Frankysan

Cosmic horror in a modern urban setting, with some trippy visuals, gorgeous outdoor shots, and some light body horror.

This movie is an interesting mix of influences and levels of craft. It reminded me a bit of The Colour out of Space (the German version) and Beyond the Black Rainbow.

The technical aspects are overall good, some effects being a bit shoddy and others pretty good, the black and white cinematography is overall excellent, as is the score.

The acting is somewhat uneven, with some actors doing a great job and others being at most passable. I imagine it might work better if you don't know Swedish. Don't be discouraged though, the film is bilingual, so about half of the spoken dialogue is in English.

Oh my god, this movie just fails to deliver on so many levels it's not even funny. You know how some movies can be fun to watch just because everything is done so badly? Well, this isn't one. It's not scary enough to be horror, not suspenseful enough to be a thriller, not exiting enough to be an action flick. Couple it with some incredibly tacky special effects and a paper thin plot that is surpassed even by its game counterpart and you've got one of the worst movies ever in its genre. Resident Evil, with a very similar plot and approach, did a much much better job, so go see that if you're after a good video game based action movie.

For me, having read the books, the first part of the first film felt like it was in fast-forward, but this feeling subsided when Harry arrived at Hogwarts for the first time. I got the same feeling with this film, only this time, the feeling did not subside. Lots of great material from the book is missing, and has in some places been replaced by, in my opinion, pointless action scenes. I particularily missed the deathday party, for instance. Let's hope for an extended special edition DVD of this movie because, unlike The Fellowship of the Ring, this movie really needs one.