Baphomet

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source: Baphomet

It's truly hard to imagine the mind that would not only write such entry-level dreck, but would also fund such an endeavor. Then there is the directing! Oh my, that's childish beyond belief! My High School broadcasting class did far better. But, how could I not mention the actors? I can call them actors, despite the lack of "acting" in this film. Truly abysmal. It's like someone took an old Don Martin gag panel from Mad Magazine, got loaded and hallucinated it to be a script to a horror film. Everyone working on this film must have been duped by someone; so who was it? Or, were they all experiencing mass hysteria? Were they all mad? If I've learned anything with this film, it's that sooner or later I need to stop watching these bottom of the barrel crapfests and stick to the classics. Somehow I doubt that will happen. Sigh.

Generally speaking and if you have seen some of my other reviews, you know that I sometimes tend to be or rate generously. That being said, I have to admit that I may be a bit more biased this time around. But having been at conventions and having met certain people, brings that "risk". Remember, behind every movie there are people who have put their blood and sweat into making something that they hope will entertain you. And if you are able to cut this some slack (I don't know what the budget was, but I can only imagine it was quite low), the cinematography and the special effects (the few that this actually has) are more than well done. Now acting wise, there are some ups and downs. I personally wasn't too fond of the "wife" myself and there are other moments where it seems that certain people have a hard time to convey their dialog. The man behind this all though, does a really good job juggling his many roles. And I for one think he does more than a decent job in front of the camera too. Now as I've already established, I may be considering the people who appear in this in a certain way, that you or others who watch this may not feel inclined to do. But as you have the right to not care about those making independent movies like this one, I feel quite differently about a thing like that. So while I recognize a certain imbalance in the acting department (I dug some more than others for sure), it did not take away from the overall entertainment the movie was able to provide. Yes this is not a masterpiece, but it is also way better than the current rating suggests - at least in my humble opinion.

I was laughing at how the "battle" was executed, very unrealistic methods of battling it out. Bad plot.

Granted, when I saw the title of this movie and seeing that even Danni Filth was in the movie, I have to admit that I was interested. Sure, I am not considering him to be particularly skilled in acting, but the "Cradle of Fear" movie was at least so gory it was fun to watch. Sure, I had my initial doubts about the movie, but of course I opted to give it the benefit of the doubt and gave it a chance. So I sat down to watch "Baphomet" from writer and director Matthan Harris. But boy, oh boy, this was a swing and a miss. Sure, there were some elements to the story, such as the tragic losses of lives that plagued the family, that were interesting. But that was about it, because everything else in the movie was just downright rubbish. First of all, the movie portrays Satanists as being laughable cultists with nothing else to do than spread havoc and cause evil. And then there were the thing about Satanists controlling sharks. That scene made me laugh so much. Sure, the scene itself actually looked good, but the concept of it was just ludicrous. The acting in the movie was a mixed bag of nuts, so to speak. Rebecca Weaver (playing Rebecca), Colin Ward (playing Jacob) and Gerardo Davila (playing Sheriff Widley) actually put on good performances, while the rest of the cast were putting on mediocre or downright lousy performances. And the performance put on by Dani Filth, well that was just laughable at best. I wonder if he signed up to the movie given its title, and he hadn't read the script. Then when he figured out what a train wreck he was going to be in, he just couldn't get out of his contract and put on the most wooden performance possible and looked like he didn't want to be there for even a second. And then there was the Satanic cult leader Henrik, played by Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Wow, just wow, Giovanni Lombardo Radice put on the most rigid performance in the entire movie. While "Baphomet" definitely has an interesting movie cover and/or poster, then the concept of the movie was just lukewarm. However, the entire movie is permeated by a sense of this being a high school movie project. Visually then "Baphomet" was actually quite alright. Sure, there wasn't all that much of special effects, both CGI or practical, to be seen throughout the movie. But whatever was there, actually looked quite okay and served its purpose quite well. The dialogue in "Baphomet", as written by Matthan Harris is wooden and rigid. And it feels like it was written by a pre-teenager having to write a school play and settling on writing a horror play. It just had that particular immature feel to it. The dialogue did in no means serve the characters well. "Baphomet" is listed as a horror / thriller. Sure, I suppose that it would be categorized as such, but it just failed to provide me with proper entertainment as such a movie. Some of us suffered through the 1 hour and 12 minutes of amateurish rubbish here in "Baphomet" so you don't have to. Take heed of the low rating the movie has managed to acquire here on IMDb, because it is with good reason that it has ranked so low. My rating of "Baphomet" lands on a two out of ten stars. This is without a doubt a laughable horror movie that paints Satanist in a bad light. And it makes for a terrible movie if you are looking for a properly acted horror movie with a properly written script.

I was looking forward to this movie. The acting was comical. None of it is redeemable except for the title.

The acting's bad; the dialogue is so bad it's almost funny (but not enough); there's no horror or thrills to be found; the main antagonist pronounces Satan as Saton (sounding more like satin); no atmosphere; 72 minutes seems like 3 hours. The score was good though; it belongs in a better movie.