A tale as old as time. Today's Film is (Clive Barker Presents) Saint Sinner, a 2002 Made-for-TV Film for the Sci-Fi Channel. So stop me if you've heard this Story: an errant Monk accidentally unleashes some Demons from his Monastery. They escape via a Time Portal (that all Monasteries have) and go to the 20th Century to mate. How old is that story?!? This Film is 'Presented' to us by Clive Barker. How does that work exactly? Oh, so I guess he wrote the original Story. Does that mean that Wes Craven wrote all of those Films that he 'Presented' in the 1990s to 2000s? Google says 'no.' This one intrigued me for awhile in my Queue, but never quite enough to figuratively pull the trigger and rent it. Obviously something changed. The Film has an interesting Premise, but how does the final product end up? To find out, read on...
In 1815, our Hero is a Monk who is questioning his piety and faith.
For no good reason, he wanders around in a place where the Monastery keeps their dangerous stuff, opens a chest and then touches something that is obviously evil.
Actually, he lets his friend do it, unleashing these Demons who then escape via a Time Portal.
...so can we all have whatever Clive Barker is smoking?
He is sent to the Future to find them and kill them with an ancient weapon. He has to return it when he's done, of course, since it is also used to kill Damien in The Omen III.
Forty-year old SPOILER Alert?
As he is found near one of the Demons' victims, he is suspected of the crime. He finds an ally in the lady Cop, thus giving us the Plot of Sleepy Hollow about 10 years early.
Meanwhile, the 'gals' continue to feed on us humans and one of them actually gets herself knocked up (as much as she can be) by one!
The pair eventually find the place where the Monastery is in the Present (since the Time Machine also transported him to the middle of the city for some reason too) and it appears to be the same interiors from the X-Men Films.
Seriously, does this not look familiar to anyone else?
In the same Chamber that the Demons escaped from, they go to give birth to...this Men in Black creature, I guess. Why retreat to your Prison exactly?
He manages to kill the creatures, restoring them to their egg-thing and goes back home...only to die seconds later. That's a Clive Barker Happy Ending for you!
A weird wrapping on some otherwise familiar stuff. The Story has some fun moments and some quirky stuff in it, I will grant you that. The problem is that it doesn't do a whole lot more of interest with it after that. The Demon ladies are just a different variation of evil Alien lady (Species), Alien Vampire lady (Lifeforce) or lady Vampire (a hundred Films). The time-displaced Hero is nothing all too new, whether it is Warlock or Back to the Future. The idea that they leave their hosts as skin husks has been done many times before, at least once in the previous examples. All in all, the thing just doesn't feel as fresh as you'd expect a Film with such a weird Plot to feel. Make sense? Sure makes more sense than this pointless Dutch Angle...
Next up, let's go back further in time. If we should all be a Brotherhood of Man, is being in one of Satan bad still? Stay tuned...
...so can we all have whatever Clive Barker is smoking?
Forty-year old SPOILER Alert?
Seriously, does this not look familiar to anyone else?
I actually saw this one at random back in college. It was...odd, and not all that good, but not all that bad either. I'm not sure if I like the Sci-Fi / SyFy Original Films and their ilk better when they're actually half-decent, or when they're obviously terrible.
ReplyDeleteThe latter tend to be more laughably, unintentionally hilarious, I guess, but at the same time, I don't want to encourage worse filmmaking!
It's also a little more likable for me because it came out well before Eureka, so I don't find myself looking at it and thinking, "Hey, they could've spent that money on Eureka instead, those [various invectives]."
Yes, I'm still mad about that.