David Reynolds (Peter Facinelli) goes to Bogota, Colombia to pick his daughter Jill (Nathalia Ramos) up so she can make his wedding in the US in a week. After some bad directions from his ex-sister-in-law, Gina (Carolina Guerra), they get into a car accident as a result of some flooding from the storm. Desperate for help, they head to the nearest house, an old rundown inn where they discover a young girl locked in a box in the basement.
Ignoring the pleas of the old man who owns the house, they release the young girl thinking the old man was doing something wrong. Instead, they come to find out that the girl is some sort of ancient evil being that should never have been removed from her cage. As it turns out, the little girl is the old man’s daughter and she is possessed by a demon. Once the host is killed, the demon jumps bodies the one who killed the previous.
These types of movies kill me. The man was nice enough to let these people into his home, not knowing them or anything about them. What do they do in return? They hit him over the head with an axe, release an evil child, tie him to a chair, accuse him of child abuse and kill him. As they say in Troll 2, “You can’t piss on hospitality!”
The Damned is the perfect example of hindsight being 20/20. They act impulsively and just release the girl without knowing anything about the situation and then, once she is released, everyone stops to think about it. Had they taken just thirty seconds to talk to the old guy about why he might have needed to box up a young girl and perhaps provide them with proof of his accusations, maybe they wouldn’t have been stuck in the predicament they were in and maybe, just maybe, half of them wouldn’t have died. Then again, had they listened to the cop in the beginning who told them NOT to go down the road they took anyway, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make even more stupid decisions.
Was The Damned a bad movie? I wouldn’t say it was bad per se, I would just say it wasn’t great. If anything, I would say it was a rip off of the Evil Dead remake with a few touches of Fallen. I would have really liked there to have been a story that didn’t involve a witch or a predictable ending but I wasn’t so lucky in either aspect.
In comparison to the other IFC releases I have seen this year, The Damned has been one of my least favorite. In fact, most of my favorite films from them this year have been Spanish subtitled films but this one just didn’t make the cut for me.
You can judge for yourself as The Damned is available this week from IFC Films, pick up a copy today.
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Ann Hale is the horror editor for Pop-Break.com and a senior contributing writer, reviewing horror movies and television shows. She is also the American Correspondent for Lovehorror.co.uk. Ann attended East Carolina University, majoring in English Literature. She is a collector of Halloween (the film) memorabilia and is a self-admitted opinionated horror nerd. You can follow her, her collection and her cat, Edward Kittyhands on Twitter and Instagram @Scarletjupiter
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I have to disagree, the movie was amazing. Really would like to know more about the story background though. Maybe “The Damned” 2 in the future? Who knows. Great cast, especially Nathalia Ramos and Peter Facinelli.
I am glad you enjoyed it. Someone had to. Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Netflix gave it bad reviews as well, so the film needs support from viewers, as it certainly isn’t getting it from reviewers.