01 | October | 2019 | Movie Reviews 101

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Writer: Andy Demetrio, Shaun Fletcher, Sara Sometti Michaels, Clint Sears (Screenplay)

Starring: Sabrina Kern, Carolyn Hennesy, Courtney Halverson, Seth Michaels, Trin Miller, Lindsay Seim, Shaun Fletcher

Plot: In the 1950s in small-town Georgia, a pregnant young woman named Agatha seeks refuge in a convent.

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Verdict: Shock Filled Religious Horror

Story: St. Agatha starts in the 1950 Georgia, where young lady Mary (Kern) has become pregnant and goes to a convent for refuge to have her child, the convent is run by Mother Superior (Hennesy) that has strict rules in which the young woman must follow, while the other girls, including Catherine (Halverson) are planning on giving their child up for adoption.

While in the convent, Mary starts to get overly concerned about the behaviour of the rest of the convent, Mother Superior puts her through a gruelling test, renaming her Agatha until she learns her place within the walls.

Thoughts on St. Agatha

Characters – Mary is a pregnant young lady with a tragic past which saw her running from her abusive father, she seeks refuge to have her child, which sees her in a convent, only for this to be a worse hell than her previous life, she is stuck with the abusive religious nuns that want her baby, even renaming her Agatha. Mother Superior runs the convent, she has strict rules and expects the women to follow these rules or face punishment, she does however want the children to be born, which means the punishments won’t put the babies at risks, she has women under her control, but when it comes to Mary she must go to new extremes to keep her position of power in place. Catherine is one of the few women that offers Mary any help within the walls, she is also pregnant further along than Mary, meaning the two teaming up would mean more risk for her. We do have other girls that are under different levels of control, while we also have other nuns who are trying to prove their level of strictness to the Mother Superior.

Performances – Sabrina Kern in the leading role is great to watch, she brings the broken figure and shows us just how determined she is to make the most out of her life with her child. Carolyn Hennessy does bring us the strict figure required for her role which will show how capable to she to take control of the scenes through the film. the rest of the cast do a solid job throughout, they each get their moment to shine in the film’s story too.

Story – The story follows a young woman who seeks refuge in a convent to help her have her child only to find the convent is being controlled by nuns that don’t always follow the bible when it comes to helping the young women that come to them for help. With this story we do get to give until the personal life of Mary that does have a tragic past and does show how far she has had to go to fix the problems in her life. The main focus is on the convent which does keep us guessing to what the Mother Superior will do next because they want the babies and can’t risk damaging them, but do need to punish the women. We do get elements of the theme around the idea of cults which does play an important factor in just where the film ends up going. We also have women at different stages of pregnancy which shows us and Mary just what will happen to her if she stays.

Horror – The horror in the film follows the events in the convent, we get a mix of hauntings and torture, which are only making Mary look like she is losing her mind.

Settings – The film is set in the convent, we get to see how the locked doors keep people in and just how they are going to be forcing the woman to follow the rules.

Special Effects – The effects in this film are used to show the injuries which aren’t as graphic as they could have been, though they imply horrific injuries given.

Scene of the Movie – The baby is coming.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – It could have gone a lot darker that is does go.

Final Thoughts – This is a solid enough horror that uses the themes of religious cults to make the horror seem more realistic and shocking.

Overall: Religious Cult 101

Rating

Director: Todd Lincoln

Writer: Todd Lincoln (Screenplay)

Starring: Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Tom Felton, Julianna Guill, Luke Pasqualino

Plot: A couple is haunted by a supernatural presence that is unleashed during a college experiment.

Tagline – Once You Believe You Die

Runtime: 1 Hour 23 Minutes

There may be spoilers the rest of the review

Verdict: Lacklustre Horror

Story: The Apparition starts as we follow a college experiment where Patrick (Felton) and his team including Lydia (Guill) are trying to re-perform the Charles Experiments from the 70’s, but something goes wrong. We move onto meet young couple Kelly (Greene) and Ben (Stan) who are living in their parent’s investment.

When strange occurrences start happening around the home Kelly and Ben must look for answers, first believing it is the mould in the house, but then when Patrick gets hold of Ben we learn that they had summoned an entity in his house and it is still there haunting them. The couple must work with Patrick to stop it going entity before it becomes deadly.

Thoughts on The Apparition

Characters – Kelly is a trainee vet, she moves into one of her parent’s rental properties with her boyfriend where she starts experiencing the haunting events. Ben is the boyfriend of Kelly, he is a good handy man and searching for his career. It is his past that comes back to haunt them. Patrick is part of the team that did the experiment with Ben back in the college days and now he will help right the wrongs.

Performances – The performances, well this is fun and this is not just the actors performances that hold them back, the characters are written one dimension which gives the actors nothing to work with. If we look at the main three stars, they all struggle to make an impact and it shows through the film.

Story – The story here follows an experiment gone wrong and now there is an entity haunting the people who released it from whether it came from, it plays into the idea that you shouldn’t mess with the dead because they will come to haunt you. Anyway this story is simple enough, it is a survival horror against a ghost figure that doesn’t have too much going on about it. We have plenty of just dark sequences that seem to go nowhere or lead to false jump scares and before long it is over, I think. I can’t say the story offers too much for the horror fans or just film fans and it feels like it is flat by the end of the film

Horror/Thriller – The horror is mostly false scares which just frustrate throughout, you are now looking to be on the edge of your seats, well this doesn’t give you any of that.

Settings – The settings just feel like they went and grabbed the Poltergeist location and thought this will do, nothing makes sense for the entity and the hauntings though.

Special Effects – The effects look poor throughout, it all looks like CGI which is poor to see in a modern horror.

Scene of the Movie – Credits were good.