Needless to say that I had indeed never heard about this 2003 fantasy horror movie titled "Despiser" prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2024. Of course I opted to give the movie a fair chance, given my fascination with the horror genre. Though I can't claim that I was harboring any grand expectations to the movie, given its rather questionable cover.
The storyline in the movie was actually fair enough. I mean, it wasn't amazing or anything, but writer Philip J. Cook, who also directed the movie, actually had some interesting enough ideas for the script. And there was a fair sense of Lovecraftian touch to the movie, which definitely appealed to me.
Of course I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. Though I will say that the acting performances weren't as bad as the rest of the movie, so that at least counted for something.
The effects in the movie are pretty atrocious. They look fake and painstakingly not realistic in any way. And that adds a sort of cringeworthy element to the movie. Even for a movie made in 2003, the effects were despisable, see what I did here? The CGI in the movie looked like something that was discarded back in the 1990s for being too shabby.
The budget in the movie was apparently non-existing, because they didn't even have a budget to have real cars in the movie. Yeah, they opted to go with some questionable CGI rendered cars in the movie. It looked so awful, but at least it was a source of laughter. I have to say that I was really impressed with the cars in the movie, never before have I seen such poorly rendered vehicles, and I grew up playing games on the Commodore 64.
If you have a craving for ultra low budget movies with big ambitions and also an interest in Lovecraftian-themed movies, then perhaps you might find some odd enjoyment in "Despiser".
"Despiser" might be a low budget and amateurish movie, but it was definitely made with spirit and ambition.
My rating of writer and director Philip J. Cook's 2003 movie "Despiser" lands on a four out of ten stars.
