The Crooked Man
2016
The Cast
This was a better film than I thought it would be. As soon as I saw the SyFy tag, I thought, OH OH!!! So it was a good day as I was pleasantly surprised by this little film.
Though it follows plenty of other movies in the genre, particularly The Ring, Candyman, and Bloody Mary, the lightness with which the subject is directed make this a stronger film, than a run-of-the-mill clone.
Instead of watching a video or saying a name into a mirror a few times you have to sing the song which will kill you. Seems like a daft thing to do... I mean it's known as "The Song That Will Kill You." But when you're a girl having a sleepover with her girlfriends and mum stops you watching scary films, what else will you do... especially if you're dared. No sooner has the song been sung than the Crooked Man is hunting. Unfortunately for our heroine, the Crooked Man makes good his escape leaving her stood over the dead body of her friend, with a bloody dripping knife in her hand.
Years later, she returns to her hometown where she realises the Crooked Man has been a patient killer. On her arrival, people start dying again.
As I previously stated, it's the direction along with the above average acting that keep this boat from sinking. There are four decent actors on the cast, though their skills aren't used much, Dina Meyer, Marco Rodriguez, Amber Benson, and Michael Jai White (who gets top billing). These get very little air time as it's the youngsters the film is about, as it should be. Though at times, all of the newbies, have scenes where they falter and the director decided not to shoot again. These are few and far between and mostly don't occur at pivotal moments of the story.
The main drawback is the Song itself as it's a Nursery Rhyme, though it doesn't depict a killer, in fact, the opposite is true. The Rhyme is about Sir Alexander Leslie who resolved the religious and political freedom of Scotland. So this Hollywood bastardisation of an English Nursery Rhyme stuck in my claw. The writers could have looked up the origin and worked out a different hook for the Crooked Man, but that might have been too much work...
Another thing that disrupts the flow of the film is the location of the Crooked House. Saying the rhynme and the spirit are worldwide, I find it amazing that the House is within driving distance. The location crew couldn't find a crooked tree next to a couple of rocks where the animators could render a CGI Crooked House. So they got them to render all of the above in a field. Bad luck for them, the budget must have been blown on the Crooked Man's disjointed movements, which works really well, they should have added bone cracking sounds to it as well, it would've made it nastier. The crew would've been better getting the polystyrene rocks and fake tree from the Original Star Trek as the CGI landscape was pathetic.
That said, I did like the way the heroine could defeat the Crooked Man, though I've seen differing takes on this feature, it was put to good use.
All-in-all, it's not too bad a film. It was wet and cold outside when I watched the movie and eventhough there were times when I was annoyed I was never bored. So if you find yourself in this situation, turn the lights down, leave your brain at the door, and cuddle up with a loved one and enjoy.
I give this a daemonic scare of 5.25 out of 10.
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