Elves

"Elves" is a mash-up of horror tropes, loosely wrapped in bad holiday spectacle. The story plays on the concept set forth in 2017's "The Elf" only in the weakest of manner. Choosing instead to move in more creative avenues, "Elves" throws in demonic possession and mysterious masked slasher cheer - just in case psychotic killer elf dolls weren't enough of a holiday melody in nightmare.

The acting is a mix bag of choppy dialog, contrived emotion, and incoherent exposition. There are some moments when the cast hit the mark, but mostly the drama and action alike seem a symphony of sterilized animatronic directives - none of which show any understanding of character motivation. Either from talent level or storytelling capabilities who knows. I venture a bit of both. Normally you accept some lax in degree of quality in acting ability -acceptable, but usually good writing and quality content balances it out. "Elves" fails in all three categories. : (

The cinematography is decent enough and sound is quality for the most part , even though it is drawn from a very stereotypical pallet. Still it works. Special effects are a blend of practical and CGI choices. The kills aren't inventive, but they are fun. As many horror elements fail, as do work. Budget restraint is noticeable but "Elves" has a few good kill sequences. Sadly though many of the elements that play out in this holiday horror fall flat. Overall "Elves" is disappointing, even for low budget indie horror

The cover caught me and I like the idea of killer elves. The movie, unlike High Octane's customized cover, lacks rich colors, depth, or masterfully created killer elves. This film stars a lot of white walls, campy acting and a contrived plot. It's a solid attempt but has the feel of a beginner indie film for sure.

So a week ago we watched the prequel, The Elf, and were mildly impressed. There were real attempts to be creative, and the doll in a spooky doll movie actually, get this, moved around on camera and stuff. (Take that, nearly every Anabelle knock off). The main weaknesses were the acting and the plot, the latter of which was just awful.

So imagine our utter disappointment when we pulled this up hoping for some improvements and discovered what an absolute waste of time it was. Random nonsense happens to an array of equally dull characters who's actors and actresses can barely muster the effort emote. Audio issue abound as some folks mics can seem to be actively trying to avoid being in the movie by cutting out at a whim or simple being inaudible over the soundtrack.

The cover makes you think that wacky elf doll be back with his homeys to mess some folks up but don't be fooled. Most of the "horror" comes from snapchat filters being applied poorly to some faces along with a random masked killer, some crazy lady, and an ugly burnt doll unrelated to the original. How are they connected? Will the characters of these separate threads collide? Who cares when the threadbare plot can't be arsed to try and make sense. This time people get possessed. Why? No one knows? What is with the naughty list game, we didn't need this to have an elf kill people in the first movie? Your guess is as good as mine.

Nearly the entire runtime of the movie was spent wishing it would end or my power would go out.

The movie wasn't scary matter of fact I was laughing everything just looked so fake and the actors/actresses were horrible don't get your hopes up and for a 2018 movie it seems like a 1980s maybe even 1970s movie because of the effects

Well, sure I didn't have much of any expectations for this movie when I sat down to watch the 2018 movie titled "Elves" from director Jamaal Burden. But still, I do believe that a movie should be given a fair chance. So I sat down to watch "Elves".

And it turned out that it was a massive waste of time. The movie is amateurish at best. And the entire movie just feels like a school project of some sort. I mean, there is very little contents to the storyline that would actually warrant a movie. And it feels like director Jamaal Burden just improvised his way through the script as he went along.

The entertainment value of the movie is very low; so low, in fact, that I didn't even manage to finish the movie. I just gave up about halfway through it. Why? Well, because there was next to nothing to keep me entertained from what I had suffered through in the first half, so there really was no need to continue the ordeal.

For a horror movie, then "Elves" was mundane, terribly mundane. And if you enjoy a proper horror movie, then your money, time and effort is best spent elsewhere.

I am rating "Elves" a two out of ten stars rating, solely because they did try on some level. But I am not returning to finish the rest of the movie, as there really is no cause for doing that. I can't really say that I had any interest in the lack of proper storyline or the mundane characters that milled about with their head under their arms.