Pernicious (2015)

Very well executed

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Was drawn into seeing 'Pernicious', with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing and quite creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive. 'Pernicious', simply put, turned out to be a terrible, worse than feared film with next to no redeeming values and so much done catastrophically wrong. One of the worst films seen in a while, which is saying a lot for somebody who on the most part has been encouraged by their film/television watching and has more often than that been quite generous. Decent idea, horrendous execution.Lets start with one positive. The scenery is atmospheric, if wasted by the schlocky way the film is shot and particularly edited.However, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary it got. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their irritating and illogical decision making and behaviours insult the intelligence. Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The acting is also terrible and the effects are ropy at best.Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace is uneven, dragging in a lot of the second half and never is it exciting. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness and the lack of tension and suspense. A large part of the problem being the excessive gratuity of the elements thrown in to "spice things up", that it borders on pornographic and tasteless, and the utterly predictable, confusing and un-scary way the torture and supernatural elements are handled.A lot of the film completely fails to make sense, both in underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations. The villains are poorly used and pose very little threat. The last third badly sags in momentum and the atmosphere completely falls flat. Everything feels both overdone and tame.In summary, a nightmarishly terrible film. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Arriving in Thailand to become teachers, a group of friends trying to experience the culture finds themselves caught up in the supernatural antics of a dead little girl coming back to seek revenge on the original culprits who killed her and set out to stop her rampage from continuing.This one was a decent enough supernatural effort. One of it's more enjoyable aspects is the rather enjoyable atmosphere conjured up by the whole experience of being in a foreign land. The concept of them being in Thailand being out of their element and trying to figure out what's going on once they wake up from their date night is where this one really starts taking off with some great ideas and concepts. Most of this comes from an incredibly chilling backstory involving the use of necromancy and black magic to detail the steps involved in the creation of the main spirit at the heart of the story and the various rules that go into playing out the different forms of protection or just creating the ghost itself that provides quite an impressive backstory to this one. Tying in the rather creepy and chilling flashback that explains the actions and motivations of the family into undergoing the ritual and how the refusal plays into the manner of haunting against them that turns into some rather freaky moments in the house as they're individually haunted by the ghost in the house all in startling sequences. The final half really puts this into overdrive as well with another big plus in the strikingly brutal and twisted torture games being played throughout here which offers up some shocking sequences. This starts out nicely early on with the dream scene where all three dole out bloody tortures on their dates by literally ripping them to pieces in slow, methodical fashion as the graphic and bloody visuals showing them being showered with blood throughout the process makes for a striking setpiece. The final half, where it really lets loose with them being tortured by the idea of one of them being possessed by the released ghost girl features even more over-the-top bloodshed and gore which does bring this one up quite a bit. This one does have a few minor issues, which comes from the needlessly convoluted and contrived storyline that doesn't make any sense here. This one is way too complex about what's going on with the girl and the witch doctor with the family living there and how it all ties together in the end as it definitely bogs itself down in needing to explore too many angles in order to make sense. As well, the fact that this happens during the parts where the girls become the most unsympathetic makes it somewhat hard to really care as for what's happening which doesn't need to happen at that point. Combined with some minor scenes of dodgy CGI, these here are what hold this down.Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

It is hard to know what works wrong for the movie: the story, the script, the actors, the editor, the continuity supervisor or the director. Probably the sum of all. There are a lot of fails in this movie but the worst is the story which left us with two hypothesis or there is not story from the beginning or someone kill it in the way. I hope to help and avoid others to lose time with this crap. There are a lot of better movies around for you to see. Happy trails.

Knowing nothing about PERNICIOUS I went in, kept my expectations low and maintained an open mind. The opening scene managed to draw my interest however it quickly dwindled because of an intro that was way too long. And that's the problem with this film. Many pointless scenes involving long conversations which are repetitive and do nothing to push the main plot forward. Very much like the torture scene that takes place early on. A scene that could've been kept short and to the point is stretch out and just plain boring and repetitive.The three leads being teachers who go to Thailand to do volunteer work could've been an interesting trio but are rendered as the usual horror movie stereotypes. It's also a wonder that these three ladies are teachers since one of them struggles to describe what a life size golden statue of a little girl looks like.On the plus side the film features good cinematography and a mildly creepy atmosphere. As well as a definite sense of foreboding in the final act. Unfortunately the film contains too many scenes stretched out unnecessarily that do little to push the main plot forward.