The Rise of the Beast

Good movie!

Good movie!

Good movie!

source: The Rise of the Beast

Needless to say that I had never heard about this movie titled "The Rise of the Beast" (aka "Devolution") prior to stumbling upon it and sitting down to watch it. I have to admit that I was harboring zero expectations to the movie, because it was just oozing with low budget feel and atmosphere, but I still opted to give the movie a fair chance. Writers Max Brooks and Fil Freitas put together a very, very, very generic script and storyline for a creature feature of this type. So you're not in for anything grand or particularly revolutionary. And even for a creature feature, then "The Rise of the Beast" was a laughable addition to the genre. The storyline was not particularly enjoyable and it was somewhat of a struggle to sit thorugh 77 minutes of torture. I ended up giving up on "The Rise of the Beast" with only 22 minutes remaining, but by then I was ready to gouge my eyes out. A creature feature is usually only as effectively entertaining and functional as the CGI rendered creature or creatures in the movie. And the ape in "The Rise of the Beast" looked like something from a discarded early 2000s computer game. So yeah, it was hard to take it seriously as a threatening creature when it looked so poorly animated and rendered. The acting performances in "The Rise of the Beast" were fair enough, taking into consideration that the actors and actresses had virtually nothing to work with. Obviously I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list here, not that I will remember any of them from the performances I witnessed. Visually then "The Rise of the Beast" was a dumpster fire. The CGI rendered ape looked atrocious. And a creature feature with horrible CGI is a game breaker, as it just makes the movie laughable. And such was the case with the poorly animated and rigidly moving CGI ape on the screen. "The Rise of the Beast" is definitely not a movie I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this ordeal in greater or shorter extend, so you don't have to. My rating of director Jack Ayers's 2022 horror movie "The Rise of the Beast" lands on a two out of ten stars.

I hate, wasting my life on horrible films like this. Everyone involved except maybe the sound crew and writers should be banned from the film industry. This could have been at least a decent movie had it not been for horrible acting, horrible production, and horrible cinematography. I also hate that you have to give a star at all to rate this movie. Remember how we all hated Bird Box? This was much much worse. This was like someone decided to try their hand at making a movie, got with a High School AV group, and used the money from their piggy bank to fund the film. It's too late for me but you can still save yourselves.

This one WAS really really awful! The CGI was awful, the acting was awful, the costumes were awful, props were awful, dialogue was awful, sound was okay, the sets were awful and the script was HORRIBLE, I mean do I really need to go on? I know actors need to have a job but this was the best they could come up with? If I were the actor(s), I'd fire my agent. Or start a new career. One hour and 14 minutes I will NEVER EVER GET BACK!!! I committed myself to watching it all the way through because apparently I am a masochist. I gave it a 1/10. I was feeling generous because the sound WAS okay. I bet the soundman can get another job.

How did this get a 3+/5 star rating on Prime? Thankfully the movie is rather short, so the torture is not longstanding. The premise is quite cliche for a "monster" movie. The acting is at its best mediocre. And at its worst, its just bad. The script is so so. (It prevents me from rating this movie lower) The creature animation is of poor quality. The music score is passable to provide appropriate tension. It isn't the worst movie I have seen, but I do question my sanity for watching this to the end. Quality of monster movies these days are rarely good. This one fits that mold. Imdb needs to shorten the character requirements.

A group of activists breaks into a corporate facility to put an end to animal testing but little did they know that there's literally a Kong-like ape being held inside and once loose, he won't care who gets in his way and who has to die for him to be free. Directed by Jack Ayers, written by Max Brooks - yes, the guy who wrote World War Z - and produced by Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews, who have brought so many made for streaming horror films our way was of late, The Rise of the Beast has a CGI monster that doesn't always appear to be in the same physical space as the actors he's menacing, but I think this year is the year I get past stuff like that and just say, "Well, we're never going back to rubber suits or miniatures." It's a movie smart enough to name its evil company the Darrow Corporation and have a Dr. Kafka be in charge, yet still dumb enough to have people running and screaming from a maddened monkey. There are times this wants to be a satire, other times it's super serious and it does in all in under 80 minutes, which is some kind of small victory.

The production opens with a breech and a large ape killing a man at a secret facility. With Simon (Arthur Boan) as an inside man a group of activist plan on entering the secret facility and take pictures of the caged animal experiments. We know they are doing some type of genetics test in order to make man have the extra senses and strength of out fellow simians. Getting there at night they sneak around until they discover a locked gate near a cave entrance. They then find the giant CG ape and now the party being one short. They managed to escape too a nearby cabin and call on a two-way radio for help as one person is injured. Help arrives as they are taken prisoner. The script is typical for modern horror. We have an event that will tie in later. We introduce the final person. We introduce the rest of the group. They travel and get into a situation they have no cell phone. Initial scene now ties in as the party is reduced one by one down to the final person. Weak characters. Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.