Demonic (2015) 1h 23m

I've mentioned before that I have a pretty large library of books in regards to magick, folklore, etc., so when this film introduced a sigil it referred to as the "circle of the left hand path" I was at a loss.  I had never seen this sigil before so I did a quick Google search only to find that the main places this image existed are in this film and some crazy spiritual warfare site that looks like it was copy/pasted from Geocities.  I can only assume that the person that runs that site saw this movie and took it to be a documentary.  The website also had all the sigils drawn in sharpie and scanned, which leads to a hilariously bad Cross of Leviathan.

Demonic takes place in a house where a series of ritual murders happened years prior.  Police are called out after a caretaker finds the lock broken on the home and they find a sole survivor among the bodies.  While the cops attempt to make sense of the scene, we get told most of the film in flashbacks.  Our survivor is the son of the only woman to escape the previous murders.  He, his girlfriend, and a group of semi-friends go to this home in a half-assed attempt at ghost hunting.  As the unexplained happens around them they decide to do a seance (because they're fucking idiots) and everything goes to hot fuck!

The ending reveal of this film was unexpected and I liked that.  What I didn't like was another one of these "Let's go to this haunted house and find spooky things!" movies.  Do you hear me film makers?!  No more of this Blair Witch/Grave Encounters shit!  It's been done, to death!  Fucking buried and in the grave, never to return!

I will say, in this film's defense, the meat of it was good.  The special effects and camera work were done well.  The set design was just that perfect mix of old house and creepy ritual site, and the acting was solid.  It's a shame the overall content of the plot couldn't have been worked out to be stronger.

I give Demonic 1 Dark Ritual MTG card out of 5:

The Babysitter (2017) 1h 25m

I've heard mixed things about this Netflix original.  It's a McG production and, despite sounding like a forgotten 90's McDonald's mascot, you probably recognize that name if you've ever watched the credits to an episode of Supernatural... or Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.  I'm not going to judge you, the Charlie's Angels remakes were actually trashy good.  Just avoid the PS2 game as it's stick your dick in salted glass shards bad.  Now the question is, is The Babysitter that bad?

I just had to look at the IMDB because I forgot everyone's name in this.  Cole is one of those super geek kids that is supposed to be 12 but looks like he is about to graduate high school.  He has an awkward knowledge of sex (despite being able to look up and read the entirety of the plot to Mad Men in a night), thinks Pluto should be a planet again, and still has a babysitter.  Enter Bee: the super cool/hot older girl that Cole has a crush on because puberty crushes on your babysitter isn't weird at all.  Of course that gets complicated by the fact that Cole finds out that Bee is running a demonic cult ritual in his living room while he sleeps.  Complete with murder, stereotypes, and the Korean-American girl from the Pitch Perfect films.

Do you like my script?

I wanted to give this movie a fair shot, despite what I had heard.  I made it about twenty minutes into it before I was pretty much done.  It's one of those movies where I picture the person that wrote the script and I assume it's the Steve Buscemi meme of "how's do you do, fellow kids?"

From there it had the goofiness of Murder Party but none of the heart.  The cheerleader is obsessed with her gun shot tit, the jock attempts to get Cole to stand up to his bully while simultaneously trying to kill him, and I don't even remember what happens to the black guy in the movie because that's how unmemorable they made him.  Also, why the hell is the ground so foggy?!  That's probably something bad and you should move!  It'll make your balls shrink or something.

The only thing The Babysitter has going for it is its use of licensed music.  When we first meet Bee it's cued in by Peaches "Boys Wanna Be Her" which has that dirty 70's two-note guitar riff which probably has the power to give erections in some cultures.  We also get the ending scene backed by Queen's "We Are the Champions," but it doesn't fit as well.  Shaun of the Dead already used "Don't Stop Me Now" perfectly, so I think this should've been swapped out with some "Stone Cold Crazy" or maybe the guitar solo into the end of "Death on Two Legs."  I would much rather write about Queen songs than this movie, in case you couldn't tell. 

I give The Babysitter a 2 copies of Adventures in Babysitting out of 5 because it has merit, just not that much:

Sacrifice (2016) 1h 31m

I've never been to Europe but, keeping with things I've learned from horror films, here's a list of things you shouldn't do:

1) stay in a hostel, because rich murder people will kidnap you
2) visit castles the locals tell you to stay away from, even if you have a contract with "The Count" or whomever owns that shit
3) be disrespectful to the Romani/Roma because that's just good travel etiquette and you shouldn't be a prick when abroad
4) visit random small inhabited islands, because cult murder people might kidnap you

Sacrifice breaks rule #4 because after having another miscarriage a doctor goes with her husband to the small Scottish island where he grew up.  They plan to adopt a child from the hospital/orphanage on the next island over.  However, the woman finds remains from a ritual killing buried on their land and this sets her on the path to finding out the truth about the island's inhabitants.

This isn't really a horror film.  At least not by my assumed guidelines of horror.  Aside from a few dull chase scenes there isn't any true sense of danger.  Some of the sets were really elaborate and well done.  I liked what I assume was a "ritual room" in the house.  My big question is why do you need to have engraved plates above the runed branding irons?  I would assume that you wouldn't need to label that as you should just know.  Kudos on the use of the Futhark rune set though, even if they did just make up a rune for "sacrifice."  Also, the pictures on the wall of fathers with adopted sons makes it seem like a creepy NAMBLA club. Come to think of it, they don't really ever give us a proper explanation of the group either and the dad makes some really misogynistic comments to our heroine...

I think my biggest complaint about Sacrifice is that it becomes so focused on the action and the escape toward the end that they get sloppy with continuity and execution.  For example, they're watching the woman run from room to room on a security camera, but despite someone standing there and still watching the cameras they don't see her and her husband start to escape with a third person?  Then he's watching security camera footage of a fight that is obviously just regular footage they threw an effect on because, A) a security camera facing some piping is pointless, B) the shot is perfectly framing the actors, and C) the camera sways with the action.  If I'm yelling at the TV about your slapdash fucking work then you fucked up hard.  Fucking sacrifice this movie to the devil in hopes you get a better movie or, like, an ice cream sandwich.

I give Sacrifice 1 bagpipe out of 5 only because I like cults in movies: