Goblin

I did not expect much from the horror film "Goblin" and it still undelivered. "Goblin" is essentially about a fierce goblin who flies around a small town hunting babies, largely because he (the goblin) is not intelligent enough to go hunting in the big cities where there are (of course) more babies to hunt. Normally such a premise presupposes that the adults in this film are perfectly safe from the goblin's attacks because... well... they are not exactly babies. But the people who made this film created a goblin who is less intelligent than many of the creatures on the nature channel. The hyena, for instance, rightly focuses on grabbing a baby sea lion for lunch instead of taking on the bigger sea lions, but the goblin gets distracted while hunting for babies and kills several adults in highly gratuitous ways for reasons that are never adequately explained in this film. I would suggest cynically than the killing of adults was done out of shock value rather than for any logical reason.

But Goblin's problems go well beyond the fact that it is little more than a bloody monster fest. The use of the teenage Cammy (Erin Boyes) as a sexual tease shows how low the filmmakers were willing to go to get people to actually watch this film. Finally there is not one performance in this entire film that is actually convincing or interesting in any way. You get the distinct feeling while watching this movie that the actors simply showed up to say their lines, collect their pay cheques and leave. Not one member of the cast was motivated to making this film work at a performance level.

Another SyFy movie... And you never know what you are going to get with these; it is either really bad or actually quite good. SyFy have been known to surprise us viewers from time to time.

Unfortunately, "Goblin" wasn't a nice surprise. That being said, it is not one of the worst SyFy movies though. The storyline was a bit interesting, about a town being cursed for some wrong-doings of the past. But the part with the goblin? Well, that didn't really work well with me.

The goblin itself resembled more a ring wraith from "Lords of the Ring" than a goblin. Now, I know what goblins usually look like in role-playing games, so that is what I am using for comparison. But the whole thing with the creature being draped in a large hooded robe and even walking like a ring wraith, nah! I just didn't buy that. I was waiting for Mr. Frodo to come out and wrestle the goblin. But it just didn't happen, unfortunately. The goblin looked really badly animated and it there was never a doubt of this being cheap CGI in my mind. The goblin looked like something from a 80's movie, it was an eyesore.

As for the acting in "Goblin", well then the actors and actresses were actually doing a well enough job with their roles and what they had to work with. Of course, there is no award-winning performances to be found here, but on the plus side, it is better than what have been seen in other SyFy movies previously.

The movie is labeled as a fantasy, horror and sci-fi. Well I can understand the fantasy part well enough, but the horror and sci-fi? Not so much. The movie wasn't scary, not in the least.

The good part of "Goblin" was that there was a good constant flow to the story, and you never really were left to be bored. Plus there were some nice moments in the story along the way as well. But these were hardly enough to lift the movie up from being under average. Having seen the movie now, I can say that it is not a movie that I will be making a second trip back to watch.

Filmed in the deep woods of British Columbia, 2010's "Goblin" tells the story of a cursed forest hamlet in Colorado wherein an extremely tall and malicious goblin appears every Halloween to kill newborns and anyone else who may get in the way.

Unlike joke-horror films like "Cabin Fever," "Goblin" takes the material totally serious with zero camp or goofiness. This is the way monster movies should be done. After all, once an element of goofiness is introduced it's no longer possible to take the film serious and be horrified by the events, which is one of the main purposes of horror movies.

I was impressed with the quality of the acting & writing, particularly for a low-budget TV movie. The characters are not one-dimensional; they're written as believable human beings and the actors, professionals that they are, are able to follow suit.

This one has all the mandatory staples of a deep woods horror flick -- gorgeous babes, gorgeous babes fleeing in terror, gorgeous babes fleeing in terror with titillating clothing (I'm just having fun so don't take me too seriously, lol), youthful romantic liaisons, creepy malicious monster, good characters to root for, particularly the father (Gil Bellows) and his family/friends.

The "gorgeous babes" include the main protagonist Tracy Spiridakos, blonde cutie Erin Boyes and Julia Maxwell, the latter clad in an alluring goth-girl costume with stockings & high heels (no wonder the Goblin goes after her!). Bellow's wife in the story, Camille Sullivan, also deserves an honorable mention.

Speaking of the monster, aren't goblins supposed to be small-ish creatures? Not so here. The goblin in this movie is close to 7' tall and has the ability to teleport. When he's fully revealed in the final ten minutes he looks too-obviously CGI and Grade-B Pumpkinhead, but throughout most of the film he appears in a cool black-hooded robe, which somehow makes him more mysterious, gothic and eerie. The fact that he emits a horrible stench is an excellent touch.

One critic panned the film thusly: "the reasoning behind the random killings is terrible. If the thing hunts babies why's it laying waste to random people with no babies? Totally retarded." Answer: The goblin's prime directive is to kill babies in light of the curse and because infants represent undefiled new life and potential. As for laying waste to random people, the old man clearly points out near the end that, because the goblin hunts babies, it sniffs out the scent of infants on any person who's been near one; hence, his attraction to the girls who were babysitting the baby, Nathan. The goblin is obviously a demon, a minion of the devil, do you think a demon is going to spare the life of anyone who gets in its way? What's the purpose of demons anyway? To "kill, steal and destroy." Hence, the goblin was excited at the prospect of extra people to terrify and kill.

On the downside: Although the story takes place during Halloween, it's obviously summertime (look at the kid's clothes and the foliage, etc.). Also, the climax with the car and spear is rather eye-rolling. But these negatives are minor in view of the entire film.

FINAL WORD: Make no mistake, despite being a TV movie, "Goblin" is a standout deep woods monster flick. The goblin is actually frightening and the protagonists are so believable and three-dimensional that you care about them, and are literally shocked when the monster tears them to pieces.

The film runs 1 hour, 32 minutes and was shot in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia.

GRADE: A

ENDNOTE: On another site a reviewer accused me of somehow being involved in the production of "Goblin" since I gave it a "glowing review." The truth is I had nothing to do with this production or any other film production. I'm not in the business. I write reviews simply because I like to write and share my views. Secondly, I had no qualms about pointing out the film's (minor) flaws. Regardless, I stand by my review. I evaluate films according to what they are and aspire to be. No genre is beyond redemption or above contempt. In this case "Goblin" is low-budget TV monster flick and I rated it accordingly.

First of all I am not claiming this movie to be a masterpiece by far, but for a scyfy flick it stands above a lot of the 'syfy' originals I have seen in the past and if you take it for what it is, its really not that bad of a movie. I got a chance to watch it late last night on a snowy New England evening and it was able to keep my attention all the way through. It had decent acting, decent gore, and a decent scenery for a TV movie. I think scyfy has come along way from the some of the older flicks they put out. Of course this movie doesn't really add anything new to the genre, but cmon we can't expect too much from the scyfy network. ScyFy is good for giving small little movies to quench the thirst of die-hards while we wait for the next gem sci fi or Horror movie to come along. If you expect a hidden gem to come in the form of a ScyFy original movie you better pack your lunch. My point is its a TV movie so try to view it as such.

Anyway, moving right along like I said its not likely that we will see Gil Bellows or any of the other actors at the grammy awards any time soon for this, but if you happen to come upon it on the Sci fi channel and don't mind their movies too much you might want to give it a watch.

Keep in mind, I give this a 6 and am rating it as a T.V. movie. If I paid to go see it a theater or bought it new for $14 I would rate it differently.

I really wanted to like this film, and I did sit through all of it to give it the benefit of the doubt. But it just doesn't measure up.

For a while I thought maybe it was best viewed as a horror-comedy, but it doesn't have enough comedy, and all of it seems to be actually unintentional, rather than sort of ironic.

The cast is cute, so that's a plus. In particular, Brett Dier seems to be going for a young Ryan Phillippe look, which he carries off well. Unfortunately, Ryan at that age had an agent/manager who cared which films he appeared in, and Brett doesn't.

For a horror-slasher type film, I think we're long past caring whether the writing makes any sense. It's the directing and special effects that torpedo this film. The monster looks and acts ridiculous, and could have been animated using 1990s technology. And if the "loud-noise-plus-sudden-close-up-repeat-twice" technique wasn't already cliché, it certainly was by the time this film was over.

Why do British Columbia and Canada whore themselves out for these pathetic films? They are surely capable of quality work. Is film make-work welfare that important instead? When will people realize that if you're eager to put your name to garbage, you shouldn't expect anybody to ask you to make something worth making. Think long-term, guys.