Jenna Walter
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Brenda
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
Michael Ledo
Mindy (Rachel Miner) leads a group of students who are studying a local Chinese cult in La Mirada, California. A Chinese woman was murdered with an amulet and it is believed the amulet holds the key to immortality, but not without human sacrifice. The amulet has made its way to their city and Pagoda. People around her die.Rachel Miner reminded me of Misty Mundae minus the tub scene. Taryn Manning was the only person in the film who can do horror. Available on a 10 DVD set. Don't ask me how it ends, I was asleep by then. Keep looking.Guide: F-word. No sex. Brief nudity (Victoria Vanegas or fake bloody doll.)
Woodyanders
Several college students researching an extinct local religious cult for a class project discover a powerful magical jade amulet of ancient Chinese origin. The amulet unleashes a potent supernatural force that threatens to destroy them all. Sound good? Well, it just ain't. For starters, director Joe Knee crucially fails to develop any necessary tension or creepy atmosphere. Moreover, Knee falls back on annoying cheap jump-out at-you fake scare tactics, uses an extremely irritating hyper-kinetic editing style, stages the murder set pieces in a clumsy manner (to be fair, there's a bravura mass sacrifice at the very start, but that's about it), and pumps up the furiously frantic pace to the point where it proves to be more wearying than thrilling. Benjamin Oren's talky and tedious cliché-ridden script likewise falters severely with a jumbled story that never jells into a coherent, compelling, and satisfying whole. The lousy CGI effects, grotty gore, blaring soundtrack, and cruddy tin-eared dialogue don't help matters any. The acting is strictly hit or miss: Both Racher Miner and Taryn Manning make an admirably game go of it, but are fighting a futile uphill battle the whole way; Fiona Horne contributes a respectable turn as a concerned college professor, Joel Michaely seriously grates on the nerves as obnoxious goofball Alex, and Rob Berson makes for an underwhelming villain as nefarious cult leader Owen Quinlan. David McFarland's foul cinematography makes vertigo-inducing use of a shaky prowling camera and gives the movie an ugly washed-out look. Thanh Tran's robust ominous score should have been saved for a much better film. A real stinker.
charlytully
Firstly, few colleges allow students to take courses from their parent's lover. Secondly, few women professors are sleeping with dorm cooks. Thirdly, few brassy coeds have a dad who cooks in their dorm. Fourthly, once a SECOND member of a college small-group project team meets a violent demise, the college PRESIDENT will disband the whole class, and NOT turn a blind eye as the professor merrily steers the rest of the group toward grisly deaths. Since the supernatural elements of CULT make absolutely no sense, it is useful to study the mundane content of this film to truly appreciate how much this flick really sucks!
saint_leon_hfh
First things first: don't watch this movie if you're waiting for some extreme gore and scares. Reason: it fails in both of them. So, I watched this movie with some friends. We were like "Oh, 'Cult'... must have spells or something like that... lets rent it!". So we did, and two hours later, when the movie's credits started rolling, I said: "Who thought it was crap? I did".Seriously. The story itself if sort of OK, but the script ruins it completely. The picture itself is too dark and you might have some trouble at finding out what happened in certain parts of the movie. So, the story is about a group of teenagers (cliché...) who is working on an essay for University, and they decide to write it about a cult. Thing is, this cult has connections with the main character, Mindy, and the movie is all about these connections between characters (with some deaths and blood in the middle). Image-wise, as I said before, the picture is very dark in some scenes, and in others, the camera just doesn't stop moving. OK, this works well with some movies, but in this case, it doesn't. It even makes the movie look even crappier. Adding that to fake CGI effects... As for acting... could be better. Most of the actors don't show much experience in front of the cameras, which leads their roles to "clichéness", typical in these horror movies. The villain himself is as cliché as the "hero survives in the end", which happens in all movies.Some scenes were made to scare you. Needless to say, they fail. The sounds used are banal and common, which makes these scenes the typical "scare time" of horror movies. I actually could tell when something was going to happen. Predictability.So, overall, this movie could be much better, if the script didn't turn the story into crap, and if the actors, CGI and sound weren't so commonly used and banal.Rating: 5/10
