recommended

Expected more

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A quartet of young adults -- troubled and sensitive Sue (the lovely Ashlie Victoria Clark), her supportive boyfriend Ron (Brandon Michael), sweet gal pal Jane (pretty Lauren Zelman), and obnoxious stoner toolbox Taylor (the extremely annoying and unappealing Prentice Reedy) -- check out an old house located in the remote woods that Sue has just inherited. The unfriendly local yokels warn the kids about said house, but naturally the kids don't heed their warnings. Of course, the house turns out to be haunted by the evil spirit of a twisted preacher (blandly played by Billy St. John). Director/co-writer Aaron Joseph Robson clumsily mixes sappy romance, family dysfunction, religious fanaticism, eerie apparitions, spiritual possession, and supernatural hokum into a singularly insipid and underwhelming cinematic stew that fails to effectively jell as a remotely compelling or cohesive feature. The talky and uneventful script, flat acting, and excruciatingly sluggish pace suck all the energy out of the meandering narrative, thereby making this dead slug of a dud a real grueling chore to sit through. Worse yet, there's no hardcore graphic gore or gratuitous nudity present to alleviate the numbing severity of the stupefying boredom. Robert Guerrier's polished cinematography makes this film look better than it deserves and Robson shows sporadic traces of style and flair, but overall this clunker proves to be duller than an old used butter knife. If you haven't seen this yawner, then you ain't missing a thing.

Okay, apologies to Chuck. The "killer" in WAGES OF SIN--styled variously as "The Preacher," "Grandpa," "Reverend Walker"--has simplified the basic tenets of salvation per Martin Luther or John Calvin. All one must do to be "saved" is to let the holy man hack you to pieces with an ax and then eat your remains (minus Hannibal Lector's "fava beans and chianti"). This film is so low-budget that the Preacher would be hard-pressed to come up with even Hamburger Helper or Velveeta.One must wonder about the commentators raving over the merits of this lame flick. When a Billy Graham-clone is exhorting his nine-year-old daughter to eat Mommy for dinner while "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" plays in the background, at least make the sacrilege as eye-popping as DOGMA--or even STIGMATA! Why be damned for 30 pieces of lead?

I watched this film very closely and wondered what kind rating I could give it.To begin I thought it was fairly entertaining, the pace was slow moving yet it maintained a good character development {Not often seen in this line of film} the acting has a lack of depth, for example you don't often see a lot facial expressions during serious moments and the reactions at best are like extremely dull.At least the storyline is good, and the director created a not too bad look for the film.Overall, a relatively good choice for horror fans but don't expect Oscar winning performances.

With all due respect to zootie's comments I actually found a bit more positive in this movie. Perhaps it's because I've come off a recent run of really bad ones so by comparison this seemed much better than it really was..who knows. But it wasn't like it was putting me to sleep or anything...and truthfully I found the performances of Ashlie Clark (very nice looking!) and Brandon Michael to be palatable...certainly a notch above the rest of the cast. I do agree with zootie's estimation of the photography and production values...far superior to a lot of the "financially challenged" (politically correct term for low budget) horror flicks I've seen. With 2 fairly attractive females in the cast I was somewhat surprised that this film didn't take the usual "let's toss in some gratuitous nudity so more people will watch it" but I'm actually glad they didn't. Yes, the story tends to stumble over itself and the ending lacks a payoff but on the other hand I admire what the filmmakers tried to achieve and how they went about it. I assure you that although is not a great film, it is better than a lot of the other crap being released that I've had the misfortune of seeing.