Shivers of Horror – Horror Book & Movie Reviews

Plot: In this made for TV movie (SyFy Original), a group of friends band together to hide the truth about an accidental death of one of their friends one night while out partying on a lake. 10 years later aspiring journalist Katherine is asked to return to her hometown and cover the annual Mothman Festival. There she is reunited with her old friends, and soon enough the Mothman appears and begins killing her friends one by one…

My Review: So in my reviews I don’t normally give spoilers, but wow, the beginning of this was fricking STUPID. This group of kids go swimming and bring along one of their little brothers. They tease him about the Mothman being in the water and they take turns pulling him under the water. He can’t breathe and ends up drowning in a matter of minutes. All the kids decide that they can’t go to the cops cause they’ll get in trouble, and the kids older brother (and everyone else) pretty much shows no emotion to the kid dying. What’s stupid is they totally act like its going to ruin their lives. HELLO people drown all the time. So they decide to come up with some story about how the kid jumped in and hit his head, but then they realize he’s got no marks on his head. So one by one they all decide to bash him in the head with a rock…so he repeatedly somehow managed to hit his head on the rocks? Just seemed stupid. Of course Kat/Katherine is the only one who’s against the whole idea and everyone forces her into it. . . Sort of like I Know What You Did Last Summer.

So ten years later Kat’s asked to go back to her hometown and do a news piece on the Mothman. She runs into one of her old “friends” and he mentions that they (all the people who covered up the death) are all getting together that night as a group because of the death of the kid 10yrs ago and she should come. So I guess they will be drinking and reminiscing about bashing his brains in?

While later one of the guys dies and the cops say its suicide. We see the body. He’s covered in wounds from shards of glass, and they say his eyes are gouged out. So, that’s suicide? Another person later dies and the cops say it was just an accident. Obviously these people didn’t have accidents or kill themselves.

Forget finding out anything real about the Mothman. In fact they don’t even tell you who he is or anything about the legend at all. They just jump right into it assuming you already know…or don’t care. They go on talking about an Indian chief bringing on an evil spirit for revenge on the land or something. And thus became the Mothman…which apparently can only come through on reflective surfaces. Haha. Oh and its “powerless” in the sunlight. And he only comes for those that have done bad deeds…like killing people.

So this little old blind guy knows all this stuff about the Indian chief and all the lore behind it and so he tells the surviving kids that there is a ritual he heard of from some tribe myth and that perhaps that can put a stop to the Mothman. Of course he’s a “fishy” old guy and you know something more is up with him. If you pay attention to some things he says he totally contradicts himself in the same scenes.

The whole ending is stupid as well, the Mothman attacks at the Mothman Festival. And somehow it seems like someone might have turned into the next Mothman. I dunno, I didn’t get it, and I didn’t care. I just wanted the movie to be over and done with by that point.

Gore/FX: About 20 minutes into the movie we are introduced to the Mothman. And oh gosh is it AWFUL! (as you can see he doesn’t even photograph well!) Its some CGI ghost thing that shows up out of thin air and it just looks terrible. When I think of the Mothman, I think of something like the creeper guy from Jeepers Creepers. As for the gore, there are some bloody scenes but nothing too graphic other then some intestines. I’ve read that this was a TV movie for SyFy network so that explains it.

Sexual Content: Nothing.

Acting: Its pretty bad for the most part – mainly all the male actors. Its nowhere near as bad as some of the other crap I’ve seen. But some of it is still really pitiful.

Overall: Given that this seems to be a SyFy original movie its not as bad as some of the other shit I’ve seen by them. But had I known it was theirs I honestly wouldn’t have bothered renting it. Their movies are a joke. But, if you like their stuff, have at it. I’ve seen a LOT worse in general, thus the reason this gets 2 stars instead of 1.

My Rating:

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