Banshee!!! (2008)

Touches You

Redundant and unnecessary.

Good concept, poorly executed.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie came on TV one evening when there really wasn't anything else on, and being a horror fan, I thought I would give it a chance. It was astounding how terrible it was! I think I watched it through to the end in order to see if it would improve. It did not. SOME SPOILERS.. The basic premise is that there is a banshee, (a large, winged creature) killing and tearing local people apart and it does this by emitting high-pitched screaming and/or ripping people apart with its teeth and claws. Strangers get stuck together after some teenagers get attacked at their campsite and some of them get killed. The survivors run until they find some houses and are allowed in by two men. In addition to being huge, fast and winged, the banshee can cause hallucinations which it uses to clone people, which then allows it to get close to its victims. This hallucination ability is loosely explained suddenly by a zoology student who states that the low frequencies the banshee emits are too low for humans to hear and it becomes a hallucination if it gets too close to human eyes.I am not sure if the writers or the actors were bigger offenders here. Not only were the lines boring and not ever what they intended to be (cool, tough or funny), the actors were not able to convey much either. If you watch this movie, watch it with the intent to laugh AT it and you will derive much more entertainment from it. As a horror movie, which it is billed, it fails miserably.

A predatory creature, which can imitate human form and inanimate objects, hunts a group of characters for food..locals in a small town and college students on spring break camping vacation. This winged creature screeches before attacking it's human targets and seems to be using a type of hallucinatory power which can help manipulate the minds of those it plans to assault by emulating it's victims.We follow a trio of remaining students holed up in the cabin of a local whose wife was lunch for the banshee and his visiting rock singing nephew, not to mention a female constable on patrol, all eventually coming in contact with the monster at one point or another, joining forces in an attempt to both fight and escape it with their lives hanging in the balance. One weapon they discover is that the creature reacts painfully to loud noise, but doesn't seem to be affected by bullets at all.Some pretty good prosthetic gore effects early on, but the creature is a disappointing CGI abomination. When it attacks law enforcement officers, the lame CGI effects fail to impress, and the series of decapitations are laughable. Quite a low budget creature feature, shot in Connecticut, probably cast using locals. My favorite scene shows the removal of a stick that went through a victim's leg.

I have to agree with the previous poster who quite rightly mentioned the unfinished and/or incomplete feel of this movie. It's quite evenly paced but there are a few superfluous scenes used as "filler" which beggar explanation. For example, after the group witness two of their number killed in the most gruesome manner they very quickly revert to cracking jokes and giving someone a hard time because he needs to pee!!? I mean.. what?? The creature itself is passable given the budget but the Banshee of legend has more in common with the fairy folklore than what they have here, which seems to be some kind of hybrid "shrieker" from the Tremors movies, I was also reminded of Rawhead Rex (1986). The acting was patchy at best but the most disappointing element of this film was the ending where it descends into some kind of lame pseudo pastiche of visual styles which ultimately fails to impress. That said, I've seen a lot worse.

Banshee!!! is set in Connecticut where local man Jack Gorman (Kevin Shea) pulls a rusted thirty year old car out of a ravine thinking he might get some money for it for scrap metal, while checking the car the trunk opens & an odd large cocoon like things falls out. Unknown to Jack an ancient creature known as a Banshee breaks out of the cocoon & starts to terrorise the area, first up is Jack, his wife Rosemary & nephew Rocker (David McCarthy) but when they barricade themselves inside Jack's place the Banshee then goes after a group of camping teenagers. The Banshee kills some of them while the other's make it to Jack's house & hold up inside with him & Rocker. As the Banshee prowls outside looking for a way in the terrified survivors inside look for a way out...Co-edited, co-produced & directed by Colin Theys who also gets a visual effects credit too Banshee!!! (why three exclamation marks? I mean why not two or four?) is a fairly poor low budget 'Creature Feature' horror film that tries to be a bit different, a bit modern & have a sense of humour but at the end of the day it's a pretty lame film that isn't nearly as much fun as it likes to think itself is. I sort of got the impression that Banshee!!! wasn't even finished & maybe there were a few parts that were unfilmed or unfinished like the baby Banshee maggot thing that literally comes from nowhere, the way a lot of the story is forgotten or never developed like a big deal was made of the fact that a Banshee is a local Irish legend but this is never followed up on & there's no reasons given as to why this thing exists, why there aren't more of them or what an Irish monster is doing in Connecticut killing teenagers. Banshee does have a nice pace about it & it moves along at a fair rate, there are one or two nice moments & certain parts of the film feel quite energetic but the poor story that quickly turns into a standard The Night of the Living Dead (1968) scenario with a group of people trapped inside a farmhouse trying to keep something nasty out & ultimately goes nowhere, poor effects, annoying teenage character's only there to be killed off & a real predictability sink it. A good effort but not good enough really, I honestly can't say I enjoyed Banshee!!! & ultimately that's what watching a film is all about.There's an unbelievable bit at the end that has to be seen to be believed where Rocker gets his guitar & sound equipment out & uses his (awful) rock music skills to fend off the Banshee which doesn't seem to like certain sounds & the way it is shot is hilariously funny with his Uncle Jack & Veronica in the background dancing & it's just one of those priceless 'what were they thinking' moments that is one of the most absurd things I have seen in a while both from a conceptual & technical viewpoint. There's some gore here, a sharp stick is thrown through some guy's mouth & it exits out the back of his head, there are guts, blood splatter, a ripped out throat, a splattered ripped apart Dog, a pair of legs are seen walking along after someone is ripped in two, someones head is torn off, a car crushes someone & in the best gore scene someones head explodes after a blast of a lethal sound-wave from the Banshee. The special effects are a mixed bag, some of the CGI is alright while at times it's simply awful with some shots looking unfinished & very choppy.With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 Banshee was filmed in Connecticut & as yet has no other IMDb reviews (both on site or external) which makes me wonder whether this has even been released in the US yet, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it hasn't been picked up for distribution to be honest. The acting from no-one I have ever heard of is pretty poor & for some reason Deputy Sheriff Julianna sounded (badly) dubbed for the first half of the film.Banshee!!! does have one or two moments that save it from being a complete 'One Star' disaster but not enough & it's not a film I would ever want to see again. Ever.