Demonicus

I rented this one to see Vanesa Talor one more time. She can act, but doesn't get a chance in this clunker. The opening sequence is an elaborate crane shot of mountain landscapes. Must have come from a stock archive, because the movie is shot direct to videotape. The production values make _Blair Witch_ look professional. There's a really cheesy animated statue, but no other effects worth noting. This movie is bad, but not amusingly so. The players would do well not to mention it on their resumes.

This movie scared the hell out of me. These American college students are on a hiking expedition in Italy. One of them, James, becomes possessed by the spirit of an ancient Roman gladiator. James stabs his girlfriend to death, and then goes on a bloody rampage, hunting down his best friends. It is obvious that the director uses the Blair Witch Project as his inspiration. While I was watching, I felt like I was right there with these kids, running for my life in the mountains. The dialog is campy but the actors make it work.

This film is exactly what you get when you really over stretch your abilities, it's like someone who has just passed there driving test and then pitting them in a formula 1 Grand Prix (not I might add, the US Grand Prix as everyone might pull out due to dodgy tyres and you might just win), that is how far short this film falls. Now don't take this the wrong way, I love B-Movies, around half my collection is made of B-Movies but I don't think there are enough letters in the alphabet to describe how bad this film is.

First of the story (for a B-Movie) isn't that bad, it has potential there to make a B-Movie brand, were not talking Friday 13th potential, but potential none the less. But what really lets this film down is the acting, at not one second do I believe anything, it's like watching QVC except the presenters on QVC tend to have a heavier tan.

In summary I'd like to say I've seen worse films, but I can't.

This is simply the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. The bad acting, bad script, bad scenery, bad costumes, bad camera work and bad special effects are so stupid that you find yourself reeling with laughter.

So it's not gonna win an Oscar but if you've got beer and friends round then you can't go wrong.

For some reason, various young couples hiking through the Italian Alps split up to see who can reach their campsite designation first. James (Gregory Lee Kenyon) enters a cave, finds a skeleton of an ancient demonic gladiator and becomes possessed by the spirit of "Tyranus" when he puts on a helmet belonging to the corpse. He then spends the rest of the film running around in the woods hunting down his friends and hacking off their limbs to add to some stew to bring the undead "Demonicus" back to life. This shot-on-digital Full Moon release is stupid, senseless, has terrible acting and sound and the (Los) Angeles National Forest is a poor substitute for Italy. However, it's pretty high on the unintentional laugh scale thanks mainly to the overwrought lead performance. Whether bug-eyed running around in cheap-looking armor brandishing a sword or spouting neurotic Latin gibberish about demons and resurrection, Kenyon's ridiculous facial expressions and awkward line delivery must be seen to be believed. Oh well, at least he's not boring like most of the rest of the cast.