Movie Review by Dr Kuma
Starring: Alec Newman, Joe Absolom, Lukas Haas, James Hillier, Marsha Thomason
Director: Marcus Adams
When a group of students take time out from clubbing to dabble with a Ouija board, what starts as a high ‘spirited’ seance soon dissolves into a horrific nightmare (for the audience at least). The board spells out a terrifying message that everyone there will die as it unleashes an evil spirit, which obviously has it’s evil eye on all of those present and proceeds to start it’s murderous spree before someone can say, “who’s there?”
However, the Ouija board forgets to spell out the most terrifying punishment – that we have to sit through this rubbish for 90 minutes! Oh the horror!!
I really was expecting something better than this. The acting, unfortunately, is poor. The scene where one of the female victims coughs to alert us that she has asthma and must therefore return to the darkened room to retrieve her inhaler is just too obvious. I really don’t want to have a go, everyone needs a break, so I’ll not dwell on the subject, but you expect Joe Absolom who plays Rob to stop and say “excuse me, isn’t this the EASTENDERS special where I burn a club down? Sorry, wrong set, similar setting” referring to the famous British soap he starred in.
Lukas Hass of WITNESS fame looks like a frightened owl and is merely there to answer the Americanisms the Brit cast fling at him. Being a real American, he can say ‘cool it man’ believably while the others just don’t sound believable.
The evil Djinn* that these scamps release isn’t seen until the end of the film but when it does show it’s face we realise that a better twist was needed in this Djinn.
I would really like to know where in the world a club exists like the one in the movie (in real life Prices Candle shop in Battersea, London). Drugs are smoked freely, it’s never crowded, the bars always easy to get served at, the chill out room is immaculate and you can even go out onto the roof to look over London, where the view isn’t restricted by any safety bars or anything! There are even huge glass turrets jutting up from the flat empty roof where you can stand and look down into the club. I needn’t tell you that one of our party hits the dance floor (literally) from one of these. Wow! The club even has access to a huge empty cobwebbed storage room/floor/warehouse/apartment for the scamps to Ouija the night away. It isn’t made clear if the large deserted space is elsewhere on the clubs grounds or if you simply walk up some stairs to find it, as it could be to be above the club. I think it’s the latter, but obviously, only our brave band have ever explored the stairs leading from the dance floor and were able to open the unlocked door. Of course all trendy clubs have huge, unused attic type spaces- we all know that! Great! They even find everything they need to make a makeshift Ouija board lying round up there. Wow! Talk about handy!
The Djinn which kills the cast by burning them to death with it’s fiery paws, can only be destroyed by being set on fire itself by one of the ones it has it’s heart set on to kill (no, I don’t get that either). At which point we can plainly see the stuntman dressed in Michael Myers (you’ll see what I mean if you see it) protective clothing. Perhaps it was a shape shifter as well?
As this is a British effort, I really wanted to find some good bits to promote- unfortunately I couldn’t find anything. My jaw dropped when the scamps broke into their landlords (Tom Bell) apartment downstairs from there own and found their own pictures on the walls along with pictures of the Djinns other victims. There they find a picture of young Liam (Alec Newman) with his family who were involved in some satanic worship in Morocco in 1979, with a picture of how he looks now. Would the strange caretaker really plaster this stuff all over the walls when he has half a dozen lodgers upstairs, including Liam? Could he not simply nip upstairs to see what he looks like this week when he asks for his rent money?
This really is a poor film. They say that gin is a depressant. I agree after sitting through this Djinn story. It was really lacking spirit. The daylight after the screening was a tonic.
Oh well I’ll stop now.
*Please note: the Djinn or Genie is pronounced “gin”. This will help you understand, but obviously not appreciate, the pathetic puns sprinkled throughout this review.
