Satanic (2016) User Reviews

Not the worst, but still below par

[HerrSupahz · 3/10 · 5 November 2016]

It seems like one of the hardest things to get out of Hollywood or an indie producer is a decent horror movie. "Satanic" is yet another in a long line of below par, forgettable horror movies made in the past 10 years. But at least it's not another crappy found footage film.

The production values on this movie are pretty good... again, no shaky, hokey found footage documentary-style garbage. Sound editing is pretty solid. The movie poster is ridiculous, but the movie looks and sounds pretty good.

But the story is weak... the story that picks up with Alice in the hotel makes no sense, and there's not much attempt to explain any of it. And these characters are awful. From the start, the four travelers come across as a bunch of self-absorbed, arrogant jerks. Seth the "goth" guy is particularly punchable. David and Elise are okay, but the former is pretty unbearable at the start. The tighten up a bit and get better as the trouble starts hitting them, but by that point I really had lost all interest in them. Some people have mentioned Sarah Hyland as being a star of some sort, but I've never heard of her or seen her show, and in this movie she's just your average "good girl" that you get in a horror movie... ends up being the Scream Queen. But she's not all that impressive... more irritating towards the end than anything else, really.

And the ending... meh.

If you don't expect much from your horror movies and are a very generous sort, it's possible you could give this a 4, I suppose. I was originally going to give this a 1, but that's not fair given the number of staggeringly awful horror films out there (like "American Poltergeist", "Ouija Experiment 2", etc).

Good acting, not the best story line

[jjacko · 5/10 · 28 December 2016]

Pretty average movie overall sub par story line somewhat offset by good acting.

I don't think it deserves the particularly scathing reviews on here - the story line was a bit muddled but the acting was actually quite good. The characters are played quite well and the main actress (Sarah Hyland from modern family) does a brilliant job in this.

It has some scares in it probably not as much as your used to from your average horror movie though. Its kind of creepy but again not as much as your average horror. Where it shines is the few scares it does have are very well placed and managed to give me a couple of jolts. There's a lot in this movie that you have to piece together for yourself - the movie itself doesn't seem to really care whether you got the plot point or got lost along the way and explains nothing.

All up 5/10 - 7/10 for the acting, 3/10 for the story line.

Satanic: Potentially great horror ruined by its ending

[Platypuschow · 5/10 · 10 January 2019]

I was really enjoying Satanic, but it falls under the category for me as another film slain by its own ending.

It tells the story of two young couples on a macabre road trip to see sites of murders and general "Satanic" behavior. Along the way they come across a young runaway who changes everything for them.

Starring Justin Chon and Sarah Hyland it looks the part, is very well written and I was fairly gripped to see quite where this was going to go.

Sadly most of the movie is character development and fluff, when the story really kicks in it's a bit of a blink and you'll miss it situation so suffice to say it has chronic pacing issues.

And then the finale! I do hate it when an ending can kill an up to that point enjoyable film, but here once again we have it. It feels rushed, it feels poorly thought out and as if the creators simply ran out of ideas and tacked some random nonsense on instead.

I should be singing the movies praises right now, the majority of the film is great and in the right hands it could have been something special. Instead this poorly thought out little horror is mediocre and a marker for what should have been.

The Good:

Looks great

Solid cast

Some great ideas

The Bad:

Poorly paced

Falls apart at the end.

Did this movie even have a script?

[HeroOfTomorrow · 1/10 · 27 December 2017]

While looking for a terrible horror movie on Netflix, we landed on this gem. It exceeded all our terrible expectations, but it did get me thinking: how does a script for a movie like this get sold?

To be clear, the first 45 minutes are the incoherent ramblings of four teenagers who in NO WAY would actually hang out with each other in real life. The dialogue is crass, the personalities are so unclearly defined that each character is reduced to nothing but "hot guy", "hot girl", "less hot girl" and "eyeliner guy", and literally nothing happens. This rag tag group of discount JC Penney Catalogue models goes out to, for NO reason, check out satanic things before visiting Coachella. You know they're in LA, because the movie is cut with daytime arial footage of the modern city with whispers edited over it. Like I said: incomprehensible.

So, after 45 minutes and 700 plot contrivances that make you say "what is going ON?!", some girl slits her throat. Which the police are totally fine with, by the way, as they let the four witnesses go immediately. They then go to a house. Pro tip: pause the movie when you get to the swimming pool filled with dead crows. I GUARANTEE you that you haven't seen worse special effects in your life.

Anyway, nothing happens, nothing happens, everyone dies for some reason, and the Modern Family girl is then inexplicably stuck in a room with her mouth sewn shut and no arms. That's it.

Why? Who knows? There's a time loop in there which my girlfriend and I saw coming a mile away, just because we were thinking of how this movie could possibly be made even DUMBER. The time loop isn't explained and has no bearing on the plot, by the way.

Yeah.

Don't watch this.

Watchable but bring nothing new to the genre

[fxdx4 · 5/10 · 17 August 2016]

The formula is pretty much standard. You take an up and coming young starlet (Modern Family's Sarah Hyland ) and throw her in a B movie. The film gets a bump in eye balls because of her potential star power and she gets to push away her TV star image and see if she has any pull with a wider audience.

On paper it makes sense, and the quality of the movie is almost unimportant. Well, this time the product is one of the most unforgettable films you may never see, and really all the sadder because the 1st ½ of the film did have promise.

The plot is simple - 4 young college students go to LA for a tour of Satanic sites, and my pet cat can guess how it goes from there. The actors have potential, and although Hyland is the star, Steven Krueger is by far the most interesting character, playing a 'nice' jock. His story could have been much more interesting, and they simply toy with his religious nature before forgetting it ever existed.

The director does a nice job building tension (or is it just boring?), until a very sudden and particularly still conclusion. I can't decide if the sound track and back ground noise are cool or super dumb.

The real fall of this movie is that is brings nothing new or interesting to the genre. There is basically 0 explanation and logic to several of the key parts of the film. Good horror is similar to detective films where the audience gets some joy out of figuring out the meanie, and coming up with a theory of how to protect themselves were they in a similar situation. Think of it as a choose your own adventure where someone else is making the choices, and it is fun to think about how things would differ had a character made the other choice. This film robs us of that, and it is why it ultimately fails.

Hello Sarah Hyland, we see you outside your comfort zone. Acting and tension 'B', directing, plot and enjoyment 'F'.

???

[ergeffen · 1/10 · 22 June 2017]

I'm not a very "experienced" horror-movie-watcher, but I could tell that this movie was crap. In the first 40 minutes, a group of college students stop on their way to coachella (yeah, coachella.) and find themselves in some sort of confusing situation, when a satanist slits her throat in front of them. For the next 30 minutes, strange things happen to these college students and they freak out until one of them dies in a Port-O-Potty. This should have been the climax, but as you expect to have it build up more, the other three simply die off in the dark during a mess of more confusion(!), and bad special effects. Nothing was particularly scary, but a bunch of gross images were stuck in my head afterwards. That's all. Turns out they were sacrificed to Satan, which is anticlimactic and generic in practically every way possible. It wasn't a good movie, and I spent a majority of it watching Instagram makeup videos on my phone, as I was too bored and confused to watch it on my own.

a waste of time for everyone involved

[izzyarcticpolarbear · 1/10 · 18 June 2018]

I made an IMDb account just to review this mind-numbingly boring film. Don't approach this film unless you have a gun pointed to your back: the plot might have worked had it not been for the extremely unlikeable characters. I usually like (or at least, can sit through) crappy horror, but I couldn't even sit through this one. Avoid at all costs.

Ball of Confusion

[dcarsonhagy · 2/10 · 1 July 2016]

"Satanic" is the latest movie that falls into the "dumb teenagers do dumb things and die" genre. I caught this one On Demand last evening. I am glad I at lest was able to save some money by not going to see it at the "movies."

Sarah Hyland (Haley of TVs "Modern Family") plays Chloe. She and three of her friends are on their way to Coachella, but for some stupid reason, they decide to stop off in L. A. to search for "satanic" stuff. As I have already pointed out, they manage to make one stupid decision after another until mayhem finally ensues.

I did not care for this movie at all, and it was only its production values that helped it garner a "2" rating instead of the "1" it probably deserves. I have watched horror movies for decades and know some plot twists and situations you just have to accept and move on. The trouble with "Satanic" is the viewer never really knows what's going on because NOTHING is ever explained. Because the writers never bothered to think their idea(s) through, all you get is one jumbled mess after another of scenes in a movie that goes nowhere. They did manage to give us one the most despised characters ever put on screen. I wanted him to die as soon as he opened his mouth.

The movie is rated "R" for one graphic throat cutting and language.

Those nights when finding a movie takes just as long as watching one.

[rapid_randy · 5/10 · 6 July 2016]

Two young couples heading for a music festival find themselves in a nightmare scenario in Los Angeles after taking a day to check out some of the true crime hot spots in town. While one couple is straight laced and reserved, the other is attracted to Gothic culture and thrill seeking. Peer pressure and bad decisions lead to a nightmare scenario for all four teens. Satanic fits somewhere in between cookie cutter teen horror of the last 20 plus years and a cable television movie of the week. It isn't horrible but probably not worth watching again. If you've ran out of options and don't mind lowering your standards, this one shouldn't have you rolling your eyes too much.

Acceptably creepy horror movie

[vasiln · 5/10 · 25 September 2016]

A tour of LA's creepiest places leads to a chance encounter with a strange woman and a dangerous ritual for four visiting students.

The protagonists are unlikeable, and the time wasted developing them just makes them more so, but there's enough that's creepy and disturbing about Satanic to make it an acceptable horror film. Nothing you'll want to see twice, but if you and your friends just want a dumb horror movie, Satanic is better than a lot of things you could settle for.

At times, it feels like a vanity project for Hyland, whose character is the movie's conscience and reason and everything else that's supposedly decent and mature, but as with all vanity projects, it ends up a poor way to showcase her potential. When she wants to be cute, she's cute enough, but when she's scared she comes off as hysterical, and when she's righteous, she comes off as overbearing. It's hard to say how much of this is the fault of the script or direction.

Weird rate!!

[mhzahran08 · 10/10 · 24 August 2018]

This is the best comedy movie ever i couldnt help laughing

Did we all see the same movie?

[david-1824 · 7/10 · 1 December 2016]

After watching this on Netflix tonight I looked it up here at IMDb to learn more about it. What I learned is that apparently I am about the only soul who liked it. I was not expecting much, but it 'grew' on me. Now, I will agree with others who point out the characters are --- mostly--- not at all likable. Seth is particularly unpleasant; who would put up with a friend like him? There is a very effective 'callback' at the end of the film to a minor event at the beginning and the filmmakers have done a nice job of whipping up a nightmare as the picture races to its end. I did not find the climax at all confusing... if you remember what a character said earlier about Hell. Perhaps this motion picture is not for everyone. But, that just means those of us who like it will enjoy it all the more. By all means, see for yourself and make your own call.

Waste of time unless you are a teenager (I guess).

[stephenyiannoulis · 1/10 · 28 September 2016]

As a horror fan, I tend to check out quite a few horror films. If I had a chance to "unview" this one, I would. The plot and writing are very poor. I realize the movie was made for a teenage audience, but still such a waste of time and money. Within the horror genre, good acting is not necessary (although appreciated). The performances here were so over the top and forgettable. The chills and scares were practically absent. You don't get to see much at all. I guess they kept the "shocking" scene for last, but for a more experienced horror viewer it didn't shock at all. It got so boring at some point I had to fast forward to see the finale, out of pure curiosity. Still a disappointment. If you're into the genre, just avoid this one.

I gave it 2 stars!

[Patient444 · 2/10 · 30 October 2016]

I only did that because 1 is the lowest point, so I felt generous enough and gave it yet another one!

I watch a lot of underground productions, trying to help the community out, reviewing movies that have no comments, warning people if necessary, advertising for others and so on. Few nights ago I stumbled upon Satanic, I saw who was the lead actress so of course it had to be done. Nothing out of the ordinary for starters, typical moves, acting, plot, until something else decides to happen.

And from nothing much, comes probably around 100 screams in 20 minutes. I actually got a headache from watching this one, and I am not kidding. The reveal itself is horrible, completely useless, just some scenes put there to shock, to allow this movie to call itself a horror. The real horror was in front of the screen, me, bored out of my mind but also trying to lower the volume without leaving the bed. The screaming won. I moved! Like hypnotized! This is all you get: screams, screams, screams. And of course no explanation.

I really wished Satanic was as the poster showed. Far from it. 2 stars! That says a lot. Not recommended.

Cheers!

40 minutes of cringe, followed by a surprisingly creepy 40 more

[NightlySun · 2/10 · 15 January 2017]

What else is there to say of this movie? The first 40 minutes is one of the worst things I've ever sat through, and if I didn't have an open mind, I would have shut it off before it could get any better. I remember seeing this somehow make the front page on this very website, despite its utterly despicable Photoshopped poster, and silently vowed never to watch it. However, my curiosity got the better of me when I found it on Netflix.

As the title of this review indicates, the first 40+ minutes of the movie feature an annoying and punchable group of teenagers (or early 20-somethings? I don't know) on their way to Coachella (FREAKING COACHELLA), taking a detour along the way at the insistence of the heroine's goth sister to see the "dark side" of California, visiting several occult and Satanic hot-spots, including the Church of Satan and Sharon Tate's house, where she was murdered by the Manson Family, and staying in the hotel room where one Layne Gore (such a cringeworthy name) killed herself in ritual. Eventually, they come upon an occult bookstore and meet some Satanists who they trail, suspecting them of doing some pretty nasty stuff behind closed doors.

When they find them in their rural hideout, it appears that they were right, as they find the Satanist they met in the bookstore undressing a woman and holding a knife to her throat, and they interrupt them in the middle of the ritual and allow the woman to escape. They locate the woman the next morning and offer to take her in since she has nowhere else to go. She turns out to be the sole likable character in the entire movie, and the only Satanist who comes across as articulate and doesn't act like a dick ("LaVey was a fraud" is probably my favorite line in the whole movie). When they take her back to their hotel room, she reenacts Layne Gore's ritual and slits her own throat to take herself and the four main characters on a journey to Hell.

That's where the movie very nearly does a 180, though it's still terrible and the characters and dialogue are still cringeworthy. From that point on, "Satanic" is actually fairly creepy. But not creepy enough to make up for the waste of time that the first 40+ minutes or so unsurprisingly were. And for a movie called "Satanic", the goth sister sure screams (quite annoyingly) "Oh god!" a lot.

Overall, the acting was okay to me, but I would not recommend this movie based on the first act alone.

2/10 (and that's being generous)

Awful, just awful.

[tomfunke-24930 · 1/10 · 7 January 2017]

The mere fact that IMDb needs 10 lines to review a movie will prove a challenge with this film. The summary says it all. AWFUL. Just awful. The only redeeming part of this movie was counting how often a character said Coachella. The movie starts slow and finishes in a flurry. There is no development, no plot, no character insights. To confuse viewers even more they threw in a time twist variable, just for fun I gather. It is what is wrong with horror movies these days, no imagination and no horror. After watching The Conjuring 2, this film deserves no further discussion nor acknowledgement. I really hope this is ten lines because I have truly run out of willingness to discuss this movie any longer.

It's bad, but watchable

[Worldstone · 4/10 · 31 December 2016]

The only two things that stopped me from giving this movie a lower rating is the very small twist near the end which I thought was pretty cool, and also it was still mildly entertaining.

The story is the same cookie-cutter premise you see in almost every other horror movie, a group of idiot teens doing one questionable thing after another which results into painful consequences, and of course if you pick it hard enough you'll find gaping holes.

The characters are forgettable, bland and punchable. I would say they're stupid too but it's a horror movie. That's like ordering a cheeseburger and complaining there's cheese in it. You kind of expect it. The only thing I liked about the cast was the acting, it was pretty decent and believable, but asides that it's the same thing you've seen many times. Out of our 4 main characters, we got two overly adventurous idiots (Seth and Elise), and we got our main character "good girl" (Chloe) who's always saying "I don't think this is a good idea, let's not do this" but eventually goes along with it anyways, and her meathead boyfriend (David) who's on the edge of both sides. Just by looking at them you KNOW who's going to die first and who's going to die last. I didn't care for any of these boring characters, the only thing I was interested in was to see how they were going to face their inevitable deaths, and I was very disappointed.

And with that said, this movie also could have been a million times more horrifying if someone with an imagination worked on it, but it was nothing. Just a throat slitting scene, very mild gore, one of them fused and mingled on the ceiling, a stitched mouth, and very crappy implications that demons are stalking them, such as crows slamming themselves into their house, and hard scratch marks on their bodies and car. Wow, soooooo original.

Overall, check it out if you're a horror movie junkie, but don't expect something amazing. I watched this on Netflix, and I'm glad I didn't pay to see it because I'd feel kind of ripped off.

Er... wha.... what?!

[neilsgoddard · 1/10 · 12 September 2017]

There aren't many people who shouldn't be insulted by this film; Satanists, musicians, free spirits, movie-lovers, hoteliers, van owners, the sighted, people who can hear, goth trolls… the list is seemingly endless. Films like this can often make ALL films seem slightly worse just by association, even unrelated films from a different genre. Honestly, Steel Magnolias is a worse film because of Satanic.

The script is terrible, the acting is terrible, the effects are terrible, the soundtrack is terrible, just everything is terrible. The Satanists in it are badly written and obvious, the goths in it are self-consciously irritating and aren't believable, the 'straights' are alarmingly dull, and the weird chick who joins them is just weird 101 and annoying.

Seriously, who writes characters like this and expects anyone to give a damn if they live or (hopefully) die? Ten minutes into the film and these try hard douche bags couldn't have died hard or fast enough for my liking. My finger hovered over the stop button (actually, that's a lie, I watched in on Netflix on my phone so, technically, my finger hovered over the back button) but I decided to persevere just to see if this mammoth example of all around ineptitude would falter and a single shard of worthiness could be glimpsed, like illuminated bat urine in a dark cave. But no, every single overplayed horror movie cliché was thrown into the mix, probably with the thought that, "Hey, if we throw in EVERYTHING people have already seen in other movies… how can horror fans not like it!"

So, with a movie that isn't really based on a good or original idea, and no one really committed to making it in any way even approaching below average, how could it end in a way other than totally pointless and meaningless, but with the attitude that its completely f*cked up and hard-core. It's not, it's pathetic and annoying. Anthony Jaswinski is credited with writing this excrement and he should be ashamed of himself for letting this get past merely an idea on a piece of paper. If someone is watching this and their finger is hovering over the stop (or back) button, I would advise you to press that button. I would turn off this film and put the news on and watch an article about donkey abuse, just for something more entertaining.

Basic AF

[scythertitus · 4/10 · 26 February 2017]

This movie is the Pumpkin Spice Latte of horror. It is so basic and thoughtless that it reads as an introduction to the genre for teens and twenty-somethings that call Jurassic Park a horror movie.

Everything feels patched together. The characters switch motivations constantly, dialogue is often contradictory or just plain doesn't make sense, and the 'witty banter' is terrible and never funny (although it seems to think it is). After the first half hour you will already be sick of listening to characters say they are scared, but then say they want to do something that is clearly dangerous, and then switch again, there is just no care or consistency to plot at all.

Overall this movie has no right to be made in this day and age with any kind of budget. It is the worst example of Hollywood where known actors are used in a story that isn't even really a story and is just made to make a passing buck. So much of the money, time, talent and resources could have been used to make a much better movie, not this paint by numbers trash.

Worst movie ever

[luckeysahare · 1/10 · 11 July 2017]

From the very starting till the end, there is no logic. There is no story, no sound work, bad direction and even the acting was childish. Overall, a BIG SH*T. I wish i could give a zero rating or even a negative rating. I don't know why they makes such movies. If they have so much money please give to me and i will use it for a good productive thing.

Weak.

[kimberlykennedy-45526 · 1 May 2018]

So corny. Takes forever to get scary. The Asian guy's character is the WORST!

Critics are wrong!!!!!!!!

[rem-10247 · 9/10 · 12 November 2016]

Almost every horror movies lack a solid script and all fail the common sense factor in at the least one scene. This movie is no exception but not to bad. It had some intense "wide eye" scenes that will be hard to erase. Good use of camera angles and cinematography, unlike a lot of horror movies. It had Suspenseful moments and it had really creepy moments. It was pretty twisted and some very unexpected scenes. And lastly it had a great ending that left me silent. Over all I think it was a very good horror movie and will be thinking about it for quite some time. After all isn't that what a horror movie is suppose to achieve. Bravo I say.

Signed,

a horror movie junkie

6.66/10

[fluffchop · 6/10 · 24 January 2022]

This movie is disturbing because if you drive in an old van you will invariably see yourself in a building. No go back, don't stay. Stupid kids pick up this stupider kid and ruin their lives. Ending up trapped in a weird place. A solid movie it is not.

Shallow and boring

[cecile_gli · 1/10 · 17 June 2018]

Terrible actors, boring scenario and awkward dialogues. No approach of satanism whatsoever. The end is a firework of nonsense... Do not waste your time here.

what an awful movie...

[salarbsr · 1/10 · 2 June 2017]

such a waste of f...cking time... surely the worst ever movie ( if you could even call it a movie...)...very very horrible ... no ending... no story... this was only a show to display satanic rituals without any spacial plot... f...ck this director and f...ck this writer...what a waste of time and money... PLEASE don't watch this piece of f...cking crap...