Reviews

5/10 IMDB rating is an above average for horror film normally. It's not great but it's watchable. THIS,...this is horrible.

Not one character acted the way a person, normal or not, should. I know Josh Hutcherson had no career after Hunger Game, but this? Go do community theater and find a day job is better than this.

And what is Mary Stuart Masterson doing in this poop parade? I know she hasn't been seen for quite sometimes but you would have think she has better acting chop than she's showing in this sorry butt of a film. It's probably not her fault though... The writing is atrocious. Somebody got frighten by Chuck-E-Cheese when they were young and vomit out this crap.

Acting, cheesy. Story, dumb (ghost-possessed robot? PLEASE. Spare me.) Plot, MAKE NO SENSE.

Watch at you own risk.

I finally watched this film out of boredom.

While I was watching it, I felt something was incredibly wrong with the premise but couldn't quite put my finger on it. After I finished it and mulled it over briefly, I became disgusted.

Shamed on everyone who is even remotely attached to this project. It's an elitist, classist and potentially racist dribble masquerades as a horror flick. The only horror here is that someone could come up with an idea like this and actually got it made into a movie.

The thesis is thus: the poor has no right to raise children. The only way to break the cycle of poverty and abuses of any kind is to kidnap the kids and give them to upper or upper middle class white families. Yes! That is the crux of the film. It was the same reason that Indian children were taken away, right? I thought we decided quite some time ago that it was bad but then here you go.

The poor people in this film are rural whites. I guess it would be too obviously wrong if it's about poor urban minorities. So that's how you get this film made I supposed. Or, you are telling me urban minorities has no problem with poverty, drug and abuse.

Shame on you! Hollywood.

This movie was a pleasant surprise.

The story is intricate and seems to be well researched. Although I do not know the ins and outs of the exorcism ritual, this film presents a more complicated and seemingly authentic process than most of the Hollywood exorcism films.

It portrays the bureaucracy of the Catholic Church but not in a biased or unnecessarily critical way. It respects the local Eastern Shamanism and never makes fun of it. It showed that it was ineffective in this particular case not because the shaman is a mere charlatan but because the demonic power was strong and only the power of God can dispel it. For example, while respectfully waiting for the shaman to finish, the priest told his assistant that normally the particular shaman was very good.

The priests in the film are not irreproachable. While trying to save the possessed, they have to wrestle their own inner demons. However, even the older and jaded priest demonstrates none of exaggerated bitterness and cynicism of a Hollywood priest. He gives due to all parties including the possessed.

The film is not perfect but it is well thought out and it keeps you on edge. It also skip the gimmick of denying you resolution like many Hollywood horror film. When will they learn that the audiences don't have to see that the demons are still lurking around at the end of the movie to pave the way for a sequel? Tricks as such just leave the viewers unsatisfied.

I don't quite understand how this movie got such a low rating. It is a decent end-of-time movie, not a possession film.

While I was watching, I was thinking that it should have a 5 to 6 IMDb star rating, but I thought maybe the ending would ruin the film just like so many other horror movies. The ending is quite good. Normally, I don't like endings that do not finish the story. So many horror films leave business unfinished so there will be an opportunity for sequels. This film could have a sequel but does not require one. The story is about the beginning of the end. If there were to be a sequel, it would have to be epic, a very different sort of film. Try "Lord of the Rings" epic. If not, then it should not be made at all.

As I said before, it is not a possession movie. There may be an attempt to exorcise a demon, but if one pays attention, it is very clear why the exorcism does not work. Exorcism aims to remove a demon from the human host. It does not work if there is no demon to remove.

There are many things that could be explained better, such as when the cardinal realizes he was not dealing with a run of the mill demon and when he realizes his attempt to get rid of it only serves to promote its progress. The parody of Christ's birth, death and resurrection is too subtle and needed to be more developed. We saw the cardinal's face. We know he realizes something, but most of us who are watching won't know what and won't know why he change his tactics, which turned out to be another mistake and confirmed what he already suspected, that there was no possession to be exorcised.

This is not a movie about the final battle between good and evil. It's about the fight before the ultimate battle, a fight that the forces of good lose.

I really thought this movie would be a lot better. The rating is decent for a horror film and there are good reviews. The critics seem to love it though I had learned not to trust metacritic scores.

Basically, as soon as the mother showed up and opened her mouth, I immediately figured out what was wrong with the boys. It was all downhill from there. The big twist therefore became no twist at all.

I know they are very different but I can't help to compare "Goodnight Mommy" to "the Others," which had much better plot twist. It wasn't perfect but at least you couldn't figure it out at the beginning of the film. And as far as creepy kids in movies goes, the twins are just OK. The two kids in the Others in comparison were excellent. There really is no shortage of much better creepy kids in films.

Sometimes, I wonder whether a movie gets better ratings from critics just because it's in a language other than English.

I had read that this film was one of the most scary films in recent years and after spending the entire duration of the movie waiting to be scared, I am still waiting. I am not in the least a little bit "creeped out." Very disappointing for an avid fan of horror genre.

After the first 10 minutes, it occurred to me and others who were watching the movie with me that it is a film about sexually transmitted diseases. I'm sure we are not the only ones. It is not about a specific evil entity in any traditional sense. It's a cautionary PSA: one should be careful with whom one casually choose to have sex; terrible consequences could "follow" otherwise. That is all good except I was expecting to see a scary movie.

Nothing was explained in the film. No origin story of the evil in question. No explanation of what the kids did what they did to try to get rid of it. It could be intentional to illustrate that young adults have no clue to deal with disasters that they bring upon themselves. However, they also did not receive or ask for help from outside of their circle. The whole situation is unsatisfying and unrealistic.

The soundtrack is jarring to me. I understand that it is dated because the setting of the movie is dated. But it did not add anything for me except annoyance.

As far as the world in the film being dated, I understand the reason for it. There is no plasma TV and the kids only watches really old movies. There was no computer, no World Wide Web, and therefore no information on their fingertips. The teenagers are cut off from help in all directions. They can't search online for the reason(s) that they were haunted. They can't find out how to get rid of it. They don't even ask for help from outside which kind of boggles the mind. I think the effort to create the situation in which these teens are isolated does not make too much sense. Even in the late 70s or early 80s, there are resources they can rely on apart from social medias. Try the libraries or archives.

There are some classic movie and literary references in the film which tells me that someone is trying to give this project an intellectual angle but the effort was shallow and clumsily done.

All in all, not that great.

Saying that Cut Bank is a poor man's Fargo is too harsh but I am tempted to say it.

Matt Shakman has an impressive resume with TV work and he obviously looked to the Coen brothers for inspiration for Cut Bank, down to the name of the film title (a small town that most of us never heard of). And Cut Bank is quite enjoyable. It is quirky and full of oddball characters just like in Fargo. The direction is tight and the acting is good from all parties. Michael Stuhlbarg's done it again with portraying a creepy and unsettling character.

My only problem with the film is that it is too predictable. I can see what is coming a mile away. However, it is not because it is not clever. I think I just watch too much movie and not a lot of plot twists are surprising anymore.

The ending is a bit incongruent because things could have gotten worse for certain characters like it had been the whole movie but it didn't. Somehow, I found it comforting that the bottom didn't completely drop out though at the same time, it is a little disappointing that it didn't.

All in all, it is a decent movie.

It is very difficult to describe how angry I felt after sitting through nearly 2 hours. I felt like some smug a**hole who thinks he's smarter than everyone just kicks me in the head, spits in my eyes and then call me names. I have never felt so insulted by a film. But then again, I had never bother to watch the Star Wars prequels.

The plot is full of holes and the twists and turns are hardly plausible. It is true that here are instances good acting can be a saving grace for a bad movie but there is precious little of that in the film. The lead characters are unconvincing and tedious bores. Ben Affleck... well, he's Ben Affleck. Sometimes, he does decent work, but only sometimes...

The biggest disappointment is Rosamund Pike. I know she is no Maryl Streep but she is usually not this bad. First of all, her American accent. She Talks like she is in some black and white movies from the 50s. Fine, so may be she is channeling some heroine from a Hitchcock film but who talks like that anymore. Okay, I am being a nitpicky here. My bad. Her character was supposed to be highly complicated but there was no depth. She couldn't even do a half-way decent mimicry of a damaged person. It's down right pathetic.

All the supporting characters are awful. All except Kim Dickens. She IS the saving grace of the film if there is one. It's wonderful to watch her as the lead investigator of the case of missing wife and the only thing that keeps the movie from flying away like a kite in a wind storm. She held on as long as she could, all the way until near the end when David Fincher ran out of time. Alas, she cannot save this hot stinking pile of garbage. Somebody please give Ms Dickens a better position in her career. She deserves it.

The worst one is probably Neil Patrick Harris. What happened there, Doogie? I cannot talk about what is wrong with his character without going into a tirade and spill too much beans so I will stop there. Doogie, stay with comedy please.

I am glad that not everyone is fooled by this American Beauty-esque bull doo doo. Frankly, I did not go in with too high an expectation. I saw the high rating on IMDb but I also heard grumbles that it was not that great. The bar I set was in the middle and I still gets crushingly disappointed. That is how bad this movie is.

When I was younger, I would see anything in the theater because I like movies and tickets was a lot cheaper back then. I would not waste a penny for this one.

When Dan Stevens left Downton Abbey, I'd heard comments about him making a David Caruso mistake. That may be but he seems to pick up some interesting roles. I barely recognize him in this film or in A Walk Among the Tombstone, which was a much better movie. He is undoubtedly the best part of the film. He was intense and creepy even if the character is rather 2 dimensional. All the rest of the characters pale in comparison. However, even a B-movie needs decent supporting characters especially when the plot is crap.

The other characters including Major Carver (played by Lance Reddick) are flat and uninteresting. Frankly, I don't know what the heck Lance Reddick is doing in this movie. One would think he has better things to do.

The film could have been a decent thriller but it degenerated into a mess of Halloween slasher film with an attractive villain instead of a rotting face behind a hockey mask. The motivation of the characters are either unexplained or abbreviated so much that it was unconvincing. It became obvious really quickly that the film makers had just a vague concept but no idea how to realize it.

I like the soundtrack but what 20 year old would listen to the kind of music that the character Anna Peterson listen to. It's before her time. Come on. It's hard to imagine that a girl like Anna would be into an obscure, aged Dutch goth band. Someone must be a big fan of the Clan of Xymox. Anyway, I digress.

I really want to like this movie after I saw the preview but it turned out to be such a disappointment. It's not even a B-movie. It's at best a C minus minus minus if not a D.