The Abberdine County Conjuror (2006 Video) User Reviews

The scum underneath the barrel

[milkhole213 · 1/10 · 11 October 2021]

I've been trying to watch the shorter films from the Tomb of Terrors box set first as I knew most of them would be painful enough but I knew I'd have to face The Abberdine County Conjuror eventually. The runtime is ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY-FIVE minutes, to be exact it's TWO HOURS, FIFTEEN MINUTES and FOURTY-TWO SECONDS. Not since Romanian communists drowned people in buckets of their own feces and urine has a more cruel form of torture been devised. This "film" consists of mostly two things- people walking in the woods occasionally finding bottles of moonshine or two liters of coca-cola to drink and women being either tied up, locked up, pilloried or strapped to tables. Don't get excited guys these women are fully clothed and these scenes aren't erotic or interesting in the least. I think this film only had one male character, a redhead with a British accent who for some reason lives in a trailer in the woods of Texas. Another negative was there is no such place as Abberdine County, I can't imagine any city, township or other municipality would have wanted their name sullied by this swill.

If I had to name some good things about this movie it would be that the conjuror creature looked like it may have been a good makeup job but is shown so briefly it's hard to tell. The zombie scenes were kind of okay I guess though their shambling about came off less atmospheric and more alcoholic. There was one good decapitation of a zombie otherwise blood and gore are minimal. There was a pointless full frontal scene of a not especially hot girl in the beginning, most of the other girls were cuter. These "positives" still don't bring this film past the zero star rating which unfortunately this site doesn't allow. To make matters worse before the end we jump forward two months as two of the women are training with halberds to join the redhead in fighting the zombies in what seems like a set up for a sequel no one could have wanted. Director Jeff Cooper has two other films both with a listed runtime of 95 minutes which is still way too long. I doubt this film would have been bearable at half the runtime (about 67 minutes). Demon Board is available on DVD on Amazon for $60! And Fortune Teller has a listing but none are currently available. Am I stupid and masochistic enough to pay that for Demon Board just to see if I could possibly be worse than this. Is this worse than Dark Harvest 2? It's longer than Dark Harvest but at least things "happen". Is this worse than Season in Hell? Probably but at least it's slightly coherent and much shorter. It's definitely worse than Nightmare Museum which at least had some fun, weird gore and was left than half the length.

Although it would benefit from a lot of trimming, it's still very entertaining.

[DrBlood2006 · 5/10 · 23 November 2012]

With a running time of 2 hours and 15 minutes, Abberdine County Conjuror is quite an endurance test. I didn't make it all the way through in one go the first time I watched it and was prepared to write it off. But, when I gave it another chance, I actually quite enjoyed it.

At first, Abberdine County Conjuror seems to be a very linear zombie story made by a bunch of amateurs with no idea about pacing or how to tell a story. If you have the patience to stay with it through all the bad acting, poor effects, and confusing character introductions, it does get better and everything is revealed. It's possible to even care about some of the characters by the end.

The sound is pretty dreadful in places because the built-in microphone on the camcorder was used rather than a separate boom mic. It's a shame since the budget should have covered such an essential item. For those of us who don't mind adjusting the volume on our TVs several times, it's not too much of a problem though.

Unfortunately, the sound is the least of the movie's problems because a firmer hand was needed with the editing. As the first project by Jeff Cooper and his friends, I can understand why they wanted to keep every piece of footage in even though it slows the narrative down to a crawl. Notable excesses include too much time following Meg (Teresa Deasey) around in the dark while she's being pursued by zombies, and it really does feel like several days worth of watching Molly (Liz Goddard) wandering through the woods drinking a 2 litre bottle of Coke. In fairness, I didn't particularly mind because both actresses are beautiful, but such things will be a chore for most people. There are a couple of very nice shots of deer for those who are more interested in Texas wildlife.

The night shots are hard to see in some cases especially as the zombies are dressed like monks and blend into the background too much. I'm not entirely sure why the Conjuror needs all the zombies anyway since her sadistic minions, Raven (Natalie Geneva) and Edda (Ellen Keefer), do the real work, but nevermind. The fact that their victims are being drained of blood almost puts Abberdine County Conjuror in the vampire subgenre so I suppose the zombies pull things back into the voodoo/witchcraft mode lest we forget the title of the movie.

There aren't really any superfluous or underused characters apart from the first victim, Bev (Charlemagne Domiana), who provides little more than a tease of things to come with her nudity. If you are expecting lots of skin and hardcore gore then Abberdine County Conjuror isn't the movie for you. You have to wait a very long time to see any more.

Possibly because they were improvising, none of the actors provide much depth or consistency to their characters. Again, it's their first film so you have to judge them accordingly. They aren't the products of a Shakespearean drama school or anything.

The intention of the film seems to be about establishing Jeff Cooper as an iconic Australian zombie hunter named Sean Steel. I'm sure it's a bit of an ego trip in some ways since Jeff Cooper has multiple credits for doing just about everything on the movie. Abberdine County Conjuror is Jeff Cooper's baby for sure, but he's not too bad in his acting role. His very "steampunk" leather outfit and medieval weapons are neat, but I don't know enough about Jeff Cooper to tell if he was merely putting on an accent (since he sounds British occasionally too) or if that's his natural speaking voice. If he's actually an American, I have to give him credit for that aspect because he fooled me. As far as believing in him as a zombie hunter, I've seen worse.

Winter Wytchwood really stood out as Jessie the fortune teller. She's very nice to look at and even sings at one point. It's hard to watch her being bullied by the evil Raven and Edda because she looks so vulnerable. Unfortunately for Jessie, even worse traumas are to come. One suggested piece of sexual abuse with a baseball bat is rather vile, but this is a horror movie after all.

Other highlights include a voodoo doll with bones for arms and legs being used to inflict injuries on Meg. The scene cuts nicely back and forth between the doll and Meg's agony. There's a little bit of editing talent shown here and in other places even though they are few and far between.

The most memorable moment is when Molly gets drunk on one of Jessie's potions, spews a load of expletives at hallucinations and shows her boobs. It's a fun scene and provides almost as much comic relief as earlier when Molly finds a box which one of the zombies has been wheeling around. It contains the aforementioned bottle of Coke and the potion plus a blanket and one shoe. Why was the zombie wheeling that around? I have no idea. Molly is definitely a good character, and I'm tempted to seek out Jeff Cooper's follow up movies just to see more of Liz Goddard.

There isn't much gore in Abberdine County Conjuror, no scares, or suspense apart from waiting to find out how Molly ended up in the woods, but there are some uncomfortable moments which make you feel bad for the victims especially when they are being tortured or bled. Most of the real violence is shown off screen, and the choreography of one fight in particular is ridiculous. Realism is simply not this movie's strong point.

In spite of all the flaws, I still got quite engrossed in Abberdine County Conjuror and found the fantasy backwoods world to be cleverly realised. By the end, I wanted to see even more.

I recommend it only for certain scenes

[moviebuff72-223-265524 · 5/10 · 29 June 2023]

The Abberdine County Conjuror is a very long low budget movie. It can be super boring but there are a few scenes I really thought stood out. The strangest scene is where the girl drinks a jug and starts to hallucinate, she swears and some strange reason goes topless? The special effects sucks, the acting is not good but it does have story to it and it is movie that students can observe and take notes on. The movie clocks in over two hours long. It definitely tries ones patience. I think that's why they put nudity in it to keep the male viewers from falling asleep. It's better than some of the movies that were included on the disk. This one stood out among most of them. I gave it 5 stars because I feel it deserves a chance to be seen. Most people never heard of it. It was different like Bloody Wednesday.