This is the 2nd time I downloaded the wrong movie because the titles (and the year) were the same, or in this case similar. I got this under the name "The Offering", a 2022 movie that I thought I was getting. Instead, I got this cheap B-movie. It did say "Monster Portal" at the beginning but I thought nothing of it, I proceeded.
Mind you, it's not terrible in the first half. There's some nonsense, such as Nick hitting on Rich's girlfriend in a swimming pool - while Rich is sitting nearby, which is utter baloney, and it made little sense that Rich was the one to notice the many dead bunnies - yet he thought his girlfriend was being paranoid, which is illogical. But otherwise it was OK. I was especially pleasantly surprised by the female cast, i.e. Both young actresses being very pretty, which is a rarity.
However, the last third became muddled, amateur, and then downright random. The whole supernatural section made little sense. Who overtook the brunette's body? Was her father aware that things would play out this way? Why did brunette-as-demon have sex with a monster from the Other Side? Couldn't they have done it on the Other Side? Why did Rich run away, then stop trying to run away, then again try to escape? What kind of wishi-washiness is this... What the hell happened at the end? Did Cthulhu and his pals win?
The script is a mess in the last third, and that section was made even worse by the shoddy direction, slow pace and a real fail in the music department. The soundtrack is almost non-existent, lame, and so are the sound effects. The B-movie roots were showing themselves in their full "glory" in the final third. Extremely cheap.
The old woman was rather effective though. As a character she had interesting things to say, and that actress did a good job.
Mind you, it's not terrible in the first half. There's some nonsense, such as Nick hitting on Rich's girlfriend in a swimming pool - while Rich is sitting nearby, which is utter baloney, and it made little sense that Rich was the one to notice the many dead bunnies - yet he thought his girlfriend was being paranoid, which is illogical. But otherwise it was OK. I was especially pleasantly surprised by the female cast, i.e. Both young actresses being very pretty, which is a rarity.
However, the last third became muddled, amateur, and then downright random. The whole supernatural section made little sense. Who overtook the brunette's body? Was her father aware that things would play out this way? Why did brunette-as-demon have sex with a monster from the Other Side? Couldn't they have done it on the Other Side? Why did Rich run away, then stop trying to run away, then again try to escape? What kind of wishi-washiness is this... What the hell happened at the end? Did Cthulhu and his pals win?
The script is a mess in the last third, and that section was made even worse by the shoddy direction, slow pace and a real fail in the music department. The soundtrack is almost non-existent, lame, and so are the sound effects. The B-movie roots were showing themselves in their full "glory" in the final third. Extremely cheap.
The old woman was rather effective though. As a character she had interesting things to say, and that actress did a good job.