Steve Rudzinski and Zoltan Zilai both write and star in this amazingly fun indie movie. Overall plot boils down to "group of people try to stop cultist from bringing forth an ancient one and ending the world" but Rudzinski and Zilai definitely made sure to add a unique twist to everything. I can honestly say, I don't know of any other movie with a time traveling pirate that fights against dimension hopping demons possessing hillbillies. One of those movies that you hear about and cannot imagine anything but a fun time.
We start with a flashback to 1714 where Zilai's Captain Zacharia stops the demon cultists only to be sucked into a portal and disappearing. Now in the present, the location is now the small town of Riverwood here the center of tourism is a museum to Captain Zacharia, better known as Captain Z thanks to the ditsy Heather (who cannot pronounce Zacharia and instead just says Z). Thanks to local hillbillies, an amulet is found in the river that brings forth the demon cultists and Captain Z! The demons want to finish a ritual to bring forth Leviathan, yet Captain Z steals the amulet and escapes, running into Rudzinski's Glen Stewart, a scholar that specializes in oddities including Captain Z. Madison Siple rounds out the trio as the previously mentioned Heather, a ditsy worker at the museum that can play an important part in bringing forth Leviathan thanks to her crimson hair. Aleen Isley is the primary antagonist as demon Vepar in hillbilly Bobbie's body.
As usual with Rudzinski films, the dialogue is full of puns and sarcasm. There is also plenty of self-aware jokes, some of which mock the movie itself (Heather commenting how a certain incident in the movie felt like a scene right out of a movie). Another prime example of self-aware comedy includes Vepar in Bobbie commenting on how its amazed that people speak Latin aloud without knowing what it means, coming right after Bobbie unknowing unleashing the demons in that cliché method. Another of my favorite quotes is Heather, casually speaking aloud in an aloof tone, "Heaven doesn't support racism and demonism, does it?" One thing I really liked is that each character has their own personality and get their own moments to shine with no one feeling like a cliché or straight stereotype. It's obvious a lot of characters began as a stereotype before being properly fleshed out into something better.
This movie was heavy with CGI effects, some of which worked but others at times just stuck out. Yet for an indie movie on a tight budget, I think they did a great job with the effects. The practical effects were also well done, especially with the make-up of the demon-possessed hillbillies. The horns were perfectly accomplished, not looking like prosthesis at all.
One of the main issues I had with the movie is that there were a few times the color of the scene would switch between takes, taking on either a bright green hue or a washed out white. There many scenes like that, I'm guessing they tried to use as least amount of those scenes as possible.
They did do a great job of the audio mixing, especially giving the demon-possessed hillbillies unique echo-y voices. Those were especially amusing thanks to Seth Gontkovic's Barbatos/Judd, with a thick hillbilly tone of voice mixing extremely well with the echo-y demon voice.
Overall this is a highly enjoyable and unique trip.
