Title: Way of the Wicked
Director: Kevin Carraway
Starring: Christian Slater, Vinnie Jones, Jake Croker, Emily Tennant
Running time: 92 minutes, Not Rated, Available May 20th
Special Features: None
Every few years a mysterious death occurs in a small town that has caught the eye of a local defrocked priest (Christian Slater) who believes it’s a sign of the devil. He believes it to be the telekinetic powers of a boy (Jake Croker) who has his eyes on Detective John Elliot’s (Vinnie Jones) daughter Heather (Emily Tennant).
The Good: Interesting story for the most part, but I figured it out within the first 10 minutes of the film.
The Bad: Considering Director Carraway’s last movie 7 Below got one of my worst ratings, I didn’t have high hopes for this one either. I was really dreading watching this one since Christian Slater has been saying yes to some epic turd films. Hey what do you know, I was right to be cynical.
The acting was awful by EVERYONE. I’m not going to sugar coat it. It was as if they showed up to get paid and that was it. The dialogue is random and sometimes out of place. The detective is barbequing and says “I always have a glass of wine when I barbeque.” I suddenly had a fantasy scenario in my head about Vinnie Jones having to do 40+ takes of that scene because he said “beer” instead of wine. The priest says “Evil in a vacuum,” which I didn’t understand and I had to look that one up.
Emily Tennant’s agent needs to start looking for some older roles for her, because we have eyes, and we can see she can’t pass for a teenager anymore. I was going to write something really mean to that effect, but the fact that her age isn’t even listed on IMDB, she’s probably sensitive about that. Christian Slater is on the DVD cover, but is maybe in the film for a total of 20 minutes at best.
Who puts a candelabra on a grave? Is this a Police music video or is Liberace’s reanimated corpse gonna rise? They also couldn’t afford that ginormous headstone on a cop’s salary.
The wannabe M. Night Shyamalan twist ending was hardly a twist since me and my spouse figured it out early on and just waited for the reveal to confirm it. The only way it could’ve possibly get better if Heather got pregnant and had a Damien baby like this film was kinda-sorta marketed. Total letdown and frustrating having to sit through this film for that mediocre ending.
My advise is to wait for this to show up on cable and save your money if you absolutely must see it for whatever reason. I read someone describe it as “Damien Goes to High School” and that would’ve been a better idea if this were the case, but it wasn’t. Keep that script idea in your back pocket.
Total Rating: F
Reviewed by: JM Willis
