Cult (2007)

People are voting emotionally.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

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.

While studying the differences between religion and cult in college, Mindy (Rachel Miner), who is the best student in the class, convinces her schoolmates Cassandra (Taryn Manning), Bailey (Glenn Dunk), Alex (Joel Michaely) and Morgan (Victoria Venegas) to research the massacre of worshipers of Kwan Yin by their leader Owen Quinlin (Robert Berson) twenty years ago in California. Quinlin had found an ancient amulet in Southern China that would give an enormous power to him after the sacrifice of human souls, but one woman resists and he is destroyed. However, after the death of Morgan, who apparently committed suicide, the students discover that Quinlin has returned and is chasing their souls with his amulet.The storyline of 'Cult" is not totally bad. Unfortunately, the screenplay, the direction, the acting, the lines, the camera, the CGI and the edition are awful. I was completely bored and tempted to use the FF button of the DVD, but I resisted and wasted 90 minutes of my life watching this never-ending crap on a Saturday night. My vote is two.Title (Brazil): "O Amuleto Secreto" ("The Secret Charm")

Cult starts 20 years ago on the 'Quinling Mountain Range, Southern China' as a guy called Owen Quinlin (Robert Berson) finds an ancient amulet said to have magical powers, cut to California where Quinlin has set up a cult & the members are about to sacrifice themselves when one of them (Cazzy Golomb) foils his evil scheme... Jump forward to the present day as five college students, Mindy (Rachel Miner), Cassandra (Taryn Manning), Bailey (Glenn Dunk), Alex (Joel Michaely) & Morgan (Victoria Venegas) are researching the events of twenty years ago that have become know as the 'Quinling Massacre' for a school project. Unfortunately Morgan decides to kill herself which unleashes the evil spirit of Owen Quinlin for reasons that are rather tenuous, he sets about completing what he started all those years ago by claiming souls so he can finally inherit the magical powers of the amulet for his own evil use...Edited, co-produced & directed by Joe Knee this is not a good film & that's being kind to it. The script by Benjamin Oren which seems to take itself very seriously is a dour supernatural tale about a cult leader who comes back from the dead to finish what he started a few years prior, as you would expect the character's involved now have links to what happened all those years ago & it's as dull as it sounds. The character's are bland & forgettable, the dialogue just as much so, there's no proper horror or exploitation in it, it's slow going at times, it's predictable, it's clichéd, it goes completely off the rails at the end & doesn't make much sense when you think about it. The story never grips or engages you, it's never exciting or particularly interesting & I'd struggle to even call it average. There is very little here by which I could recommend Cult, don't bother with this one.Director Knee does alright but the film has that bland shot-on-video made-for-TV look about it, it's utterly forgettable & flat stuff throughout. There's no scares, there's no atmosphere & it lacks any tension. There is no gore either, sure there's a fair amount of blood splatter but no proper actual special make-up effect gore scenes.With a supposed budget of about $950,000 Cult looks cheap although it's not as badly made as some low budget horror films I've seen recently. The acting isn't even worth mentioning.Cult is a poor film that didn't do anything for me, I'd struggle to call this average. There are much better horror films out there.

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