This underrated movie deserves more attention
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retibar — 20 years ago(November 20, 2005 02:43 AM)
As a fan of Kim Basinger I've seen this film many times and also bought the DVD. I don't think that it's bad at all. I found it entertaining and exciting. I don't say that it's a classic or outstanding but it's a fun supernatural thriller. You can't compare it to 'Rosemary's Baby' witch is a Polanski-classic but it's good on it's own way. Here in Hungary it came out only on DVD so I thought that it was a failure at the US box office but now I see that it's gross isn't bad at all.
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TheAce-Winchester — 19 years ago(June 29, 2006 06:03 AM)
Look, I liked this movie when I saw it on USA, or maybe it was FX. Anyway, I liked this movie, and am surprised that anyone found it point blank bad. I am a christian, but still, if I wasn't I would have liked this movie all the same. I really don't like how some books and movies or even people can turn to the devil, the source of all evil, and praise him, or even portray him in a light that is anything but what he is.
If you love Jesus Christ and are 100% proud of it copy this and make your signature! -
Hyokano — 19 years ago(July 05, 2006 12:51 PM)
Interesting! I only heard of this movie from a movie forum, but since there's so much contravercy over the low rating, I must admit I'm really intrigued. So there it is, on the top of my Netflix queue Can't wait to see it!
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oyster_without_soul — 18 years ago(December 09, 2007 01:30 AM)
I didn't expect much, but boy was I surprised how bad this movie was. Of course there are much worse films than this, but this movie was made on a good budget, and it had some good actors. The story was formulaic, there were many elements already seen so many times, and some scenes look like they have been taken directly from other films (i.e. "evil bums" from Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness, etc, or "satanic nanny" from "The Omen") Dialogues range from cheesy to outright silly, and director calls for "deux ex machina" element to help the story one too many times (i.e. when Maggie visits the church, and all of the sudden a nun shows up and says that they have been watching her and know what is going on, or the angels in the end). And the CGI demons that occupy Maggie's visions that warn her of a dark and evil place, deserve a post on their own. I don't think Christina Ricci will brag that she acted in this one
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codyhoskins — 14 years ago(April 11, 2011 10:46 AM)
Yes The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and the Omen are original horror movies in their own light. Bless the Child just rips off of all of those films and uses them to tell some kind of moral fairy tale instead. Horror to me usually goes beyond morality and is there to scare you with the horror of evil. Even if we sympathize with characters like Rosemary and Gregory Peck's character in their movies when they try to outwit the Devil, we can tell that they will lose because of the dark edge to those movies. You drsantanico are right that the dark endings are what make horror work.
While this movie has its share of the dark side, the problem is that it shows evil too clearly and too predictably that it hardly ever scary. The evil characters are known from the very beginning and always pop up just when Maggie thinks she's got the situation under control. To me, that's not scary because it feels more like a conspiracy thriller and ruins really the shock of horror. For me, horror is supposed to hit you when you least expect it. That's what makes films like The Omen and Rosemary's Baby appealing is that the horror comes in places you don't expect. Next-door neighbors who turn out to be Devil worshippers in the end after seeing them as friendly people for most of Rosemary's Baby, that's chilling because we're meant to think these people can be trusted and that they're her friends, now Rosemary realizes she's screwed because they have been playing her for their Satanic plot the whole time. In the Omen, terrible things keep happening as though they are natural, yet they are manipulated by the supernatural. That's also chilling because it shows that anything could happen through the forces of nature but if it were supernatural-based then it's far worse. That's where horror is based on the imagination of what is out there causing the horror.
Bless the Child just ruins that imagination and shows all those CGI demons circling buildings and people in black running around after people as though we were looking at Mordor in LOTR and the Ringwraiths galloping after people respectively. That makes it feel less scary and look more fantastical. Everything is so black and white in this film, we know too clearly who is good and bad. The black that all the bad guys wear is the most cliched color of evil and becomes old. The manners are also so cliched; all the bad guys frown and they tell you to join them or die. Their methods are so stupid also; Eric Stark thinks he can change Cody into a demonic child by showing her horrible things like burning an old man, telling her to jump, and knocking out her aunt, then expecting her to join him. That's weak for a child to join evil because children at that age know what's good and evil so that's very stupid to try and cajole a child who has no interest in power or in watching people die. Darth Vader and the Emperor did a better job than that because they could see Luke's weaknesses and so they played on those weak aspects to try and cajole him and they nearly worked the more angry Luke became over the threat to his friends. The more Eric and his followers tried hard to imitate the popular villains of cinema, the more amateurish they became because they didn't do anything creative to become scary or sinister. Instead, I kept wishing for them to be killed sooner than later because they just made evil too boring and annoying. Besides, if they were smarter, they would have killed the girl to begin with. A girl who is destined to serve God was always targeted for death, say Jesus by King Herod in the Bible or Elora Danin by Queen Bavmorda in Willow. Trying to drive a girl to evil by acting evil is a failure. I thought the best villains of all time were the ones that didn't try to make you hate them because hating them outright would have made them incapable of exerting their power over you.
When I saw this movie as a teenager, I didn't think about its flaws because movies about good and evil were usually appealing to me. Now that I'm a young man and have seen most of the classics horror films and stories about good and evil, this film to me has no originality and uses too many weak copycat techniques that destroy the real power of the imagination of horror and make morality tales so used up. That's why I gave it away to Goodwill or someplace years ago because I couldn't bear to hold on to a movie that was such a cliched disgrace. -
koffeenkreame41-1 — 14 years ago(August 30, 2011 11:13 AM)
This movie is underrated, it's 11 years older now and STILL better than some of the B-list, D-list crap that comes out now.
"I am the ultimate badass, you do not wanna*beep*wit' me!" Hudson in Aliens.