Review of The Chosen (2015) by Jesse O — 13 Dec 2015

Not what I would call the best horror movie, but better than one might've expected given the low-budget approach. Again, low-budget isn't, to me, that much of an issue for me as long as the writing is good and the character development is strong.

You need good writing to get strong character development, but, at least in comedies, good writing doesn't necessarily lead to good character development. This movie doesn't really have a novel concept or anything like that, but I do think that it is better and slightly more interesting than your usual low-budget horror film, the worst of which just rely on tired and old concepts, borrowing from considerably better movies.

The thing about this film, however, is the fact that it isn't so much of a horror movie. Of course it's framed as such, but its 'horror' doesn't come from the supernatural aspects of the film, it comes from what things seemingly normal people would do in order to save one of their loved ones, even sacrificing members of their own bloodline to a demon.

Again, it's nothing that you haven't seen before, but at least it's something that has a little more thought put into it and seeing Cameron, and to a lesser extent Caitlin, struggle with what he has to do at first and then how sort of eases into it.

Not that he likes doing it, but he becomes more comfortable with what he is doing, in a sense. I feel like it's bear repeating, but it's not like it's great, but at least it's something.

There were parts of the film I didn't enjoy, like Caitlin's characterization. There are scenes where it seems like she doesn't even care about the fact that her daughter is, literally, possessed by a demon that will kill her if the necessary sacrifices aren't made within the given time.

She even blames her brother for what's happened, which is technically true, and she tells him that it's his responsibility to fix it. She even leaves and isn't seen for a while. Really? That's the card she played? That it was Cam's responsibility because he put her in that situation to begin with.

We're not talking about a car crash. We're talking about Caitlin's daughter's life and she doesn't even care enough to stick around to HELP her daughter because it wasn't her fault.

I don't think that this would be the time to play the blame game. What a shitty mother. Eventually she does come back and play an important role in the proceedings, but her character isn't entirely likable.

And I don't even blame Angelica Chitwood, who plays Angela, for this. I think she does a pretty good job here, but the writing of the character leaves a lot to be desired. Overall, the acting is pretty decent, nothing much to complain about there.

But there's also some moments where the film is laughably bad. Don't get me wrong, they're few, but they're noticeable. Like there's attempts at jump scares, for the characters, not for the viewers, and it just looks laughable.

But, again, there's some interesting stuff here. Like they tease Cam's girlfriend is pregnant and how they incorporate that into the story of the sacrifices itself is actually quite interesting.

I don't know how I feel about the rest of the third act, though. Like they spend so much time building up to Lilith's, the demon, appearance that when they do show it it ends up feeling kind of cheesy.

There's a lot of usage of special effects during Lilith's appearance and they're not terrible, but I just think that it feels out of place with the rest of the film. This is clearly a mixed bag of a movie, better than the rating might imply.

There's some good ideas here, but sometimes the execution isn't up to par. I didn't hate the film, I just wish its ideas could've been implemented in a more effective fashion. Watched this on Netflix, so I really can't complain much.