demons

Blood Bound aka The Dark Rite aka Bloodline (2019)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
written and Directed by richard lemay
southern fried filmworks/film mode entertainment/garden house entertainment/bloodline productions

It CAN’T be a good omen that a film’s own production company’s website doesn’t have its title of record updated, or that its “release” schedule on IMDb only lists “(internet),” but truth will out, and this movie is, like, an emo vampire picture. Even if the brooding deep dark character isn’t a vampire. Know what else isn’t a good sign? This explanation: “Two hundred years ago a distant cousin of mine made a pact with a demon to give our family unlimited power. He was greedy and didn’t realize he was binding our whole family to darkness. In exchange, every 25 years we must sacrifice four human lives, one being a member of our own family.” (SHHHH! THAT’S AN IMPORTANT HINT!) This is a teen-soap-opera horror of a type I wasn’t aware they were still making, and it’s got more angst than you could hit with a stake. Even if the demi-magical evildoers aren’t vampires. Note to all aspiring screenwriters out there: Just recycle some shit, that’s how you’ll get your script into “development.”

why did i watch this movie?

“Hey, ’19,” I thought. “That’s, like, a new release.”

should you watch this movie?

It is really hard to take seriously.

highlight and low point

That the demon who eats still-beating hearts from human chests is not one of the most labored – pun inevitable – plot points in this picture should clue you in on the level of creativity we’re dealing with here. Also, a detail crucial to the SHOCKING twist at the end impossibly evades the notice of the character it will directly affect. Eden Brolin does a passable job with her thankless role, I guess.

rating from outer space: c–

The Nun (2018)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
directed by corin hardy
atomic monster/the safran company/new line cinema

Have you ever had to shoot a burning demon nun? Yeah, me neither. I know, I know, “the unexamined life” and all that, but I’m all right with missing out on that experience. Now, I rarely get overexcited about seeing some new scary movie or another, even though I obviously devote a lot of my time to watching the damn things and then divulging the experience here, but I found the promos for this one very compelling – and that was before I realized it was related to The Conjuring. So how critical would I be, I wondered. Well, I can tell you this flick is not perfect. At times, it pushes the boundaries of acceptable hocus-pocus, even as the script concerns a malevolent spirit inhabiting a Romanian cloister and the novitiate who must do battle with said evil entity. The subtleties are nearly sublime, however, and the masterful underplaying of some key frights is a definite plus. Unfortunately, at a certain point things go overboard, as if the writers felt compelled to add every last malefice they could imagine. Probably they could’ve saved some for the sequel. A lot of very strong imagery is propounded here, and pretty impressive levels of blasphemy, too.

 

why did i watch this movie?

I enjoyed both The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2, so much so that I also saw Annabelle. Plus, demon nun.

should you watch this movie?

Honestly? It’s not essential. It is a good time, though.

highlight and low point

This won’t sound promising, but the opening sequence was tremendous; other than that, a few of the more ominous scenes involving the residents of the abbey were the best this film had to offer.

 

 

 

The overkill mentioned above threatens at times to turn the proceedings into an action film.

rating from outer space: C+