Monday, April 24, 2017

Satanic Movie Review: What Not To Do in LA


Runtime: 85 minutes
Release Date: July 1, 2016
Rating: R
Director: Jeffrey G. Hunt

Chloe and David are the type of hipster young couple you just love to hate. Elise, Chloe's cousin, and Elise's boyfriend, Seth, agree to go with them to Coachella provided that they can stop and take a tour of murder places in LA on the way. They go to a hotel and check in for the night, specifically choosing to stay in a room where a woman killed herself. The two then take them to the Manson house and some other “special” places before stopping by an occult shop.

The manager of the shop makes it clear that he doesn't want them around. Seth keeps asking to buy stuff that he shouldn't and being a pain, which leads to the guy pulling a knife and chasing them out of the store. They then make the mistake of following him that night and stumbling upon a random sacrifice. Chloe flips out when they see a woman about to be killed and cause a disturbance, which lets them all escape. When they take the young woman, Alice, back to their hotel room, all hell breaks loose.

Let me admit that I probably would not have watched Satanic if I hadn't seen the cover first. I was like, “hey, that looks like Sarah Hyland from Modern Family,” but then it was more, “oh, what the hell would she be doing in some random low budget horror film?” Needless to say, it really is Hyland in the film. After seeing her as the airhead daughter on Modern Family, it wasn't too hard to buy her as a girl on a road trip with friends who just wanted to go to a music festival.

The issue I had with Satanic is that it's one of those horror movies that seems to cater to a much younger audience. Now that I'm in my soon to be late 30s, I'm noticing that a lot of horror flicks, even those with an R rating, are designed for teenagers and college students instead of those of us who grew up on the best generation of horror movies. I could care less about Coachella and in fact, looked up the line up for this year and realized that I only heard of like three bands playing.

It might seem like Elise and Seth are the two that we should root for, but they're extremely annoying. They're the type of rich kids who listen to true crime podcasts and wear black, which somehow make them experts. They're also the ones who refuse to let the other two, including David who literally drove them there in his van, do whatever they want or even go to the festival because they want to run around doing dumb shit in LA.

Speaking of dumb shit in LA, who the fuck thinks it's appropriate to follow some random stranger because he chased you out of his store for being dick heads? If a guy pulled a knife on me, I'm pretty sure I would just leave and never look back. I'm also not entirely sure I would take a random girl I just met back to my hotel room without finding out more than just her first name.

Satanic was an okay flick but definitely not one designed for people my age.

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