Carnifex

I will say that I found the cover for the 2022 horror movie "Carnifex" interesting enough to pick it up. And with "Carnifex" being a horror movie that I had not already seen, nor even heard about, of course I opted to watch it.

The storyline in the movie, as written by Shanti Gudgeon, definitely had potential. However, the movie was just too slow paced and ineffective. It was clear that writer Shanti Gudgeon and director Sean Lahiff were aiming at tension and atmosphere, more than they opted for a traditional gore horror movie. It didn't really play out all that well in my book, especially because you have to wait 56 minutes before you get a glimpse of the creature. And by that time it was just too little, too late, especially since the movie ran at 93 minutes in total.

"Carnifex" is a slow paced movie with a narrative that actually doesn't offer all that much to the audience. But if you consider watching three people walking around in the wilderness, looking at camera traps exciting, then you are definitely in for a treat. I was expecting a tad more than just that, so I found "Carnifex" to be somewhat of a swing and a miss.

And with nearly 1 hour into the movie before things start to happen, I have to say that my patience and interest in the movie was fast waning.

This is a movie with a very small cast ensemble, so there was an additional amount of pressure on the performances delivered by Harry Greenwood, Alexandra Park and Sisi Stringer. They actually fared well enough, taking into consideration the lack of a properly engaging script and storyline.

Visually then "Carnifex" was okay. I mean, you don't get to see anything interesting before 56 minutes into the foray. And with less than a couple of minutes, perhaps 2 or 3, of screentime, then it made for a rather dull creature feature.

Sure, the atmosphere and tension in the movie was good, but the narrative was just too mundane and slow paced to keep things interesting.

My rating of "Carnifex" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

Carnifex is a fun little horror movie set in the Aussie bush with an energetic cast, evocative score, and gorgeous scenery. Add a cute dog, a bit of humour, and a deadly beast out for blood, and you've got all the key ingredients of the genre. What makes it distinctive is its creature - one I've never seen in a film before!

The start is slow; just stuff your face with popcorn and get through it and then enjoy the ride when it takes off.

Don't let mmsucks's review, suggesting this movie has ripped off Michael J. Hellscream's novel of the same name, put you off - that book and this movie share a generic horror plot that we've all seen and read a thousand times before, with the same title and creature. That's pretty common in film, especially of this genre. And it isn't a bad thing! Let it go, mate!

CARNIFEX follows three passionate conservationists, Grace (Sisi Stringer), Bailey (Alexandra Park) and Ben (Harry Greenwood), as they venture deep into the Australian outback in hopes of recording evidence of devastation caused by the wildfires. The trio soon discovers a terrifying species - the Carnifex - that has been previously undocumented, and they quickly realize that they are now the ones being tracked.

CARNIFEX is a missed opportunity. Despite a talented cast, the story fails to take off. After a cliched opening of someone being attacked by something unseen, the first half of the movie plods on with boring and stilted dialogue and where little happens apart from the characters peering up into the trees. The documentary maker in the story hardly ever has her camera running and never does when any documentary maker would do so. The acting is unconvincing (although the dog does a decent job), and the story did not have enough suspense to keep me engaged.

The second half of the movie picks up with a couple of intense action sequences, but even then, it feels too formulaic and predictable. The effects work is satisfactory, but nothing stands out.

The bush setting is beautiful but underutilised and left me with little more than a couple of jump scares. The soundtrack also fails to engage, being sparse and lacking in tension.

CARNIFEX is a forgettable horror flick that won't leave you too traumatized or thrilled. It's an adequate timewaster, but uninspiring. If you're looking for a true horror experience, you'd be better off checking out something else.

CARNIFEX is simply a shallow and forgettable movie that doesn't live up to its potential. It boasts beautiful cinematography of the Australian bush but fails to offer anything unique or interesting. It's not worth your time or money.

Not that bad, fairly well filmed and with pretty nice sight of the Australian bush, but it suffers from the modern need to preach you to death, to the point that it just get insufferable.

So first you have to go through literally half the movie getting preach mercilessly about ecology and the evil of human, 45 minutes of characters walking in the forest giving you life lessons and guilting you to oblivion. Without counting the also very modern need of writing every male character as a goofy caricature unable to do anything but be a joke (it could have passed fairly in this movie if not every male character were not just simply useless without exception).

Then comes the usual bad writing of lazy horror, with the final 30 minutes, where every character becomes dumb for no reason, running around in the dark and forgetting they are professional who should know how to handle a situation involving a predator. And of course the predator himself which literally a scene after being describe as an ambush and stalker predator (and behaving like one), suddenly decide to become stupid and pursue the main characters like any dumb generic predator.

In the end, like I said, nicely filmed, but lazy writing suffering from the modern tropes of having to preach you instead of entertaining you.

I enjoyed this movie, even though eventually it seems like it falls flat.

First of all, I enjoyed the scenery, forest trip, campfire, nature views, light conversations - I liked that part, it seemed happy and easy, and entertaining to me.

I liked the actors and the characters, they played well.

The suspense build up was good, felt some "Predator" vibes there, you know, at some point the pressure grew like characters were being stalked and in danger, while being unaware of it. That was executed well as per my opinion.

The ending is really when the movie should've risen to its peak, but instead it fallen flat. Some bad decisions have been made during this movie creation, I guess. So, characters suddenly became silly even though as biologists they should've probably known better how to act around predators and kept safe.

Moreover, as the creature is in the center of this movie, it should've been well written and thought throw, etc.

But instead, we get this creature with overall bad design. I'm not talking about the CGI (although they were pretty lackluster in half of the scenes), but mostly its behavior, motivation and history. There is no justification in movie itself about how this could've all be possible.

So, yes, I enjoyed this one.

Still, I was a bit disappointed, because I really saw the potential for it to be so much better in the end with just a little more work.