Back from Hell (2012)

So much average

hyped garbage

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

BACK FROM HELL is an Italian stab at the found footage genre, concerning a group of friends who hole up at a historic house in the countryside and soon encounter a sinister demonic presence who takes over one of their own. The viewer is thereafter subject to endless shaky-cam footage, those clichéd camera 'problems', and lots of dodgy acting.The odd choice was made to shoot this in English with an Italian cast, all of whom struggle with thick accents and the vagueness of the script. I actually found the whining voices to be pretty annoying and I wanted to punch out the characters after about half an hour in their company. The cinematography is poor, with 90% of the film taking place in the dark so you can't see what's meant to be happening, and nothing much happens. BACK FROM HELL seems to go on forever until an abrupt and unsatisfying climax, and it really is a patience tester for audiences.

If this review contains a spoiler, it is that the whole movie is absolutely wretched. From the movie poster being totally inaccurate, to the description of the basic plot (Manor home? They stay in an old, run down monastery not even close to a manor home.) to the "priest" living next door (there WAS no next door, he also was in the monastery). The "pals" were constantly bickering, and the Ouija scene was just like every other Ouija scene in every other movie ("I don't want to do this." "But it's just a game!" Then after something nasty happens, "We shouldn't have done this!"). We get more bickering, more people wandering about seemingly in trances, and a very, very long possession and exorcism scene that ends just as anyone would expect if they've seen even a few possession movies. There were no surprises, the camera work was terrible and also trite (it cut out every time something started to happen) and the people were one-dimensional and boring. A total waste of the viewer's time.

I rented this from Redbox basically going by what I read, the title and a picture of a girl possessed. Nothing, I mean NOTHING happens that is even remotely close to what was expected. You won't see any girl crawling, you'll see a guy sitting on his knees moaning and snarling while a priest exorcises him and it seems to drag out forever; in fact it drags so far that you'll start laughing. It's just growl, snarl, growl, snarl, growl, snarl, that's it. The title is Back From Hell, you won't see any hell let alone see anything come back. This is so teadious of a movie. The characters spend an enormous amount of time arguing about religion, demons, aliens or whatever. One of the girls is pregnant and it leads to something spoilerish. I'll give you an idea of how scary this Italian hand held camera film is. They make an attempt to flee and very calmly check out the car batteries only to find them dead, why, because the lights were left on, which they state is impossible since they drove there in the daytime. This is a sure fire work of Satan. Something evil has turned on their headlights. Are you scared? Do yourself a favor, if you are suffering from insomnia then go rent this. After a good 10 hour snooze you'll thank me later.

This is an Italian film that has been released in the U.S with the title Back From Hell. It's yet another film to join the lineup of hand-held camera, found-footage style productions saturating the horror genre today after a decade of heavy exploitation. As such, we sort of know what to expect. There is lackluster sound, bizarre edits, some poorly lit scenes, and CGI is absent (a relief for some). It's all "par for the course". D for Style.As far as demon possession tales go, this one is somewhat more interesting than the others. There are no spinning heads, reverse crab walks, flying crucifixes, ceiling crawls, nor holy water boiling. Events following the groups discussion on the origin of religion make one question if things may make a turn towards Sci-Fi. Each time something paranormal presents itself in the film, the camera begins to malfunction, and sometimes cuts to the next scene. We hear that the camera is being affected by these manifestations, and it drains the cameras battery (hence the untimely cut). This is a true and common occurrence in real-life paranormal investigations. Entities can draw energy from electronic devices such as cameras, phones and recorders causing them to fail or malfunction. It is to the director/writers credit that this fact was included, and he used it to cinematic advantage. B- for Originality.There's much religious subject matter within the film. One of the characters contends that religion is the result of primitive man attempting to make sense of strange events, and suggests that aliens may be responsible. Another character believes that all things can be explained scientifically, but there are some things we aren't knowledgeable enough to understand yet. Each character has a differing point of view, and their discussion invites the audience to think rather than just observe. There's no pulpit here, just some debate and theory. C+ for Substance.Most of the cast does a fairly decent acting job, and particularly so as new performers. It is not without moments of camp and shortcomings though. C- Acting.The location was brilliant, I couldn't imagine a more perfect set. It manages to be beautifully striking, and at the same time creepy and imposing. A+ SetI was unhappy with the ending, I felt that it was too vague and did a disservice to the rest of the film. There are countless ways in which it could have been improved. It's as though the writer became bored after the climatic points, and wanted to wrap things up quickly. The film wrapped in such a way that it could easily have a followup, I would definitely love to see a part 2 that brought the sci-fi possibility into fruition! Leonardo Araneo, the writer and director of this film, was unknown until now. He has made a promising debut.