Credo (2008) User Reviews

Typical

[anelith · 4/10 · 21 October 2008]

So, we have an abandoned house, where some people have killed themselves before. And of course, we have a group of people, who want to spend not just one, but two nights in that house. Are there any horror films made these days that does not have the concept of a haunted house with a few murders committed in it? Continuing with the clichés: the protagonist, a female, is a hard-working student, who has not got much time to spend with her friends. Then there is the man in love with her, but who does not dare to tell her that. He is of course a little bit awkward and shy. And finally, there is the party-all-night-long college boy, whose main aim in life is to... well, to party and get laid.

However, these characters really come to life and make you sympathize with them: the actors are very-well chosen and can actually act, contrary to many modern-day horror films. Their fear is real and their actions as well, although there are many lines delivered that just make you wonder.

To all gore fans: there isn't much for you, only a little blood is seen. This movie is more about the deep subconscious of people and how that makes them act.

The Devil's Curse

[Scarecrow-88 · 3/10 · 22 May 2010]

College students, needing a place to stay after being kicked out of their loft, find a temporary substitute which so happens to have an ominous history..it seems a demon was summoned there once as it served as quarters for Catholic students, with four forming a pentagram, later found dead, each one determined a victim of suicide(if only that were the case!). Called Eden, the building was later abandoned, considered a relic whose reputation built it an urban legend. What these students will later realize is that it's history has merit and they all will face the consequences of staying within Eden, which is no longer a den of God, but of pure evil. Alice(MyAnna Buring; The Descent & Doomsday) is the more mature among the students, trying to study for an exam as the others form a pentagram with a Ouija board(these kids never learn, do they?!)attempting, albeit as a form of tomfoolery, to discover what happened to those found dead many moons ago. Scotty(Mark Joseph) is a geek who sets up cameras in girl's bedrooms to spy on them as they take off their clothes, the creep. Jock(Clayton Watson) is the goofy partier who stages the shindig which gets the cast kicked out of their loft and is responsible for finding Eden through a friend. Jock is also the one who came up with the not-so-bright idea of playing with the Ouija board. You just know he'll be one of the first to meet his maker, the kind of character playing with fire, his hands hovering over the rising flame. Timmy(Nathalie Pownall) is harboring lesbian feelings for Alice, frightened of Eden, and quite on edge after participating in the pentagram ritual. Jock ribs Scotty about a bet between the two over who could bed Alice. Jazz(Rhea Bailey) is the token black girl frightened and wanting to leave after the group make a horrifying discovery the next morning.

The house is pretty impressive in that there's an endless staircase which seems to go for miles. There are limitless doors, windows, rooms of all sizes, it seems. Walls with holes and chipped paint. Pipes that make noise. The demon summoned preys on their worst fears, causing hallucinations which toy with their emotions and conscience. After one among them is found hung from a rope, those that remain attempt to flee the premises, finding the entrance/exit chained and locked from the inside. Trying a different way, a raggedy, bearded hobo Jock encountered(this bum warned Jock of the evil which would come to get them at night)shuts a door trapping them on the bottom floor.

Personally, speaking for myself, besides the cool building where the breadth of the film takes place, I found the plot and execution rather dull. Alice is decently developed as the final girl, but characters like Jock(the obnoxious jerk that annoys everybody with his juvenile behavior)and Jazz(exists, it seems, so that the film would have a minority, given only a reasonably interesting fear of claustrophobia which contributes to how the demonic force uses it to terrorize/trick her)add very little to the film except as stereotypes to be dispatched. And, the deaths are rather uninspired and happen off-screen. For a great deal of running time, characters have little to do, except fear for their lives and seek an exit strategy when it seems few ways out exist for them. The plot uses a character named Seth(who decided to leave the circle performing the pentagram ritual) to service the film as an exposition piece. But, the ending regarding Alice's fate, and how it relates to everything we've seen, is a major humbug that really left me more than a bit miffed. THE DEVIL'S CURSE is an instantly forgettable waste of time if you ask me. I mean, the final reel pretty much establishes that what we have sat through for 90 minutes was futile and pointless.

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[Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki · 5/10 · 22 October 2008]

After being kicked out of their apartment, a group of college students decide to stay in an abandoned church for a couple of weeks. Already feeling a bit awkward in their surroundings, they begin to explore the building, where the obligatory odd noises, lights which don't work, and another homeless derelict in the building warning them to leave, only makes them more on edge. Then they bring out the old Ouija board and start talking to spirits when things (predictably) get ugly. They come to find out that previous students that had stayed there successfully tried to conjure up demonic forces, and were brutally killed by them, with their killings disguised as apparent suicides. When one of their number is found hanged, they suspect the derelict killed her, or their practical joke playing prick friend in their number. As they frantically try to leave, they find they're trapped in the building, at the mercy of the derelict or their practical joke playing friend- or the demons summoned by the previous students' Ouija board.

This has fairly good photography and sound effects (especially for its low budget) and decent enough acting, but the movie runs a bit long and a take-it-or-leave-it ending make this one a bit of a disappointment, but not a complete waste of time. (in the ending, we find out that the leading lady is either schizo, or suffering some sort of mental exhaustion, and imagined the entire ordeal while her friends were in another part of the building, and was driven to suicide by what she thought were the deaths of her friends.)

Meh.

Not bad, but it could have been a lot better.

** out of ****

Too by the numbers to be much fun

[dbborroughs · 3/10 · 27 December 2008]

College kids tossed out of their apartment for having a party go to an abandoned church to stay, and against anyones better judgment crack out the Ouiji board and contact the spirits lurking with in. the problem was that the last person to stay there wanted to contact a demon, which he did...and you can guess the rest.

By the numbers and not really scary because odds are you'll have been down the road before. The young cast is actually quite good, which is a shame since they really could have enlivened a film that didn't seem to be going down the same old road yet again. To be fair there are a couple of moments that work, but they are only moments and not enough to sustain interest in the film.

Uninspired, dull, and poorly made.

[pder-87012 · 1/10 · 3 April 2015]

When you think of the time, effort, and money that goes into making a film, it is surprising that people would get behind making such an obviously bad script into a film. A group of uni students wandering around at night in an abandoned building that is rumoured to have been the site of a mass murder years before due to a demon summoning gone wrong. I think they had more original plot lines in the Scooby Doo cartoon TV series. You can imagine how long they spent developing the premise. The time it took to drink a pint in the pub. Maybe two. So saddled with a disappointing premise, someone outlines a slow and uninspired story line. This is then fleshed out with awkward and dull dialogue. At this point even a-list Hollywood actors could not save this train wreck. The poorly filmed badly directed efforts of the untrained/novice actors just ensure that there is not a moment to enjoy in this film.

Eventually you have to be scary

[loomis78-815-989034 · 2/10 · 30 July 2014]

Jock (Watson) throws a wild party that has him and his four roommates out on the street without warning. A buddy tips him off that a former Catholic school is abandoned and he could crash there for a short time. The five roommates go in and soon learn the sinister past of the place that lead to students committing suicide. They hear noises and sounds in the walls and feel they are not alone. They start turning up dead until Alice (Buring) is the only one left. Or is she? The answer is who knows? This screenplay attempts a few too many twists until the viewer is confused by the end and doesn't care. The movie builds some nice early atmosphere but once the students are in the old school the movie slows down and delivers nothing in the way of chills. Considering the creepy location, Director Toni Harman should have been laying on the jumps and chills the entire running time. Instead this one just sits there twisting the story around and around. Sooner or later you have to deliver some scares.

Great Movie Until the End

[IMDBer100575 · 4/10 · 2 November 2010]

I've had this movie for a while but never got around to watching it until tonight. The description sounded great and I was feeling in the mood for a good scare via theological horror.

The ambiance of this movie is great. The lighting is was well done, although, there were a few scenes that seemed unrealistically well-lit for the depicted situation. The color schemes fit the mood of the movie perfectly with dull and dreary shades. The sound was also superb. The music really complemented the scenes.

The storyline was excellent, at least until the end. Basically, there are five college-aged kids, including three BEAUTIFUL busty chicks. The find an abandoned school that was the scene of a horrible multi-suicide and then one by one, they start dying off. For the most part, all the events of the movie are great and it kept my attention. The ending, however, seemed to be rushed. I consider it like this: the writers were smoking really good weed and wrote this great story but then ran out of weed and just ended their script.

I didn't feel much emotion while watching this movie. I was scared a few times and it was suspenseful at moments but I didn't feel any strong emotions, which I consider a fail for the movie.

I recommend this movie if you like psychological movies; although, I don't think it's nearly as good as a lot of other pysch movies. I think most people will be disappointed in the ending. To me, the best part of this movie, sadly, is the three beautiful women in it. So sad, so sad.

Quite dull and flawed, but does have some pluses

[slayrrr666 · 4/10 · 15 July 2010]

"The Devil's Curse" was a rather uninvolving and quite boring horror film.

**SPOILERS**

Kicked out of their apartment, friends Alice, (MyAnna Buring) Jock, (Clayton Watson) Scott, (Mark Joseph) Timmy, (Nathalie Pownall) and Jazz, (Rhea Bailey) manage to find a new home for the weekend in a mansion vacated for a while, and decide to move in until they can find other housing. As they continue to room together within the building, they start to believe that something is wrong and something is inside with them as there's a story about the building being used by a group of Catholic students to conjure a demon within but bailed and left it trapped inside. When they become aware of something inside and it begins to hunt them down one-by-one planting each of the deaths as suicides, they try whatever they can to get out of the building before they meet a grisly end.

The Good News: There wasn't a whole lot here that really worked. One of the biggest pluses is that the film does a great job at invoking a superb atmosphere upon which it generates its few scare-attempts. With the multi-tiered flooring, dark, narrow corridors and cramped rooms, it makes for an effective backdrop in here to hang the scares off of. This is mostly evident in the early scenes, where they go around investigating the rooms and the later scenes of the set-up, which are done really well with the whispering voices, the power-outage and the scuttling noises coming from upstairs despite knowing they're alone in the house. Later scenes, most specifically the frantic running through the house trying to get out after being locked in and the darkness they're in while doing so, makes for a creepy time, and the constant use of demonic growls and hissing static over their radios is an extra bit to spice it up. The most impactful suspense scene is easily their crawl through the tunnel within the basement, as the main darkness, fluorescent illumination and tight, cramped space makes for a spectacular scare that is nicely bolstered by its implications from previous actions and extended, drawn-out scale that really allows for a frightening experience, to make for a great time. The finale, where the survivors are wandering through the house and exploring the remains slowly through the darkened house, the radio calls that go unheard, as well as all the creepy goings-on that are showcased by the video-cameras that are able to capture everything possible and turning it into a fantastic scare, are just plain chilling and perfectly encompass that feeling of dread and suspense that the film attempts to maintain throughout. The video-camera scenes are the best bit, with the deceptions played by their doubles, the violent actions undertaken by both, and the rather grand twist it employs due to this, is rather great and really much more enjoyable than possible. It even has a little bit of action present in the main flashback scene with the demon-aftermath attacks and the great freak-out bit in the bathroom that is quite good. The last plus in here is the rather sleazy shower scene, with the lesbian implications, nudity and much more. These here are all that work.

The Bad News: There was a lot of things with this one that lower it drastically. The biggest flaw to this one is the fact that it fits into all the usual British ghost films that were made around the time, where the on-screen action is so devoid of energy that it's increasingly frustrating to get into the film as it goes on. Whether it's by not actually showing anything designed to generate chills or just employing a laid-back style that keeps things from really going forward with anything on-screen, the film just feels so drawn-out and longer than it really is that there's just no other feeling to be found during the majority of its running-time than boredom. This is a common occurrence in such films, and this one falls into that trap as well, making for a really troubling spot to get over incredibly early on. This is certainly confounded even more by the film's focus on such trivial and inane plot-points that no scares really have the chance to get developed, mainly the aspect among the men to be able to score with the women and turning it into a game, which is so irritating and aggravating that the continued use of it is just that much more troubling than it really is, not worthy of being a central plot-point but more of a background element yet here is brought forward so that it's really boring during the course of the film as it's placed instead of generating scares. The fact that it does try to generate scares, but the fact that all we get is just voices without anything else gets old after the twentieth-time or so of such a tactic, and this really needed more time, taken up unfortunately by the other factors, to really try that. The film also suffers from a severe lack of explanations for many different parts, mainly the need for the demon to make its kills as suicide-victims. It rather easily could've done something unique here to generate more suspense, but instead such an important part of the film is glossed over and leaves a huge missed opportunity. The last flaw here is the finale, which just doesn't make any sense. Hardly anything that happens is explained, and all the different elements coming together are just utterly confusing. These here are the film's problems.

The Final Verdict: A great example of the common British ghost movies, this one doesn't have enough good stuff to overcome the usual trappings that are present in such films. Really only recommended to those who find these types of cerebral films appealing, while those looking for a little more energy should look elsewhere.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Nudity and Graphic Violence

Low budget indie puts others in the shade

[scantix · 8/10 · 24 November 2008]

I have seen a lot of comments and reviews about this film online and people seem to either love Credo or hate it. From what I can tell, if you're looking for slasher gore then you're not going to like Credo. There's quite a bit of blood, but it's not the in your face kind of blood. But if you like eerie suspense with a great twist, then this film hits the spot.

The whole film is one long slow release of tension and, what's more, it doesn't rely on unnecessary jump moments or pointless sex scenes to stimulate. The thing I like the most about this film, is the film makers' bravery in keeping the beast/monster/ghost off screen. This does mean that you don't get big action sequences, but that's a refreshing change in my book. Most of the film takes place in a nightmarish darkness with only the eerie glow of torchlight to relieve the tension. The sound design is fantastic and reminds me of the scares I got in Blair Witch.

I'd like to applaud the film makers for having the guts to make a film that doesn't spoon feed the audience. It's nice to actually be asked to use my own brain for once! For a low budget indie, this film puts most of the others in the shade.

Classic filming with a nice twist.

[Tibart76 · 8/10 · 21 December 2008]

In short, the first 30 minutes were boring and everything but promising. Then... this film kinda amazed me. First i was blinded by the just out of school way of filming. And then it got me and i was sucked into a film that made me sit on the edge of my couch.

The music, camera positioning and suspense reminded me of a Hitchcock classic. The plot almost was like an all American horror movie but in the last 10 minutes the plot twisted and got really amazing.

So sit trough the first 30 minutes and let yourself glide through a nice and nerve breaking movie. I am looking forward to more work from the hands of Toni Harman and Alex Wakeford.

I was scared!

[hicksville · 9/10 · 24 November 2008]

I really loved this movie.

I was genuinely scared throughout and I was completely caught out by the twist ending - although don't ask me to explain it! Good to see a horror film that doesn't rely on gore and decapitations but instead creates a creepy atmosphere and slowly builds suspense. The film cleverly ratchets up the tension then throws in the odd great jump moment. Couple all that with a smart script that turns everything inside out and you've got a surprisingly good horror flick.

In all, a sweet butterfly of a movie! Looking forward to seeing what the film-makers do next.