Southern Gothic (2007)

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A disgraced nightclub bouncer faces off against a psychotic zealot vampire preacher. Quite a crazed concept ripe for hyperactive exploitation thrills, and yet Southern Gothic plays it pretty low key and laconic, for the most part anyway. Moody where other films would have been brash, it's a nice atmosphere piece with gore galore and a gonzo central performance from William Forsythe as Enoch Pitt, a man of the lord who has strayed from the path. Bitten by a vampire, the already sleazy Pitt turns into a full on monster, tearing up the small Deep South town of Redemption and building an army of the undead. Hazel Fortune (Yul Vasquez) is traumatized and broken by the death of his young daughter, until he meets young Hope (Emily Catherine Young), who crosses Pitt's vision and finds herself in mortal danger. This puts the two men on a vengeful collision course of blood, retribution and carnage. Ok, so I've made it sound a little more epic than it actually is, but that's more or less how it goes down. Energetic it ain't, more of a slow burn than anything else. Firmly rooted in B-movie territory in terms of both budget and script, but entertaining and distinctly flavoured nonetheless. Vasquez is moody and four, but dangerous when he needs to be. Forsythe, as usual, is the acting equivalent to a junkyard bulldog let off the chain, chewing scenery faster than he can munch carotid arteries, and loving every campy, frightening minute of it. Not the cream of the horror crop per sé, but reasonable enough Saturday night horror background noise fodder.

I started out watching this last night while fiddling around doing other things, but shortly became involved enough to turn out the lights and plunk down on the floor in my serious watching mode. Vazquez was interesting, DuPont fine, and Forsythe was, as usual, a gas. But that pretty much wrapped up the acting. Too many of the others were either mediocre or bad (like that mysterious "good" vampire). And the plot was somewhat incoherent and illogical. I gave it a 5, a middling review, as the fulcrum of the teeter-totter I felt I was on -- "oh, this is okay"/"oh this is not okay", back and forth. Not a total waste of time, but close.

DVR'd this one on a whim and was pleasantly surprised that it was intelligent, competent and watchable. But ultimately, this raised my expectations to a point where I was somewhat disappointed.The performances here are strong, if a bit dour. William Forsythe always throws himself into characters and does so here. I thought the character could have been given more to do, but Forsythe provides a compelling performance. Yul Vazquez was also solid in the lead role; I would have liked to have seen these characters written with a bit more fun and humor - a joke here or there - but it's better than the "twilight" and similar dreck coming out. I thought the direction was competent, other than the inability to find a richer, more charismatic tone. The story works on the surface, but the plot meanders and we really don't get very far practically speaking. For example, an interesting vampire character is introduced, disappears, then reappears at the end, to no point.Good cable flick to watch, particularly for folks who are not "purests".

I'm the first one to root for a B-movie, a movie that has been done with a small budget. But there is only so much I can accept and this movie definitely crosses that line. Having said that, there might be quite a few people out there (despite the low rating here), that don't mind the lighting, the sound inconsistencies and other "technical" flaws. They might not even mind, that the characters are bland at best. But for those who do mind: Avoid.Of course we can assume, that no director/filmmaker sets out to do a bad movie. And you have to admit that they try hard here. But I can't give them extra points for trying, because imho I think the movie deserves that. Again if you want to take the risk, you might feel different. You should be able to tell, how you feel about the movie, 15 to 20 minutes into it. If you don't like it by then, you won't like it until the end!