still think it was shot beautifully. Lovely setting. The lighting and sound was great. OH MY GOD the production and costume design!! Probably the best thing about this film for me.

So yeah i think where it fell short in the feeling, it made up for it in the technical aspects. I'm not judging it too harshly because I personally think horror is fairly new to South African film (e.g. Tokoloshe, 8, Rage etc) so obviously there's gonna be some duds here and there. Overall not baaad movie but also not a good one too, the typical horror tropes were a bit overkill lmaoo. Also i saw one of my lecturers in this and i legit lost my mind laughing so there's that.

I must admit that I was lured in to watch the 2020 movie "Heks" (aka "The Hex") given the rating of the movie, it's cover and the premise of it being a horror movie. So, I managed to find the time to sit down to watch writer and director Reine Swart's movie in 2021.

And color me unimpressed. This movie was boring and bland. Sure, it had adequate production value, but the storyline was just downright boring. Director Reine Swart played on every single horror trope there is, and jump scares in an abundance. It was so overly done that it weighed down the movie.

As for the storyline, well that was just a swing and a miss from writer Reine Swart. There was very little of any interest in the storyline, and the movie trotted on in a very monotonous pacing with very little happening. And this was particularly troublesome for a horror movie, because it felt prolonged and uneventful. And you could just smell the jump scares coming a mile away.

The acting in the movie was lukewarm at best. I mean, I wasn't impressed with what I saw on the screen here, generally speaking for the entire cast. However, don't get me wrong here, because I am not saying that it was bad performances, not at all. But it just felt mediocre and as if the casted actresses and actors weren't really committing their full potential to their performances.

For a horror movie, then "Heks" fell short of delivering something worthwhile. And truth be told, it was somewhat of a struggle to sit through the course of the entire movie.

My rating of "Heks" lands on a mere three out of ten stars.