Legend of the Bog

After watching this film, I had to ask someone else what genre it was supposed to be. It's really unclear. My gut reaction was horror, but the music, locations, and "creature" aren't scary. In fact, the music works to diffuse any tension that might have been accidentally created. This movie feels like the filmmakers meant for this to be a drama and at the last minute decided to play up some horror aspects since that genre is popular right now. Either way, Vinnie Jones doesn't deserve to be in this film, and with the exception of a few moments when the cinematography is pretty well done, this film doesn't lend itself to a single viewing. I believe the people at the helm of this one need more practice.

Sweet LORD this is without a shadow of a doubt one of the WORST films, let alone horror films I have ever seen, the cheapness of the budget shows more in the acting talent than anything else, with the exception of Vinnie Jones who puts in his usual performance as...well...Vinnie Jones. You would have thought he'd have developed some acting talent useful enough to broaden his range since LOCK STOCK but apparently not, he just grunts and mockneys his way through this heap like every other film unfortunate enough to be tainted by his embarrassingly unconvincing efforts at character realism. Also this film a lot of the time, especially for the first half doesn't appear to be sure to-be-sure whether or not it's a horror or an infomercial made for the travel and tourism board of Oireland, a lot of it seems to be jolly-begorrah panning shots of rural country or people going about their mundane business to the chirpy sound of Gaelic folk. The only saving grace to this joke is the on-the-floor-in-hysterics performance put in by whatever lunk they hired to play the bog man. He comes across like a supermarket trolley attendant lost in the woods on cheap speed, his facial expressions as he attempts to convey whatever the director told him to convey are priceless in their utter retardation, look out for a good bit at the end where the girl is squaring up to him, and for a minute he looks like he's building up to a really HUGE roar of fury, neck straining and everything, and then just suddenly looks confused, or constipated, a little embarrassed too. I'm totally in respect of the constraints in place once you've spunked most of your budget on hiring someone with some international kudos but no acting talent whatsoever to play one of your leads, but the least you can do is put SOME effort into redistributing the rest to good effect.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

There seems to be a Breach of the Trade Descriptions Act going on with a lot of these straight to video action films, where the cover gives the wrong impression of what sort of movie it's going to be and even puts a lead star on the front cover that doesn't actually have that much screen time. Vinnie Jones does end up getting a bit more coverage than it first looks like he will, but he's still missing for quite a bit of it and certainly doesn't feel like the main player in it all. And while it looks from the cover like another one of his straight to DVD action films, it's actually more of a messy, jumbled horror/comedy sort of film that goes to both extremes with each genre.

Actually, this is Jones's second collaboration with, and the second feature film of director Brendan Foley, following his equally disastrous debut The Riddle, where Jones was also the lead. But here everything's really lumpen, with truly cheap looking production values, an incomprehensible, incoherent plot and Jones doing his usual silent, grumpy hard man act with some really flat dialogue to chew off. All this and a big, ogre some killer going around bumping everyone off.

I'm really not sure what anyone was trying to get at with this one. Jones should try and get back in theatres and Foley should think about packing it in. *

I am a big movie consumer and I'm very tolerant with bad ones. I believe there is something good in almost any movie: maybe a good actor, a good scenario, a nice landscape, nice FX... something! Legend of the bog? I don't know... I couldn't find something like that! Bad acting, bad plot, bad scenario, bad effects... Oh, there is something! A nice forest and an interesting landscape... I mean the bog itself!

A movie without beginning, without ending and between... a very confusing, stupid and boring action, made out of unbound pieces of amateur theatrical performance! I've watched this movie with my 12 years old son, him too a "movie-man", and after about 30 minutes he asked me: "Do you like this movie? I think is as bad as Centipede! You said to me this is a horror movie!". Well... no comment! Still, we've watched till the end, only to see what happens in the end. And it happened... nothing!

So... it simply doesn't worth, watching the sky would be more productive!

This film's main contribution must be that it constitutes irrefutable evidence against creationist notions of an intelligent designer of mankind. A truly intelligent designer would not just have provided us with eyelids to avoid watching this kind of rubbish, he would have given us earlids as well to protect our brains against the utterly inane and imbecille dialogue. Fortunately, we have legs, so at least one can walk away from what must be one of the worst movies ever made. It has NO redeeming features. It is not even bad in such a way as to be amusing or entertaining. It is just plain BAD. Inane, idiotic, imbecille, illogical, inconsistent...