Friday, July 15, 2016

Satanic (2016)

Running Time: 1hr 25min
Release Date: July 1, 2016
Directed by: Jeffrey Hunt
Written by: Anthony Jaswinski

Review by: Stacey



Goddamit, you guys.  That poster is pure shit.  PURE. SHIT.  Who approved this?  Who allowed this to be released to the public and represent the film?  Unfortunately, the poster is the least of the worst when it comes to 2016's latest addition to the ever-growing pile of supernatural horror- Satanic.  The name alone suggests a lack of effort from anyone involved.  Even though it's already out on VOD, I have yet to hear anyone else talk about it (hell, even IMDB only has 2 user/5 critic reviews); am I one of the only other suckers that watched it?


Bound for Coachella, Chloe (Modern Family's Sarah Hyland) and three other friends stop off in LA for a couple of days to explore the city's many notorious occult/true crime locations.  When they attempt to spy on an occult group's ritual, they realize it appears they're about to kill a woman and end up saving her.  After taking Alice (Sophie Dalah) in for a night, they soon realize that her intentions might be far more nefarious.

Let me say right off the bat that this movie is riddled with inaccuracies and fallacies regarding Satanism.  As a LaVeyan Satanist myself, the screenplay (by Anthony Jaswinski, who also wrote The Shallows and Kristy) was obviously written with little to no regard for anything factual.  They mixed both LaVeyan and theistic Satanism so the occult factor was all over the place.  The locations they visited weren't even interesting: the house where the Tate murders took place (which isn't even the same house anymore), a Church of Satan house in LA (complete with goths in all black walking out while hissing at the "normies"), and an occult bookstore.  I'm trying to recall if they visited anywhere else because I watched it a few days ago, but I also don't think I cared enough because at that point I was already annoyed by the entire thing.  Which brings me onto another aspect of the film that made me want to summon the demon of bad movies...


THE CHARACTERS.  Despite her consistently terrible decision-making, Sarah Hyland was the only passable role in Satanic.  The same can't be said for her ~edgy~ all-black-clothes-wearing cousin, Elise (Clara Mamet), and Elise's equally 2cool4u boyfriend, Seth (Justin Chon).  They were irritating past the point of just wanting them to die on screen, and I feel like I can only blame that on the fact that their characters were written so poorly.  It was all a bit too cliche for me to handle.  I couldn't form any attachment to any character and I wouldn't be surprised if anyone else failed to do so, either.  Every scene and/or situation they found themselves had me going "really???"  And don't get me started on the fact that I couldn't place how old they were; they had to be 21 because they had beer (or at least one of them was), but then none of them looked over the age of 18.  The boyfriend of Hyland's character drove the shittiest of Astro vans from the 90's but took them back to his parents post-modern artsy looking house which screamed wealth.  It was all inconsistent and made me sad.


Speaking of inconsistencies, the story itself was super simple but kind of confusing to follow at the same time.  The group stayed in a hotel room where a member of the CoS killed herself to summon a demon (I'm still learning, but I'm pretty sure a CoS member wouldn't exactly do that)...but a legit reason was never explained, even when Alice did the same.  Sure, she kept talking about Hell and it being a snazzy place, but was that it?  You draw some symbols, kill yourself and go to Hell?  For why, though?  I mean, why not live out a pretty cool, Satanic life for a few more years?


After Alice offs herself to obtain maximum Devil points, the group starts experiencing strange goings on.  Rooms being trashed when they're not in them, utensils getting stuck in the ceiling (seriously), strange claw marks on the vehicle...fairly benign supernatural stuff, which seems kind of tame for being from Hell, y'know?  Then next thing I know, there are 15 minutes left in the movie and everyone starts getting picked off in a random abandoned building.  I only assume they're being killed because other than bloodcurdling screams off camera, you never see anyone die- you just don't see them anymore.  I won't spoil the last couple of minutes because if you care enough to see the movie....ahh fuck it, the final scenes are basically exactly what that turdpile of a poster above shows.  No one gets possessed, no one gets brutally murdered on camera- Hell must have had an off week with this group.

I hate to be so harsh, but Satanic was truly a waste of 85 minutes of my time.  I just don't hate any of y'all enough to recommend this one.

0/5 (Is this my first 0 rating? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  )


Out on VOD now
Check out the trailer below

1 comment:

  1. Thank YOU & gr8 review, as always! Hate it when the previews & posters have little to do with the actual movie, grrrrr.�� Shame - the premise is intriguing but sounds like they just couldn't pull it off.

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