Whether it's completely incompetent or just slightly mishandled, Shadow Of God is an awful movie that should not have been allowed to come to fruition. It's clear what happened. Someone thought "aha, we'll do an exorcism movie, but the main spirit to be exorcised could be god." And that's all they really had. Because there's nothing else here, beyond that one idea, that makes any good impression.
Mark O'Brien plays Mason Harper, a super-exorcist, the kind of exorcist that other exorcists ask to help them out on the biggest exorcisms. Things take a turn for the strange when Mason's father, Angus (Shaun Johnston), turns up. Angus has been out of his life for many years, mainly due to him being dead. Different people have different interests in the end result of this, but it will all boil down to just how Mason and Angus deal with one another.
Director Michael Peterson isn't a first-timer, which is a big surprise. I even quite enjoyed one of his previous features, Knuckleball. I haven't previously encountered the work of writer Tim Cairo, but he has a similar number of projects under his belt. Both of these men should have known better than this, and both should have either spent a lot more time on honing the central idea or just accepting that it wasn't strong enough.
Things aren't helped by the leads either. O'Brien isn't very good, sadly, and never feels like anything else but an actor trying hard to deliver his lines. The same goes for Johnston. Adrian Hough does a bit better with his role, although the screenplay wastes the opportunity for his character to be much more interesting than he is, and Jacqueline Byers is very good in the role of the sympathetic, and potentially due-to-be-endangered, Tanis Green.
If I'm feeling charitable then I guess some may find enough to enjoy here, if they're after a film that hints at roads it never commits to driving down. There's not enough full-blooded horror, not enough to make you care about the characters, and the philosophical Gordian knot at the heart of it all is actually just two bits of drying string that unwind and snap with the application of the slightest pressure. I cannot recommend anything here, and I have been trying to think of one decent audio and/or visual highlight.
There have been many bad exorcism movies over the years, as well as a few very good ones, and this sadly joins that list of failures. Just how bad is it? Well . . . I'd probably choose to watch The Exorcist: Believer ahead of having to rewatch this. THAT'S how bad it is.
2/10
If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do
consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A
subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share
No comments:
Post a Comment