Virgil, la malédiction

The '80s was the decade in which low-budget horror movies often traded logic and originality for sheer zaniness, many of them making very little sense but delivering a lot in the way of OTT effects, gratuitous nudity and a general sense of the absurd. Mexican supernatural slasher Don't Panic certainly doesn't waste any time or effort on a innovative story, its Ouija board plot device being as old as the hills, the whole 'teenagers in peril' angle being incredibly hokey; unfortunately, it doesn't quite deliver enough in the way of excessively entertaining schlock to adequately compensate for the predictable narrative.

There are few bloody kills courtesy of make-up effects man Screaming Mad George, best one being a knife pushed up through the victim's jaw into the mouth, but they're generally not creative enough to distinguish the film from countless other slashers, and with far too much time spent on developing the sappy relationship between teenagers Michael (Jon Michael Bischof) and Alexandra (Gabriela Hassle) and following a confused Michael wandering aimlessly around in his dinosaur pyjamas, the film is far less fun than it needs to be.

For me, the most entertaining moment was when the line 'Do you believe in Satan?' came up in my subtitles as 'Do you believe in Stan?, which speaks volumes about the film as a whole.