Guardian of the Realm

Guardian of the Realm has surprisingly good production quality and special effects considering its low budget. It is the story of a couple of demon hunters who are about to face the biggest challenge of their careers - an ancient demonic power has escaped hell and rallied a small militia of demonic minions at a local night-club.

The overall cinematography and effects is comparable to the TV-movie work of the Pre-Battlestar Galactica Sci-Fi Channel, though the cast isn't quite as talented as the typical Sci-fi channel cast. Most of the effects involve people morphing into demons and some well-done wire work. The martial arts choreograohy is also pretty good.

Thankfully, Guardian does not take itself too seriously. Though Glen Levy and a few other cast members are competent actors, the directing and editing do fairly little to help them convey their talent. Many of the performances are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and lend the film a cheap, exploitation B-movie feeling. This becomes more and more clear as the film approaches its utterly absurd climax.

This is definitely not a must-see, and whether you leave it on during a random channel-surf late at night is entirely your own decision. I suspect that most people will be LESS entertained by it than I was.

By no means was this a prefect film, but oddly enough it was very very watchable. The look of the film kind of distracts by its digital look but if it had been filmed any other way it probably would have been noted as bad. The leads were nice looking and the storyline was decent. The sets looked like they were in someones garage but were well done for what they were. The acting was OK. Not as bad as some and the acting could have used a little more rehearsal but the actions scenes were pretty good. Really enjoyed the costume of the main bad guy (girl) Nikki. Well worth a look if you have nothing better to do on a Saturday night.

Guardian is what I always looked and hoped for when I was as kid - a buried treasure, a hidden surprise. Remember when you took a chance and rented those films with the questionable covers, and nine out of ten times, you got burned? Not this time. Guardian is obviously a labor of love, by people who love the movies, and that love, passion, and fun shows in every frame of it.

Yes, the flick is low-budget, but it does amazing things with what amounts to pro-sumer equipment that most anyone has access to. Young filmmakers, take note: you will spend many viewings trying to figure out how they did some of this stuff. Most films operating at this level are simple dramas with talking heads, or make no attempt at large-scale stunts or effects, but not the guys who made this flick - they went nuts. Check out the references to Johnny Quest, Anime, Mad Max, Chop-Socky, Ghostbusters, South Park, and if you look very closely, even Blade Runner!

Never mind all of that, however - just enjoy the flick. Glen Levy is charming and aerodynamic, Tanya Dempsey gives a star-making performance and is one of the most beautiful actresses to come along in a long time, and Lana Piryan is dead-sexy, with an accent that makes you really not care if you get possessed by a demon or not. The rest of the supporting cast is either funny, handsome, or sexy, and the plot, although a bit derivative of other things, is very well constructed, and some of the dialogue is quite funny. There is a gag involving a bottle of ketchup that has to be seen to be believed.

Guardian may be the first low-budget, indie feature that I have seen try a "Hollywood" style approach to everything, instead of hedging its' bets every step of the way. Not perfect by any means, but the best "B" flick I've seen in a long time, and hopefully not the last feature that Ted Smith will make. "Stay sharp - like a razor."

to say this movie is bad is an understatement. Guardian represents everything that's possible to be wrong with a movie, that's also its sole redeeming quality. The reason I gave this movie it's single star (aside from the fact that there is no option to put 0 stars) is because it has certain educational purpose. Robert Altman, when asked which movies influenced him the most, said: "the movies I hated the most," he'd see a film and think "I'll never make a movie like that." That's the case with Guardian. Watching it makes you understand how and why a movie can be bad (or oh-my-god-it-burns-my-eye bad in this instance). There is not single aspect I can start you off with, it's bad globally: every line is a cliché stolen from Buffy, Blade, or some other B vampire movie (and the ending is a word-for-word rip off from the first Blade -- I can't spoil the movie with this, it hits the bottom on the first line); the image is terrible, either they used magnifying glass for a lens or rented a wrong camcorder, because this is not shot on film with an HDCAM, not even on HDV or DVX from the looks of it; the cinematography is ...well, I don't think they thought about lighting; the set pieces and the makeup is admirably expensive for such a low budget, but the actors wearing the suits couldn't act their way out of a noose on the day of their sentence.

At first I actually thought I was watching a rerun of a Buffy episode, but then I realized that even Buffy wasn't that bad (and there weren't any commercials!). I watched further and I couldn't believe it was on a premium channel, on cable! But seeing this piece of s$@t make it this far, I now know that any film can find distribution...

I bought GUARDIAN OF THE REALM because I know the special effects supervisor Tom Seymour. I have to admit that I'm proud of the St. Louis natives Tom, Ted Smith and Wyatt Weed for crafting an entertaining film. It had humor, good makeup, limited but effective fight scenes and decent sound effects and music. The actors did a fair job with the material, which avoided most clichés. Glen Levy was a real surprise with his charm and humor, but especially good in his fight choreography. The armored demon was impressive, but overall, the set design and props were excellent. You can't expect too much for a movie of this nature, and the makers stretched the budget to the limits. You can tell that they love the genre, and for the most part, it was artfully done.