Scourge (2008)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Brilliant and touching

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I thought this might turn out to be one of those gems you find in the B-movie horror selection, but I was wrong. Boy was I wrong. Good premise, good use of the budget available, not to shabby FX (minus some CG fire). Those are it's only strengths, and even that's being generous.The acting isn't usually an issue for me in movies of this type, but when it's so bad it becomes distracting, well......I mean come on, the actors aren't even trying to say their lines with any conviction, regardless of how bad the script might be.And yes, the dialog is horrible, completely unconvincing. Again, this isn't usually a problem in horror films except when it's so bad you can't ignore it.There is a serious lack of direction in the film where you have scenes just kinda thrown in there that don't seem to do anything but provide a chance to tie the lead character to more murders, which after the second person dies is all but impossible except maybe in the mind of whomever wrote this script. Most horror films do rely on certain bad luck principles, but when you see how the photographer gets infected in front of dozens of people, only to realize no one seemed to notice a dead body come to life and infect him.....well, I wish I could say this was an exception to the weird coincidences of this movie, but it's not.There's plenty more wrong with it, too much to list here. It seems that this movie was shot in two days, so skip it.

Scourge starts during 1871 in a churchyard in a small town called Harborford in Washington where an ancient evil is seemingly trapped for good. Jump forward about 150 years later & Harborford the town is still there, unfortunately after a spot of arson the local church has been burnt to the ground much to the dismay of local fireman Josh (Mensah Iruoje) who has the task of shifting through the rubble. While doing this he uncovers a small chamber from inside which something attacks him, the once trapped ancient evil known as the Scourge is loose. The Scourge enters & possesses people, it eats their guts & then moves onto the next person. Local Sheriff Durst (Russell Ferrier) blame local bad-boy Scott Miller (Nic Rhind) after he makes advances on his pretty niece Jesse (Robyn Ledoux) & his present girlfriend Lydia (Marina Pasqua) is the first victim of the Scourge found. Scott & Jesse team up to prove his innocence & rid the world of the Scourge once & for all...This American Canadian co-production was written, co-produced & directed by Jonas Quastel & while I wouldn't say Scourge is any sort of masterpiece I didn't think it was all bad & certainly better than I was expecting although saying that I had zero expectations so that isn't saying that much. I had a choice last night, I could have either watched this Scourge or the South Korean monster flick The Host (2006) & after I saw Scourge went on for 90 minutes & The Host went on for 120 my mind was made up & I have to say I don't regret my decision since this was alright. The pace is good although not that much happens (the majority of the film features nothing more complex than the Scourge creature moving from body to another for no real apparent reason), the character's are better than one might expect & the body hopping creature plot is quite effective although it's not a patch on the likes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) or The Thiing (1982) which feel very similar to Scourge in the way they play out. There's not to many why's or explanation's given & a lot of the plot is fairly basic & undeveloped or simply glossed over, if this Scourge needs to feed so regularly how did it survive trapped under a church for 150 years? Why don't those who it burrows into know that the Scourge is in them after they have just seen it enter them? Why didn't the geezers in the opening scene set in 1871 kill the Scourge? So while Scourge might have been more satisfying had the makers fleshed a few of the ideas out & developed a little more of a coherent back-story I can't really say it's a bad film but at the same time I am not sure if I can describe it as a particularly good one, it's certainly better than I had expected but that's no recommendation in itself & I can't say it's any better than average so I won't.The film has a fairly nice slick look about it & there's a nice shot right at the start where the camera pans down the side of a church at night in the pouring rain right to the bottom, to be fair it looks better than most straight-to-DVD releases, particularly in the horror genre at least. The gore levels are low which doesn't help it, a guy is punched in the face & his jaw half rips off, there's some peeling skin & a bit of blood splatter but little else. There's no nudity unless you count the beefy black firefighter dude who takes a shower. The CGI computer effects are quite good actually, the actual effects on the Scourge creature are impressive & the thing looks good with it's mouth full of sharp teeth & lots of tentacles flapping around. The exploding cop car looks terrible though.Although set entirely in Washington state Scourge was filmed in Nanaimo in British Columbia in Canada on a budget of about $1,500,000. The acting is decent enough from a cast none of whom I recognise from anything else at all.Scourge isn't the best body possessing styled horror film ever but it isn't the worst either, I didn't dislike it but at the same time I didn't exactly love it. Watchable if there's nothing else on telly & you can bag a copy going cheap or better still rent it. Could have been worse for sure but then again it could have been better.

Well, the summary says almost everything, no?I saw this movie last night, or more then half of it, not because I was curious about it's ending, but because I wanted to see if a low budget movie can be a little good or if the director can have a little brain.After I saw this horrible movie, I can tell you that what is done with little bucks and little brain is really week.I won't recommend this to anyone, especially to a friend.If you want to see a good horror movie check who make's it and with what budget.I rate this movie with 1 because I cannot see a zero or a minus to vote.Oh, I was almost forgot: The script is...I mean there is no script.

I downloaded this movie after I read some good things posted about it. Scourge is one of those movies you can just kick back and enjoy. I watch a lot of creature movies and most of them at this level lack fx quality. Then you've got the story which I mean 9 out of ten suck at. This movie has some good old tongue in cheek Horror - like stuff from the 80's. The a story that is pretty good and some cool viz FX. The creature was nice looking, I mean I've seen stuff like it before but it was different enuff to keep you interested and the belley button angle ius new. I wish I had paid for it and i don't say that too often! I gave it a 10 not cause i thought it was a ten but because its not a 6.8 which is what it should be!