I read through a bunch of the other reviews-- but then decided to give it a try and an open mind.
Alas. . .the other reviewers are right.
HOWEVER. . . IF you have NEVER seen "Prince of Darkness" and you and your Girlfriend just want something lite and a little gory for a Saturday Night Horror flick-- This DOES qualify as a passable thriller rental pick. If that's all you want-- READ NO FURTHER. Put the DVD in the player and enjoy. Fried Chicken and Pop goes nicely with this. And the Girlfriend can talk all she wants. To you. To her Cellphone. To her Mom. . .it doesn't matter.
BUT IF YOU ARE A SERIOUS CRITIC OF THE RELIGIOUS HORROR SUB-GENRE on the other hand. . .Read On--
First-- the Title of the Movies tells you ALL you need to know- so there's no suspense in finding out what it's all about.
Two-- Lack of consistency. A military extraction team such as was portrayed here was so in-effective, so undisciplined, so un-cohesive as to make a drill sergeant scream with shame and anguish. By the time the Asian gal went chasing after the little girl in the white dress --AGAIN!-- I threw my hands up in disgust. They might as well have someone chase a cat into a dark room and crouch down and go: "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty!"
Three-- Location and Setup inconsistency. If this was a deep ARCHAEOLOGICAL excavation somewhere in a Desert-- why would someone build an entire REFINERY FACTORY half a mile UNDERGROUND?
Four-- By the time you start pulling together the priests, the zombies, the devil in the Ice and the periodic blathering of scripture, that was a sideshow to the idiotic one by one luring off of the mission team members to be seduced and stabbed and vomited on. By this time, it long stopped being suspenseful. Instead, you are sitting there going "Yeah-yeah-yeah, just get on it with it!"
Five-- Mack's Past Flashbacks became meaningless and wasted.
Six-- This movie was a rip off of "Prince of Darkness". And "Prince of Darkness" did it better. WAY better. By the first 20 minutes, I was hoping that this movie would be an attempt to take the "Prince of Darkness" concept to a new level, just on the military side-- but they stumbled off into the proverbial dark.
Fact is-- today-- if you're going to try and render the story of the Battle of Heaven and Fallen Angels in a modern, non-religious plot-- you must have a savvy, coherent, intelligent script that can mix in SERIOUS theology, historical bits and science together into something the viewer can see as plausible. Because this is one of those topics that really shouldn't be done unless you're willing to do it WELL.
Alas. . .the other reviewers are right.
HOWEVER. . . IF you have NEVER seen "Prince of Darkness" and you and your Girlfriend just want something lite and a little gory for a Saturday Night Horror flick-- This DOES qualify as a passable thriller rental pick. If that's all you want-- READ NO FURTHER. Put the DVD in the player and enjoy. Fried Chicken and Pop goes nicely with this. And the Girlfriend can talk all she wants. To you. To her Cellphone. To her Mom. . .it doesn't matter.
BUT IF YOU ARE A SERIOUS CRITIC OF THE RELIGIOUS HORROR SUB-GENRE on the other hand. . .Read On--
First-- the Title of the Movies tells you ALL you need to know- so there's no suspense in finding out what it's all about.
Two-- Lack of consistency. A military extraction team such as was portrayed here was so in-effective, so undisciplined, so un-cohesive as to make a drill sergeant scream with shame and anguish. By the time the Asian gal went chasing after the little girl in the white dress --AGAIN!-- I threw my hands up in disgust. They might as well have someone chase a cat into a dark room and crouch down and go: "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty!"
Three-- Location and Setup inconsistency. If this was a deep ARCHAEOLOGICAL excavation somewhere in a Desert-- why would someone build an entire REFINERY FACTORY half a mile UNDERGROUND?
Four-- By the time you start pulling together the priests, the zombies, the devil in the Ice and the periodic blathering of scripture, that was a sideshow to the idiotic one by one luring off of the mission team members to be seduced and stabbed and vomited on. By this time, it long stopped being suspenseful. Instead, you are sitting there going "Yeah-yeah-yeah, just get on it with it!"
Five-- Mack's Past Flashbacks became meaningless and wasted.
Six-- This movie was a rip off of "Prince of Darkness". And "Prince of Darkness" did it better. WAY better. By the first 20 minutes, I was hoping that this movie would be an attempt to take the "Prince of Darkness" concept to a new level, just on the military side-- but they stumbled off into the proverbial dark.
Fact is-- today-- if you're going to try and render the story of the Battle of Heaven and Fallen Angels in a modern, non-religious plot-- you must have a savvy, coherent, intelligent script that can mix in SERIOUS theology, historical bits and science together into something the viewer can see as plausible. Because this is one of those topics that really shouldn't be done unless you're willing to do it WELL.