User Reviews

When you make a horror movie in your own house but your wife won't let you make it look creepy or get fake blood on the floor. Overall, meh. Really crappy "CGI." Brand new looking house supposed to be 40+ years old. Poorly decorated. Bad acting. All the violence happens off screen. Written by a guy who knows nothing about pregnancy: morning sickness within hours of conception and absolutely no mess giving birth. three stars because a bad horror movie is better than a good romantic comedy.

From the reviews and articles I've read about this edition of Bad Ben, I believe Steelmanville Road is underrated and gets disrespected. This is a good prequel. I liked the cast. I liked the story. Having Tom Riley show up at the very end after he closed on the house was perfect and worked well for me.

Now the next movie, Badder Ben, I really didn't like.

So... Let me get this straight... You're freaked out by spooky goings on, you roll back your security footage and see a chairs move and a ghostly boy standing in the door way and following you round the house... And your response is...

Huh... That's odd.

Some okay acting, some absolutely terrible acting, some horrible effects, and some beyond horrible writing... Other than that, it's a gem.

"Bad Ben", the shockingly good movie with a dumb name, managed to do almost everything right --- making do with what little it had, executing it well, and managing to remain compelling and unsettling despite being all the work of one man (literally). It had the right amount of subtle movements of the doors and the unexplained children's drawing showing "Good Ben" and "Bad Ben".

This prequel completely blows it in every way.

Getting the easiest stuff out of the way first; the acting. In "Bad Ben", there was only one person, Nigel Bach, and he managed to perform effortlessly. Everyone here meanwhile is struggling and coming apart horribly. The lawyer guy literally sounds like he's reading the lines for the first time and guessing as to how he's supposed to deliver them, and the old woman Mona has a style of acting eerily reminiscent of the old woman in "The Room"

As well, the first movie kept up an air of creepiness by having the cameras be motion-activated, so any time we switch to one camera or the other, it was because something was moving, regardless of whether we saw it or not. In this movie, that's completely thrown out, and the film constantly switches back and forth from cameras constantly, sometimes for no reason at all other than to get a different angle of the same scene.

For the film itself, it follows a young couple who just inherited a house (the same one in "Bad Ben") from Rachael's deceased mother and almost immediately they start getting harassed by a ghost. While Nigel Bach's character Tom in the previous film was oddly likeable and pleasant, these people are shrill and terrible and constantly snarking and sniping at each other and their friends, sometimes in such a way that I am genuinely shocked that neither of them ends up hitting the other one.

Starting with the first night's spooky events, and having apparently learned nothing from the previous film in terms of subtlety and hiding bad visual effects, we get an almost immediate ghost appearance of a boy pasted into the camera footage looking so horribly fake and out of place that it's a laugh riot. Not content to show the blatantly fake ghost boy in one camera shot, they proceed to include him in every single camera shot during the first night with Rachael alone, complete with piped in random mumbling sounds the captions claimed were a "foreign language".

Almost immediately the couple becomes aware of the ghost and contact Mona, a friend of Rachael's deceased mother. Mona comes to the house, and is IMMEDIATELY contacted by Rachael's mother's ghost, who just casually chats with her on the front porch before inviting her into the house to put around religious paraphernalia and inexplicably leave behind the urn and cloth dolls found by Tom in the attic in the first movie.

She then basically completely ruins any and all mystery to this film and its plot by expo-dumping some incoherent story about the ghost boy being "Elijah", Rachael's brother who killed himself and was being persuaded to do things by some evil thing that is getting old and needs to rape a member of her family in order to procreate. This evil thing was born as the 13th child of a woman in the 1700s and was horribly deformed and also apparently a demon of some sort that has been raping women from this family line in order to continue living. Now Rachael is the last living woman of this family line and it needs to rape her so it's using Elijah's ghost to.... just wander around the house and be spooky?

Elijah ghost literally does absolutely nothing, sometimes talking to the cameras, and at one instance pulls an incredibly stupid jump scare with its face filling up the screen and screaming loudly like those old internet memes with the ghost face popping up suddenly.

There are multiple instances of other ghost things appearing, and all of them look as painfully fake as Elijah ghost, and they all randomly mutter incoherently and do nothing.

Every little thing about the first "Bad Ben" is needlessly and pointlessly explained or shown here. For no reason at all, we get Rachael putting all the kitchen knives in an odd-looking wooden chest that Tom finds in the garbage bag in the backyard. For no reason at all, Mona puts the stuff in the attic that Tom later finds. For no reason at all, Mona comes back to the house to bury "Bad Ben" in the grave found in the first movie, and explains to "Bad Ben" that she's having his parents cremated and put in the attic. Stuff like this happens constantly, just going blow by blow to kill any and all mystique and mystery that the previous movie had.

In the movie's climax/ending, Rachael gives birth to a demon rape baby and is found lying on the floor afterwards, claiming the baby "flew away" and that she named it "Ben", thus tying it in to the first movie somehow.

Even the inexplicable children's drawing showing "Good Ben" and "Bad Ben" is painstakingly explained as not being a child's drawing but one made by Rachael at Mona's insistence, initially showing her with her husband and a baby boy. After giving birth to the demon baby and having her little freakout, she draws in "Bad Ben" and labels the original baby as "Good Ben", and explains to her ghost brother that "This is the baby we wanted (Good Ben) and this is the baby we got (Bad Ben)".

Ultimately, this film completely blows everything established by "Bad Ben", possibly exposing Nigel Bach's work as a fluke rather than a minimalistic work of genius, clumsily attempting to establish a "Bad Ben" Universe at the expense of the movies themselves.

Liked Bad Ben but this is not good. Sometimes subtlety is better in horror. Ghost boy is what I'm referring to.

Where Bad Ben was a masterclass in how to make a no-budget found footage ghost house tale, Steelmanville Road (SMVR) was the opposite. While I watched Bad Ben with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised, I had the reverse experience here. SMVR was exactly how I *expected* the original would be - obnoxiously bad effects, bad acting, and a bewildering, exposition-heavy plot.

SMVR is a prequel to Bad Ben, setting up the events that led to the original. ALL of the events. Each and every minor detail.

It follows a young couple, Rachel and Matt, who inherit the house from adopted Rachel's biological mother. Unlike the slow but gradual build-up of the original movie, SMVR has Rachel jumping and screaming almost immediately - at what, though, is unclear. Of course, no-one believes her. Rachel's husband, Matt, has to work late most days, and rather than leave his distressed wife home alone, he has their friend (?) install security cameras to keep an eye on things.

The actors who play Rachel and Matt aren't necessarily bad. I think their script and direction was poor, turning them both into unlikeable characters right from the beginning. Their relationship is such that this movie could quite easily have the supernatural elements stripped away and be turned into a drama about an abusive marriage, so creepy, obnoxious, and controlling are they towards each other.

Their 'friend', Silas, is apparently hated by both of them, and he hates them in turn. I don't think that was the intended message, but it's how they come across. Silas installs the CCTV system through the house as a gift, before being unceremoniously kicked out of their lives because they think he's spying on them. The actor who plays Silas might've been having an off-day, or he might need more practice, because either way, I found his performance flat. Like, the most flat performance I've ever seen from any actor, ever.

There's also a lawyer, who comes into the house midway through to answer their questions. I found him marginally better than Silas in that he at least attempted to express an emotion, but what emotion that was is unclear. Casual, bemused contempt?

The final (I'm loathe to say 'living') character is an elderly woman who once served as Rachel's mother's "spiritual advisor". Exposition Lady serves as the primary exposition dumper, to the extent that she relays a literal ghost story to Rachel (who has suddenly become incredulous to the paranormal at that point, despite being the only believer earlier), but I don't think anybody told Exposition Lady's actress what kind of movie she was in - her uneven performance ranged from drunk to delirious.

There is another character in the movie - the ghost of Rachel's deceased half-brother, Elijah. Elijah, otherwise known as Ghost Ex Machina, literally exists only to provide some early 'spooky scenes', and to set up the events of the movie by removing the religious iconography from the house. More than that, though, he is like the personification of everything wrong with the film. He

Firstly, the effects. The original Bad Ben relied on surprisingly effective practical effects for the most part, which I found hugely impressive considering the budget and the fact that it seemed to be a one-man show. Bad Ben did have a smattering of 'special effects' too, but Nigel Bach was clearly aware of his own limitations in that regard, and only used them sparingly and briefly for the most part.

There *are* practical effects in SMVR, but they're somehow executed less effectively - perhaps I was simply used to them, as I watched the two movies back-to-back, but something about them just didn't impress me as much.

The biggest problem, though, is the *special* effects. Compared to Bad Ben, SMVR leans into them *much* harder, but neither the budget nor the expertise have improved enough to warrant doing so. And Elijah is the prime offender here - the first time he appeared, I genuinely laughed out loud at how ridiculous he looked. Showing up in "night-vision" scenes at first, he was pasted into them with all the panache of a child using Microsoft Paint, with a terrible white glowing effect extracted straight from old Photoshop blending effects. I don't know what the thinking was behind actually putting this in the film, and we know that Nigel (or whoever helps him) is better than this, both from the last movie and the next ones.

Unlike the subsequent movie in the series, I don't think the humour here was intentional, either.

Elijah is also a key aspect of the plot, which is *heavy* with bad exposition. One of the things I loved about the first film was that we learnt everything as Tom did, and he didn't learn a lot - the previous occupants were killed suspiciously, there was a weird drawing in the Bible, and suchlike. The first film didn't fall into the trap that so many other indie found footage movies fall into of trying to explain everything. It was much more of the "show, don't tell" school of thought. But that's what this movie is seemingly all about - trying to explain *everything*, and it uses huge exposition dumps to do so.

The movie takes the time to setup every inconsequential detail from the first film, and it does it in such a clumsy way. At one point, Exposition Lady rocks up with a bag containing the artefacts that Tom found in the attic in the original film. She takes them out of the bag seemingly for no other reason than to show them to the audience, and then announces that she's going to put them up in the attic for... reasons?

The most egregious example of this happens towards the end of the movie, when post-demon-pregnancy Rachel (please don't ask, I don't care enough to explain) finishes-off the child's drawing we saw in the first movie, and then she *holds it up to the CCTV camera for no other reason than for the audience to see it*. What?!

While Tom Riley in Bad Ben was a generally likeable character with believable motivations, the opposite is true here. I hate all of the characters. I was actively rooting for the demon... monster-baby... whatever it was, to get rid of them all, and felt relieved when it inevitably did so (incidentally, that's a general problem with prequels - I *knew* the main characters were going to die, so I didn't feel the remotest amount of tension about it).

I forced my way through this movie, hoping for some of Nigel Bach's previous magic to work its way into the ending, but there just wasn't any payoff. There are a few well-executed scenes that reminded you of the talent that Nigel is capable of, but they were just too few and far between - and too mixed-up in dull exposition and unlikeable characters - to make up for it.

Steelmanville Road abandoned nearly everything that made Bad Ben so memorable and enjoyable, and it suffered greatly for it.

Adding some actors (friends?), a camera or two (maybe not even that), and more simple but well-executed FX, a worthy prequel to the original. The effort involved on a micro budget makes it worth a watch. Nigel Bach has done a fine job of creating something out of almost nothing. Well done! I wonder if he gets weird email from folks certain that he's delivered genuine paranormal events.

That the Steelmanville Rd House has become a one strange man cave over every inch of the house outside and in progressively over each film? We already get the explanation for the cameras throughout in this film BUT anyone else catch these fun things in all the films? 1) who installs indoor landline model handset at eye level front door of a residential home in an isolated area? (Updates the phone too?) 2)Most rooms and outdoor spaces (including deck/basement have): A couple chairs/recliners (director chair also) A couch Table (inc hospital one @ front dr & tiny ones) A Large Screen TV/PC items A Mini fridge A Torchier lamp or 2 lamps on nightstands A desk or small work table, 2-drawer cabinet Randomly placed ladders, stuffed animals, TV trays (* always in a square around the area?) 3) addition of the fondue set to the bar bottles next to the family photos behind the gravy boats lined up on the buffet and the table setup dining rm point to demons who entertain a lot? (Don't want to think what that pirate ship steering wheel on the master brm on the floor's for >_< ) 4) Anyone see the dogs or what sleeps in those beds?

Bad Ben (previous movie) wasn't awful, it knew it's limits with FX and such, so it didn't reach. The ghost effects in this are laughable, the night vision is just a sloppy green filter over the footage.

The eccentric old lady seems like a cartoon character she's so animated and loopy. A fun watch if it's satire but as a stand-alone film it's embarassing in parts.

A shot on video PARANORMAL ACTIVITY rip-off. It's an enthusiasted and lighthearted affair about a couple encountering moving doors and furniture and the like. Quite earnest, and not as bad as many.

If you want some comfy handheld kino instead of horror with constant sudden loud music watch Steelmanville Road a prequel to the cult movie Bad Ben and the sequels. A couple moves into as house into nomansland house haunted by Bad Ben and other entities. No Oscars just some spooky for a boring Weekend..