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Overall Rating : 1.5/10
Directed By : Steven Stockage
Cliff Robertson (Spider-Man 2)
Robert Guillaume (Lion King)
Lesley-Anne Down (The Bold and the Beautiful)
Wesley Duncan (The Prophecy)
Supplied By : MTI Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick Blalock
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| PLOT People are being killed by someone or something using superhuman strength. A clever DA Assistant is sent to investigate. Is this just a way to commit the perfect murder or will the legend of the Jersey Devil prove to be true? |
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| THE REVIEW 13TH CHILD, is an absolute terrible film! I say this because not once in it's entire 1 hour and 30 some odd minute run time did it ever manage to entertain me. The story of the film centers around the old myth of "The Jersey Devil" that has supposedly haunted Southern New Jersey's Pine Barrens for years. It has been said that over the years, that this "creature" has murdered and mauled many innocent people, a creature described as having wings and being able to shape-shift into the form of any animal.... making it difficult to identify. This film is so incoherent that I am sure this review will seem equally as incoherent, as I am not really sure what to write here. The story in 13TH Child is simply all over the place and I am not sure how one may ever begin to follow it. For some odd reason our star begins on Halloween and from then on for the whole film we are back tracking, this in itself makes the film very boring. The film about The Jersey Devil however, the very never really gets the chance to know about it. I personally think that if the film would've focused more on the creature's origin, we would've have a better flick here, but instead it jumps back and forth to different scenarios that do not match up. The film has a lot of boring long drawn out investigation of "The Devil", but the creature is mostly non-existent until the last few shots, the film mostly focuses on Cliff Robertson's character of Mr. Stroud the character whom is seemingly up to no good that, just happens to know a lot about "The Devil". Another thing that really bothered me, on certain scenes, how is it that the characters all the sudden show up at someone's house out of nowhere? It's just odd... I have to say that I think the direction here was quite poor in execution. Most notable when a lot of bad cuts from scene to scene, that seem to jerk the viewer everywhere. Just like this film's camera work, my writing seems to be going in every direction in this review so I will close here. |
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| GORE
METER 4/10 I expected more here gore wise as the myth does say the victims were "mutilated" but instead it is basically just a lot of fake limbs here and there. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 3.5/10 The soundtrack, I was not a big fan of, mostly instrumental and one of the theme is used multiple times. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM I am sorry to say that this was a major snooze-fest of a movie. If you are looking to learn about The Jersey Devil, this isn't exactly the movie in which to do so. Perhaps the film by a Gentleman named Dante Tomaselli, called SATAN'S PLAYGROUND, which will be out shortly will touch on is better. |
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