Day of Reckoning

I am a sucker for the horror genre, and I am the first to admit that I was lured in by the promise of the movie cover/poster. Especially because it did seem rather interesting, sort of a mixture between something demonic and zombiesque.

First of all, it was an uphill struggle to actually sit through the entire movie, because it was a massively generic storyline, which offered very little in terms of entertainment value, and even less so in originality. Furthermore, the storyline was horribly predictable, to the point of where you just shake your head well ahead of things actually happening.

But for a horror movie, then "Day of Reckoning" was scarily devoid of anything even remotely scary. And it would have served the movie well if they had opted to go for a proper storyline that could have bolstered the fact that this was intended to be a horror movie.

Furthermore, as a horror movie it is essential to have proper practical effects and/or CGI. Alas, it can be said in all honesty that this is something that "Day of Reckoning" didn't have. And it was showing blatantly on the screen, because the CGI was laughable at best, and it was super poorly animated to the point of being an eyesore.

I can't recall any of the acting performances in the movie, so it is safe to say the cast weren't particularly memorable. I am sure that they did the best they could given the severe restrictions they had anchoring them down.

Surpringly enough I managed to suffer through the entire ordeal that is "Day of Reckoning", but it was a very hard struggle. And I can honestly say that this is not a movie that you will return to watch a second time, providing you get through it the first time.

Not quite as bad as those from the 1950/60's, but surprisingly poor CGI for 2016: The monsters are visually obvious additions. At one point, a dog-like creature attacks a man who - instead of trying to use his hands, throws them up! The acting was OK, as was the dialogue. The plot had reasonable promise but only for about a half-hour. The interactions between good and bad guys was believable for the most part. I don't think any interaction between the monsters and anything else - buildings, humans or other monsters - was believable. Shocking when almost all films rely heavily on such nowadays. Perhaps Sc-Fi channel has too rigid production schedules, or lousy quality control?

15 years after a massive demon attack, they come back to finish the job.

If you're a big fan of Signs and The Happening, have I got a movie for you! It's got all the elements that you loved about them, including bad writing, annoying characters, and monsters that have an inexplicably bizarre weakness.

Demonic monsters almost conquer the world overnight. The militaries of the world are shown to be completely overrun by the demons, even though salt destroys them. A dysfunctional family kills almost every demon they encounter, yet nobody else in the world can? Right, that makes perfect sense.

I doubt anyone cared whether they even made a good movie. It's kind of hard to blame them, though, given that this is a SyFy Original. I had to really lower my expectations to rock bottom once I saw that logo. I'm actually a bit annoyed that subscription streaming services would offer this up like it's a real movie. It's not even edited to remove the commercial breaks! It just fades to black in the middle of a scene.

Although the acting was occasionally poor, I think the real problem was the writing. Barbara Crampton, who always makes bad movies slightly better, appears in a smaller role. It was nice to see her again. Sometimes the other characters rose above the writing to become kind of tolerable, but it was a bit rare.

The special effects were bad. I've seen worse, but the problem is that those movies were so bad they were good. This one wasn't. The designs themselves were alright, but it looked like they hired the producer's brother-in-law to do all the technical work. It was unconvincing enough that they should have just stuck to practical effects no matter how cheesy, or, failing that, had a few monsters in the shadows, not a bunch demons in the daylight.

I made it to the end of the movie, so you probably can, too. I don't recommend you do that, though. If you're bored and looking for something to pass 80 minutes before bedtime, I guess it's okay.

I've given up on the SyFy Channel. This is typical of all their productions. Terrifying and spectacular scenes involving CGI monsters/aliens/whatever separated by deserts of arid narrative with little or no purpose other than taking the characters to the next scene involving CGI. It's just crap. Some visual engagement but zero intellectual value otherwise. The suits at SyFy either are idiots or venal purveyors of weird trash -- or both. Don't waste your time. There's so little artistic value, other than the yeoman efforts of the put-upon casts, that I honestly believe SyFy is soliciting scripts from middle-schoolers. With a title like "Day of Reckoning" and the very rare religious references made in dialog, one might suspect that some attempt at rationalizing the cause of a disaster threatening the existence of the human race might be made. One would be mistaken in that assumption. There's nothing here. Watching while drunk might improve the experience.

Part of me knew what to expect from 'Day of Reckoning' and that it was meant to be not take it too seriously and take it for what it is films. The idea was a good one and the cover looked cool and a little creepy, so while not expecting much part of me wanted to enjoy it.

While there are certainly far worse films than 'Day of Reckoning', even taking it for what it's meant to be it is a major failure and really not a good film at all. There are similar films and low-budget films that have been surprisingly average and above, so actually 'Day of Reckoning' could have been good with the right execution. Instead a good idea is ruined by the terrible way nearly everything is executed and the coolness and creepiness stays in solely in cover and doesn't translate in the film.

'Day of Reckoning' at least has occasional splashes of fun and some semi-decent scenery.

However, while there has been worse acting it is still poor, both bland and forced. None of the characters are easy to get behind or interesting, it's all very flimsy and any attempts to develop them feel like melodramatic padding. Their decisions and behaviours also don't make sense and they show very little emotion to tense or dramatic situations.

Nearly everything severely underwhelms. Not just being visually cheap and poorly acted and written even worse but what seemed like a decent, if very generic, idea was executed in typical fashion, with no imagination whatsoever and only occasional splashes of fun.

Faring worse are the production values, story and writing. 'Day of Reckoning', aside from the scenery, is drably shot and sloppily edited, but it's the truly abysmal special effects that are the worst. As the creatures were made on a low-budget it would have been forgiven a little if it was not great, but when the effects for the sharks look as if no effort was given in making them without looking so goofy and unfinished-looking that is hard to ignore or forgive.

Can say no better about the portrayal of the creatures either. They exude little personality either, no menace, not even any unintentional goofiness. Generally the attack scenes, apart from the odd mild amusement, are sloppily edited, too brief and devoid of suspense or sense of horror. Moreover, there is no attempt to give them any explanation or development so the motivations and such are confused and vague.

It is hard to not take 'Day of Reckoning' seriously, when it itself doesn't know whether to take itself seriously or not. Some parts make earnest attempts to not be stupid but come over as pedestrian and over-serious. Other parts go well overboard on the silliness that one is cringing rather than being entertained.

Really wanted to like the story here because the concept was intriguing slightly, but while it starts nicely the further the movie progresses the lazier, cheesier and more formulaic it gets and it gets stale quickly.

Overall, very poor. 2/10 Bethany Cox