Goblin (2010)

Fresh and Exciting

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

My advice would be to watch this movie in full before you judge it. Every Halloween, a small hamlet in the deep woods is visited by a fierce goblin, intent on capturing infants and brutally murdering anyone in its path. I refuse to totally dismiss this, because I find it quite engaging, in a guilty pleasure sense. The cinematography is stark and bare, with only the soundtrack adding some effect. Other than that, it was an okay film, and I would recommend that people watch it. My girlfriends and I were so excited to see this movie, thinking it was going to be a fun movie. It gets a final good rating of 7 out of 10 from me.

Every Halloween, it gets really hot in this small village, and the son is always shining.There is a curse on the village, the titular beasty steals kids every year if there are any lurking about, thanks to a witch casting a spell on everyone.Gil Bellows takes his family to the said village, with little baby, to settle a deal. His daughter resents him a little, but she has her friend with her, who is very flirty on the verge of caricature.They want to settle a deal, with someone else who isn't that important to remember, but the goblin soon comes back for the night, and to be truthful, he looks more like the ghost of Christmas future from 'Scrooged' than a menacing threat.The film is silly, with awful CGI, and the cast, apart from Bellows are awful and unlikeable.There is a perfunctory twist at the end, and we also have the inclusion of the village drunk, who raises this film to two stars rather than one, because for some reason, put a big grin on may face whenever he was on screen, because he is just so ridiculous.At times watching this, I thought that the makers were trying to make another Troll 2, ans it has the same air to it.Apart from the village drunk, this is a sober affair.

Goblin starts on October 31 in 1831 as the residents of Hollowglen are gathered around a raging fire, the townspeople are scared of a deformed newborn baby & toss it into the fire to keep the town clean & pure. However the baby's mother is understandably upset & since she is also a Witch decides to put a terrible curse on Hollowglen, every Holloween from this night forward a demonic Goblin from hell will rise take any baby that it can find. Jump forward to the present day as Neil (Gil Bellows) & Kate Perkins (Camile Sulivan) reach Hollowglen after a long drive, with them are Neil's seventeen year old daughter Nikki (Tracy Spiridakos), her best friend Cammy (Erin Boyes) & their young baby son Nathan. In town to complete a real estate deal the Perkin clan find the locals rather strange & somewhat hostile, eventually the family learn of the curse & also find out that the baby stealing Goblin of legend is very real...This Canadian production was directed by Jeffery Scott Lando & is yet another Sy-Fy Channel original creature feature that in truth has nothing original about it, as expected Goblin is just a string of clichés & bad CGI computer effects padded out to an hour & a half. Most of the plot elements from Goblin have been seen many times before, the ancient curse, the Halloween date, the supernatural monster, an unsuspecting family caught up in it, the small creepy backwoods town, the crazy old drunk man no-one listens to but is right, annoying teens who are there just to get killed off & the final magical implement that is used to destroy the monster. You can tick the clichés off, Goblin is uninspired & throughly predictable. The first half of the film concentrates on the squabbling between the Perkins family while I do admit it does pick up in the second half it's still not very good. For a start why were that couple trying to make a deal with the killer Goblin? Do Goblins understand English? Did they not think it might just kill both of them & take the baby anyway? The final plan to kill the Goblin wasn't that well thought out & sounded like Nikki just had to stand there as bait while no-one decided what to do once the Goblin showed up. Also why did the Goblin go after & kill the teens in the woods? Wasn't it's purpose to take babies? None of them had babies or were hiding babies or had anything to do with babies so why randomly kill them?Although Goblin is meant to be set during Halloween everyone is wearing summer clothing, also much of Goblin takes place during broad daylight which does nothing to build the tension or suspense. While the Goblin is definitely a monster the makers decided to place a cloak over him for most of the film so there are scenes of this cloaked figured chasing teens around the woods that feel more like a slasher than a creature feature but the cloak does come off eventually & while the special effects vary from poor to average the Goblin looks alright for the most part. There's a bit of gore which is really the only thing stopping me from rating Gobin a one, a guy's head is crushed, a girl is seen ripped in half with her guts strewn everywhere & there's some blood splatter & spurts.Probably shot on the usual low budget Goblin looks alright, much of the film takes place inside the same cabin & stretch of woods though. Filmed in British Columbia in Canada. The acting is about the same for this type of film, nothing special & no-ones going to win any awards.Goblin is yet another routine creature feature from the Sy-Fy Channel that isn't as bad as some of the crap it makes but in the grand scheme of things you can do without seeing it. If you can get through the first half then you might find the second half better but overall it's a difficult film to recommend.

Typical of the entries in the Sci-Fi scheme of things is this tale of an ancient curse being perpetuated on a small town where danger lurks in the woods whenever Halloween approaches.GIL BELLOWS is the father who takes his family to a rustic cabin for a vacation, accompanied by a teen-aged daughter (TRACY SPIRIDAKOS) and her giggling friend (CAMILLE SULLIVAN), along with wife and baby. He meets a few of the townspeople and we're aware that something is out of kilter--there's a secret being held behind closed doors and we know the family is in immediate danger.That's the set-up, accompanied by lots of exposition about witches and an ancient curse involving human sacrifice, with the story set just before and during another Halloween. Actually, the script is fairly good at developing the characters (for a change), the photography is very striking, and the acting on a generally higher level than you'd expect in this sort of horror film. There's some bloody gore to satisfy fans who crave the sight of injuries inflicted on innocent victims.The goblin creature itself is kept shrouded in a dark cloak most of the time and when revealed is a pretty frightening sight, with all due respect to CGI effects. The music is creepy and the atmosphere of dread takes on a stronger feel for the last part of the story, which takes a little too long to set up the whole thing.After a dull beginning, not too bad but could have been more tightly paced.