"The Curse of the Living Curse" is a decent enough but rather unspectacular affair.
**SPOILERS**
After a funeral procession, Bruce Sinclair, (Robert Mili) Abigail Sinclair, (Helen Warren) Phillip Sinclair, (Roy Scheider) Vivian Sinclair, (Margot Hartman) Seth Lucas, (J. Francis Luke) and Robert Harrington, (Dino Narriziano) all display various forms of grief over the loss, and are soon distraught over what has happened. Reading over the will, they all realize that they have been entrusted to perform tasks to receive money, and they are told that all have violated terms of the agreement. Paying little attention to the threats, they all continue their vices and problems. When they start mysteriously disappearing, they realize that a mysterious killer is among them and killing them off one-by-one according to their fears. Trapped in the house, they all try to escape from the killer.
The Good News: This is a somewhat decent Gothic thriller. It's most surprising feature is that it gets some halfway decent suspense scenes. The opening sequence in the tomb is quite nice, as the slowly opening coffin and perpetual darkness is really great, and the fact that the there's a whole large amount of these kinds of scenes gives it an extra. The later sequence where the killer strikes one victim is great, as the first strike is spectacular with the killer emerging from the shadows, and the constant going in and out of light is pretty creepy. The beginning also has some pretty great Gothic moments, including the funeral and a shocking breakfast revelation. This one even has some pretty nice deaths to it. There's a brutal severed head, being dragged around over the ground tied to stampeding horses, thrown and sunk into a pit of quicksand, another is set on fire while trapped in a burning bed in the film's best scene, a sword in the neck and being drowned in a bathtub, which has a pretty sleazy air to it. In general, whenever the film has a death or is setting it up, it's the best moment, and all combine to make the film really entertaining.
The Bad News: This one here is overall decent and contains a couple flaws. The biggest one is that this one never once feels important about what it's doing. This one just doesn't seem to have anything for what has happened and instead seems content to have everything coast by. There's never the feeling of dread coming from this that they're should've been. That fact about following the details provided should've been built up more to give it a little extra, yet there is barely glossed over enough to get a handle on what will exactly happen to them, as it gives their phobias and nothing else afterward. That is just like the unemotional care for the film and destroys it just as badly. The film's conclusion is another big problem area. It's twist is one seen coming a mile away, and then it twists into something that doesn't make sense. Nothing is given about why it's twisted to where it is, and from there it actually has one of the biggest plot holes in the genre, as it decides to ignore a pressing matter that the film is based around. It's confusing as to why this secret is left, and is a hard problem to overlook. The goofy-looking killer's wardrobe is something, but it's not as bad as the other ones.
The Final Verdict: While it isn't that bad as a cheap Gothic film, as anything else it isn't that spectacular and comes off as rather decent. Fans of the genre at this point will think it's decent as well, while most will find others out there rather than this one to really get into.
Today's Rating-PG-13: Violence
**SPOILERS**
After a funeral procession, Bruce Sinclair, (Robert Mili) Abigail Sinclair, (Helen Warren) Phillip Sinclair, (Roy Scheider) Vivian Sinclair, (Margot Hartman) Seth Lucas, (J. Francis Luke) and Robert Harrington, (Dino Narriziano) all display various forms of grief over the loss, and are soon distraught over what has happened. Reading over the will, they all realize that they have been entrusted to perform tasks to receive money, and they are told that all have violated terms of the agreement. Paying little attention to the threats, they all continue their vices and problems. When they start mysteriously disappearing, they realize that a mysterious killer is among them and killing them off one-by-one according to their fears. Trapped in the house, they all try to escape from the killer.
The Good News: This is a somewhat decent Gothic thriller. It's most surprising feature is that it gets some halfway decent suspense scenes. The opening sequence in the tomb is quite nice, as the slowly opening coffin and perpetual darkness is really great, and the fact that the there's a whole large amount of these kinds of scenes gives it an extra. The later sequence where the killer strikes one victim is great, as the first strike is spectacular with the killer emerging from the shadows, and the constant going in and out of light is pretty creepy. The beginning also has some pretty great Gothic moments, including the funeral and a shocking breakfast revelation. This one even has some pretty nice deaths to it. There's a brutal severed head, being dragged around over the ground tied to stampeding horses, thrown and sunk into a pit of quicksand, another is set on fire while trapped in a burning bed in the film's best scene, a sword in the neck and being drowned in a bathtub, which has a pretty sleazy air to it. In general, whenever the film has a death or is setting it up, it's the best moment, and all combine to make the film really entertaining.
The Bad News: This one here is overall decent and contains a couple flaws. The biggest one is that this one never once feels important about what it's doing. This one just doesn't seem to have anything for what has happened and instead seems content to have everything coast by. There's never the feeling of dread coming from this that they're should've been. That fact about following the details provided should've been built up more to give it a little extra, yet there is barely glossed over enough to get a handle on what will exactly happen to them, as it gives their phobias and nothing else afterward. That is just like the unemotional care for the film and destroys it just as badly. The film's conclusion is another big problem area. It's twist is one seen coming a mile away, and then it twists into something that doesn't make sense. Nothing is given about why it's twisted to where it is, and from there it actually has one of the biggest plot holes in the genre, as it decides to ignore a pressing matter that the film is based around. It's confusing as to why this secret is left, and is a hard problem to overlook. The goofy-looking killer's wardrobe is something, but it's not as bad as the other ones.
The Final Verdict: While it isn't that bad as a cheap Gothic film, as anything else it isn't that spectacular and comes off as rather decent. Fans of the genre at this point will think it's decent as well, while most will find others out there rather than this one to really get into.
Today's Rating-PG-13: Violence