Scream at the Devil

I'm watching the last of the movie as I'm typing this. I just can't take anymore of this pile of garbage...and believe me...I want to use much worse language, but I'm trying to be classy. First clue was putting it into the DVD and seeing it go straight to PLAY MOVIE. No trailers of any kind. RED FLAG. A movie is like a new book. If the first chapter doesn't grab you, the rest of the book never will. I kept an open mind, but after the first 45 minutes...and let me remind you that this movie is only 98 minutes long...I kinda gave up. Like in looking around and wondering how much longer I'd have to endure this. I also wondered how this piece of dung was green lighted in the first place. How does something like this ever make it to a group of people who put their money into something that if the screenplay is read out loud that they don't leave the room at that very moment! The only reason I gave it a 1 is that they don't have a zero! I DID see one person I knew in the film...the guy who played in the film Canyman. God...he MUST be on hard times if he actually said yes to this steaming pile of....manure. Sorry. Tried not to use that kind of language, but every man has a limit. Don't watch this trash. Don't rent this trash. Try to not look at it when you see it in the Redbox. It isn't worth your time. It's 98 minutes and a $1.60 I'll never get back. I'm gonna go get drunk and try to kill the brain cells that carry the memory of this movie!

Argh even though the 3d effects were OK, the movie stunk. A story line that made no sense and I was bored throughout the entire movie ready to turn it off on numerous occasions. Gabriela? I don't get it him. Why was he even in the movie. The actor just dragged the movie down and added nothing to the plot. Nothing in the movie made sense, the main actress's artwork was awful even though that was suppose to be her profession, many cameos by 2 bit actors haunted me and their lines were laughable changing from humans to non-humans were poorly done. I was really agitated towards the end of the movie and came to the conclusion that I wasted 90 minutes of my life when I could have been watching Archer reruns.

I know some might think me giving this 5/10 is crazy, which is fair enough, though I was referring to the movie or its theme in general. And I do know, that the movie has flaws. Beginning with some of the acting, the shot selection and the script. Some might even take offense because this does pay tribute (read copies!) some classic horror movies (Rosemarys Baby to name just one).

But generally speaking there is appeal. There is appeal in the really out there, trip this is offering. And you don't have to be on a "trip" to get it or to like it either. It's about paranoia, it's about seeing things that may or may not be there. It's about mental health and about demons. Or just one rather than the other? But which one? If you are able to watch this, with a mindset like that, you will be entertained enough to like it (despite all the flaws)

"A beautiful schizophrenic woman is pushed over the edge by her husband's illicit affairs, and when her hallucinations become reality the Devil comes to take his due."

Nothing in that description is actually true. The woman is not "beautiful" and "her husband's illicit affairs" didn't pushed her "over the edge" nor "her hallucinations become reality".

So when a movie says "the story is about unicorns" and it's actually about horses...you have a serious problem at hand.

The movie tells the story of Mirium Jones, a woman suffering from schizophrenia that decides to "leave it all behind" when her husband cheats on her with a younger woman. She also lost her unborn children due to a miscarriage. See? And you thought your life was bad.

So she decides to take a trip to Venice and goes to a Basilica (a very old and magnificent church) basically to pray to the Devil (?) for a chance of getting pregnant again. Because everyone knows that if you need to make a Pact with Satan...the obvious place to go is a church.

Then without any kind of explanation the emotionally scarred woman decides to go back with her husband, who buys a huge house in the mountains and builds a "studio" for her and her paintings.

But then...everything goes to hell when all of a sudden all the characters become like corrupted versions of themselves. Again, without any sort of real explanation.

Strange things start to happen all around Mirium and the obvious question Writer/Director Joseph P. Stachura wants you to ask is "is it all real or not?" "are all these due to the schizophrenia or is the Devil's work?". A very interesting idea (albeit not an original one at this point) that Stachura completely ruins with his awful directing job and a worse script.

The acting in this movie is an insult to the senses and not even Tony Todd is able to deliver a worthy performance. Shari Shattuck as Mirium is a complete mess and most of her performance just jumps from overacting to plain pathetic acting. The rest of the cast is just...well...let's just say "bad".

Photography is forgettable, except for the Venice portion of the movie (the first 7-8 minutes of it).

The SFX are something straight out of a B Movie. The Syfy original movies' FX are almost something out of Industrial Light & Magic compared to these ones.

Oh...and the ending completely disregards everything you see just minutes prior to it.

Seriously, this movie couldn't be any more worse even if it were 90 minutes of still pictures of grass.

Just do yourself a favor and skip it. This is probably one of the worst movies released in 2015.

SCREAM AT THE DEVIL is an awful and pointless independent horror production. The cover has been designed to make it look like your standard possession flick, but this is nothing like. Instead it's the humdrum tale of your ordinary housewife who begins to suffer from mental illness and finds herself assailed by weird, demonic visions and other phenomena.

I'm not sure what the market is for a film like this, which so obviously must have been a non-starter for those making it. It lacks a single sympathetic character in the whole cast and for 90% of the running time the viewer is saddled with the below-par acting of Shari Shattuck, an ageing former TV star who fails to hold the attention at all. Oh yeah, and Tony Todd cameos as a cop, but he's no reason to tune into this silly and pointless production.