Satanic

After a car crash, a woman has her face reconstructed. She can't remember anything, and is sent to a home for delinquents since she had been a troublemaker before the crash and now has no family. A strange satanic ouija board was found with her in the car, and a satanic journal was found in her room. (Peculiarly, this movie seems to think a pentagram with one point up is satanic - I thought it was two?) People begin dying and she still can't remember anything...

The production values for this straight-to-video horror movie were pretty good, thankfully. Competent cinematography, lighting and sound, and decent special effects. The father was creepy-looking.

It was unfortunate that Scrimm and Combs didn't have bigger roles. I suspected both would turn out to be cameos, and indeed they're little more than that. I wonder what they got paid?

There's some gratuitous nudity from one of the other delinquents in the home, and the lead provides a shower scene although it seemed like it could have been a body double.

The movie really goes downhill once the characters figure out what is going on. By that time, most viewers will have guessed. The ending is pretty unsatisfying.

I usually start my reviews with a brief synopsis but I really can't be bothered with this one. Since I was a kid I've had an interest in the occult, especially the darker side, so when I saw this DVD going cheap it instantly grabbed my attention. But instead of getting Black Masses we just get some goth chick with an evil looking Ouija board and one of the worst demons I've ever had the misfortune to see, some bad actor in a crappy rubber suit and dubbed with one of those awful "demonic" voices! The plot is rubbish, as is most of the acting. The ONLY 2 reasons why I have generously scored this 3 out of 10 instead of 2 is: firstly, the presence of horror legends Angus Scrimm and Jeffrey Combs (really just a cameo, pointless one at that); secondly, there is some brief but welcome nudity, in particular a short but very nice shower scene (I'm sure a body double was employed). Looking at the other reviews, one stands out - 9/10 by Horror Geek, who coincidently reviewed this when the movie came out & is his/hers only imdb review! Avoid!

Amnesiac car crash survivor Michelle (Annie Sorell) undergoes reconstructive surgery on her face (as performed by 79 year old Angus Scrimm of Phantasm fame), after which she is sent to a halfway house for troubled teens (despite appearing to be at least in her late twenties); there she attempts to piece together her past with the help of her journal. What Michelle discovers in the pages of her notebook is a disturbing fascination with the Satanic arts, and when those around her begin to turn up dead, she looks to be the prime suspect. Jeffrey Combs plays the police detective who investigates.

Top billed horror legends Angus Scrimm and Jeffrey Combs (Reanimator) are completely wasted in this film, their roles amounting to nothing more than cameos, neither adding much to the plot. With pedestrian direction, cheap cinematography, crappy editing, unexceptional performances from the less seasoned members of the cast, zero scares, lacklustre gore, and a really dumb twist, about all there is to hold the viewer's interest is some brief gratuitous female nudity: Eliza Swenson as bad girl Dalia gets topless, a nameless blonde also flashes her thrupennies, while Sorell goes the whole hog for the film's obligatory shower scene, where the actress gets to show the viewer both sides of her character: front and back.

A teenage girl (who appears to be 30) is in a nasty car accident, loses her memory, and is placed in Harmony House with other "problem kids" where she begins to recall a past riddled with Satanic imagery and Ouija board fun.

This film is truly awful. The opening scene is ruined by a horrible actor who reappears multiple times throughout the film, repeating the same lines (variations of "what did you do, Michelle?") and coming across as the worst actor in history. His presence, along with the way the director felt the need to splice his scenes in, really killed any hope this movie had of being good.

Also, the film really drags. The same things happen over and over again. The flashbacks get on my nerves like you wouldn't believe, and even in the later parts of the film where the mystery begins to make sense, it's really stupid and tedious.

I really wanted to like this film. It has horror movie legend Angus Scrimm, as well as icons Jeffrey Combs (one of my idols) and James Russo (who coincidentally also co-star in "Blackwater Valley Exorcism", see separate review). It has a shower scene and one of the hottest girls in horror history getting it on. And two teenage boys who I thought were pretty funny, arguing over a video game in what I could only describe as 1980s Atari commercial style. Yet, it fails miserably.

Scrimm is okay, and Combs does fairly well as the detective (and why wouldn't he?). But neither has a role with much depth or range. Combs first appears in a scene where he has maybe two lines and 30 seconds of screen time, and I was quite worried they had used him just to put his name on the cover. While I still suspect this, at least he returned later on for another few minutes. Who are these people casting horror icons in such pointless roles?

There is no reason to see this film. While not as bad as the film "Nine Lives" I subjected myself to recently, it certainly ranks as one of the most worthless of 2006. With this influx of straight-to-video horror I've been coming across lately, I expect a lot of crap... but seriously, who are the people greenlighting these projects? Is this the time for me to make a directorial debut?

Very uneven lowish production values hurt, but there are some good ideas in the script and the Combs and Scrimm are fine in basically not much roles,probably lured by director Dan Golden's knowing them than by the material, though both have been in worse roles in worse movies. James Russo's part is almost as "big" but as Combs but they didn't have the guts to claim he stars in the movie. However using Combs name first on the box is exploitation in the worst sense he's barely in the movie. Scrimm has a bigger but ultimately no pay off role. Movie is about OUJA board more than anything Satanic other than the credit sequence in lava-hell landscape.

So what's really bad about the movie is a slapdash editing and really crappy sound job and lousy music score that lifts a "cut to commercial" music signature bit from Charlie's Angels.

Also the principal cast is pretty bad and much post production re-dubbing of voices sounds like it was done by one actor impersonating the the cast rather poorly. And if those are the actors voices, almost impossible, but if those are then the post production sound is even worse than I'm giving it "credit" for.

The occasional crappy sets and pretty bad make-up further drag this down into the dumps. Some okay ideas from director Golden but usually defeated by one problem or another. But in the shameful hall of Lionsgate "pick up" movies this is for the most part not a total rip off, if you can overlook the sloppy editing. Sometimes shots linger just long enough to make you chuckle at a odd performance or a not so great effect, that would have been fine if it didn't linger.

Sure it's shot on video, like everything will be soon, quality varies but there is far worse looking stuff out there, but the sound really really tries to bury this one in the ground, lousy demon voices and that music score, it's like, well how can I say, bad.