Film Review
Feb. 8th, 2006 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athersgeoWell; I've now seen Demon Hunter and, since I can't do a full review of it for Strictly Southworth (the whole point of my review there being to concentrate on Mr Southworth's contribution to the movie...which is marginally more than I was expecting, but only by virtue of the scene being rather long...), I'm going to review it here.
Two things though:
1) If this film interests you, bear in mind it's Region 1 only at the moment (thank you Amazon.com!), so unless you're in Region 1 or have a multiregion DVD player, you may be out of luck.
2) It's unrated, but on the basis of having watched it, I'd pin it at somewhere around a 15/18 UK (15 for the violence, 18 for the sex) or a US R.
So. Demon Hunter. It's written by a stunt guy. It's about a half man/half demon who works for the Catholic church, killing the people who can't be exorcised. He gets paired with a nun ("You don't look like a nun"/"It's hard to be inconspicuous in a habit!"*) as they go after Asmodeus, the demon of lust, who's trying to procreate so that he can rule the world.
It sounds like a recipe for a really bad film.
And the surprise is, it's actually not. The story is well put together and the dialogue does have some nice moments. The characters were interesting - the various priests were interesting (there was an interesting morality about them and just which side they were actually on), Asmodeus was suitably oily and seductive and EW all at the same time (Billy Drago was fantastic), the nun, Sara, was great, and Sean Patrick Flannery, as the title character, was the perfect mix of cynicism and "gotta do what I gotta do".
I didn't go so much on the Succubus - the actress playing the character was good, but wtf were those things on her head for?! And oddly, considering the writer, the film was oddly devoid of actual fight scenes. That's not to say there were none. There was a fight at the beginning (very short), then there's a rather cutup fight in a cemetary about part way in** and then there's the climax, which is mostly action. Having watched the special features, the writer agrees with me, that the fights should have been more/better, but says it came down to either doing the film or not doing the film, so he compromised.
Fair doos, I guess.
Overall, it's probably one of the better films I've watched in the last six months. It's not thought provoking and it doesn't ask any of the great questions in life (except for "What's for dinner") but it IS entertaining and above all, well written.
* Mitch Gould gets a cookie just for that one line. It absolutely made me crack up.
** This would be where Dan Southworth shows up. And the biggest surprise is although he gets his butt somewhat kicked, he isn't a bad guy and he gets to live! Without improbable incarceration!
So that was my weekend...
Two things though:
1) If this film interests you, bear in mind it's Region 1 only at the moment (thank you Amazon.com!), so unless you're in Region 1 or have a multiregion DVD player, you may be out of luck.
2) It's unrated, but on the basis of having watched it, I'd pin it at somewhere around a 15/18 UK (15 for the violence, 18 for the sex) or a US R.
So. Demon Hunter. It's written by a stunt guy. It's about a half man/half demon who works for the Catholic church, killing the people who can't be exorcised. He gets paired with a nun ("You don't look like a nun"/"It's hard to be inconspicuous in a habit!"*) as they go after Asmodeus, the demon of lust, who's trying to procreate so that he can rule the world.
It sounds like a recipe for a really bad film.
And the surprise is, it's actually not. The story is well put together and the dialogue does have some nice moments. The characters were interesting - the various priests were interesting (there was an interesting morality about them and just which side they were actually on), Asmodeus was suitably oily and seductive and EW all at the same time (Billy Drago was fantastic), the nun, Sara, was great, and Sean Patrick Flannery, as the title character, was the perfect mix of cynicism and "gotta do what I gotta do".
I didn't go so much on the Succubus - the actress playing the character was good, but wtf were those things on her head for?! And oddly, considering the writer, the film was oddly devoid of actual fight scenes. That's not to say there were none. There was a fight at the beginning (very short), then there's a rather cutup fight in a cemetary about part way in** and then there's the climax, which is mostly action. Having watched the special features, the writer agrees with me, that the fights should have been more/better, but says it came down to either doing the film or not doing the film, so he compromised.
Fair doos, I guess.
Overall, it's probably one of the better films I've watched in the last six months. It's not thought provoking and it doesn't ask any of the great questions in life (except for "What's for dinner") but it IS entertaining and above all, well written.
* Mitch Gould gets a cookie just for that one line. It absolutely made me crack up.
** This would be where Dan Southworth shows up. And the biggest surprise is although he gets his butt somewhat kicked, he isn't a bad guy and he gets to live! Without improbable incarceration!
So that was my weekend...
