Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a British horror movie from 1980. That movie is "The Godsend".
Now before I get more into this movie, I do need to let you guys in on something that I kinda sorta neglected. See, at the start of this month, I reviewed a movie called "What's The Matter With Helen?". And I didn't mention it back then, but I was reviewing that movie off a combo pack known as the "4 All Night Horror Marathon" that I had bought at my local mini mall sometime ago, which contained four movies. And of the four movies, I've already reviewed two of them. Those being "What's The Matter With Helen?" and "The Vagrant". This movie is the third film off this 4 pack and I can say, so far, that I've already batted a thousand here. Because I liked both movies and I'm hoping this third one will continue that winning streak. And just in case you might be wondering, yes, the 4th movie will eventually be reviewed as well.
Now, as with the case of this movie, I don't really know very much about it. According to what I read on the film's description on the back of the DVD case, it's about a family that adopts a baby after the birth mother disappears. Which then later leads into the family's own children being killed off, supposedly, by her. I don't know how, exactly. I'm hoping the movie will provide some kind of explanation for that.
Really, guys, beyond what I just told you, I'm going into this one as blind as I can here. I'm hoping for it to be good because, again, I'm doing really good with this combo pack and I would love for it if this movie were to continue that positive trend. But the only way I'm gonna know for sure if this movie is any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Godsend".
11 minutes later
Wait, so Alan discovers that the phone is dead upon trying to make a phone call to the doctor. And the reason why is because the creepy blonde woman is possibly going into labor. And he didn't even bother to check the disconnected wire that was not attached to the phone anymore? I should mention, by the way, that this creepy-looking woman is also responsible for disconnecting the telephone wire in the first place. Why she would do this, I don't know. But it's kinda stupid for both Alan and his wife to not check the phone wire to see if it was actually connected or not. Just something I wanted to bring up is all.
6 minutes later
OK, hold up here a second. So their youngest child is dead, and their adopted child, who's now named Bonnie, was with the baby at the time of his death. And they don't immediately suspect that Bonnie might've had a hand in the baby's death? I mean, sure, it's possible that the kid's death might've been an accident. But we don't have *any* information about how he died. Which is already fucking suspicious as it is, but I still think it's kinda stupid that they don't immediately suspect Bonnie who, again, was with the baby at the time of his death. But hey, maybe that's just me trying to put logic into a family situation that I have no hand in.
13 minutes later
So wait, Alan's actually blaming his son for, not only pushing Bonnie, but also because she broke his toy. The boy is saying that Bonnie broke it, and upon immediately getting a no answer from Bonnie after asking if she broke his toy, he immediately assumes that the son is lying and sends him to his room until he tells the truth. Guys, I may not be a fan of children, but I would at least hear both sides of the story before I decide to take disciplinary action. But then again, I'm not a parent to begin with, so what the hell would I know?
20 minutes later
Sorry, guys, for not very much. This movie, unfortunately, really hasn't given me a whole lot to work with within the last while now. Mind you, the film hasn't exactly been bad so far, it's just that it's starting to drag a little bit. I'm hoping the next 40 minutes or so will actually pick up pretty soon, otherwise, this movie's starting to become a little bit dull.
13 minutes later
All right, this has been starting to bug me for a while now, but I feel the need to address this. Bonnie's been talking in the most monotone voice I've been hearing her speak. Either this is a wake up call for her adoptive parents to notice her behavior in the way she speaks, or she's just a terrible child actress. Either way, I'm willing to believe one or the other at this point.
The Review
So...the movie just ends on a rather anti-climatic note. O...K, well then, I'm just gonna shut the movie off now...OK. So, guys, that was "The Godsend". Um...I'm gonna be honest here, this movie kinda sucked. Again, it's not outright horrible or anything, but I really thought this movie was gonna do more with it's premise. But unfortunately, that's not really the case here.
Why don't we just go right into this one and start with the writing. Now, as the movie was going on, I found out that this movie was based off a novel of the same name that came out a few years prior to this film. The novel was written by a man named Bernard Taylor. Now I obviously have not read the novel, so any comparisons to this film would be ultimately pointless. That being said, I don't really do that much anyways, since I always prefer to have the movie stand or fall on it's own without being compared to the source material. Though I will say that if I ever come across this novel, chances are that I'm not gonna be reading it anytime soon, because if this movie's plot was anything like the novel this thing is based off of, then both the movie and it's novel are kinda shit. I know I probably shouldn't be saying that, what with me not having read the novel yet. However, this movie didn't really sell me much on it's premise, so I'm not really gonna be bothering with the novel anytime soon.
So, setting that aside, this movie's premise, as I've already spoiled at the beginning of this, is our family, the Marlowe's, takes in a child after the creepy-looking woman gives birth at their home and she conveniently disappears the next day, leaving the baby behind for our family to look after. Now, if you're hoping to look for any kind of answers as to who this woman is and where exactly she came from, don't bother. Because after she disappears from the Marlowe's home, she doesn't reappear again in this movie up until the very end where Alan tries to stop her from going off with another family. And a bit of a spoiler here, he fails to stop her after she disappears again, thus the movie ends on a really anti-climatic note. Now, I know it's very well possible that there's more to this creepy-looking woman in the novel and where she came from, however, since I don't compare books to it's movie adaptations, I can't really clarify that. So any theories that I may have of her are completely thrown out the window here since the film didn't take the time to properly explain anything about her.
Now as for our little child killer here, Bonnie, she really is not that scary-looking nor is she frightening in any way. And yet, she's able to off every single kid of the Marlowe's. And that's where we come into the first problem of this movie. Almost all of her kills are implied, save for the last one. You never actually see her attempt to kill off these kids on camera. As I've said, almost all of them are implied. Now you can probably guess a couple of them on your own. Such as when one of the boys is in the water, so it's possible that Bonnie drowned him. Another one you can probably guess is the baby's death, where she might've used that thing, a small blanket, she was holding to strangle the baby to death with. And on the last one, well, you actually see her pushing the daughter out of the window as she falls to her death. And I know I'm kinda already spoiling this, however, the movie is well over 40 years old at this point and I don't think a lot of people are clamoring for me to not spoil this for them. If you are somehow spoiled by it, then I'm sorry, but the movie's synopsis clearly advertises that all of the kids are being killed off, so I don't know what you want me to say about it without spoiling it.
But yeah, Bonnie is not scary in the slightest. And most of her implied kills aren't really that interesting either. Which then brings me into one of the big problems that this movie has is that the pacing here is just slow. Now normally, I don't mind slow paced movies as long as they have somewhere to go. However, this movie doesn't really go anywhere right after all of the sons are killed off and the Marlowe's move to the city in London. It just drags on for quite a long time and nothing of interest happens. And mind you, this movie is supposedly 93 minutes long. However, that runtime is a bit of a lie, since the movie ends a little after the hour and 20 minute mark and I sincerely doubt that there's 10 minutes worth of credits afterwards. There might be, however, I normally shut the movie off after I see ending credits, so I'm not gonna go back and check on it.
Our characters here, aside from the not scary-looking child, are also not as interesting either. Both of the parents are kinda stupid for different reasons. The mother is more on the stupid side, since she keeps denying the fact that Bonnie had a hand in killing the rest of the kids while Alan is trying to convince her that she's not a normal child and tries to get his wife to get rid of the child. However, being the kinda rock stupid person that she is, she takes the child in, even shortly after their last birth daughter gets killed because of maternal instincts, or some such retarded bullshit like that. And as for Alan, well, I'm surprised he's kept his suspicions about Bonnie being the one who killed the kids to himself for so long that I'm surprised he didn't take this information to the authorities sooner. Now yes, I understand why he didn't do that because he didn't want to traumatize his wife, however, there comes a time when you start to put the pieces together, like he does in this movie, and that he should've found a way to get rid of Bonnie sooner rather than later. In fact, he should've done this the moment that his birth daughter gets killed, but doesn't, and since Bonnie is now with the mother after she and Alan supposedly divorce, it makes him just about as stupid as his wife.
Guys, there's no other way for me to put this, but the writing in this movie is just stupid on a whole host of levels. Granted, it's not as stupid as it could've really been, but it's still a rather badly written film. That, plus the premise itself is kind of weak anyways, especially when you have a child killer who's nowhere near as interesting as she could've been. Speaking of which, that greatly transitions into the acting. The child actress who's supposed to be playing our child killer is fucking awful. She has no kind of emotion in her voice, which I know is probably suppose to be intentional, because I guess her mother in this movie is suppose to be emotionless for some reason, but to me, that's just more of a 'fuck you, that is why' reason. I'm sorry, but this child cannot act. Even with the few amount of lines she has in this movie, she sounds awful in every delivery she gives out. And I would also hand that out to most of the Marlowe kids, however, I'm willing to give them a pass because they have even lesser lines than Bonnie's actress, and also, they're not really the focus of the movie since they're supposed to be killed off anyways. But as for Bonnie's actress, I cannot do that. She sounded awful and didn't get any better as the movie went on.
Now I will say that when it comes to the acting from the adults in this movie, it's great. Every actor there actually gives out a rather strong showing and were able to make due with the script that they were given. Which is great, because normally, when you have actors struggling with a shitty script, you can't really expect miracles from them. This movie, however, even though I didn't like the story, I am willing to praise the adult actors for putting in a really good showing for their characters. So, kudos to them, they definitely earned their paycheck.
Camerawork here is decent, though there are a couple of odd moments where the camera will look odd and blurry. One moment I can think of is when Alan is taking Bonnie out to the beach, and the camera will remain blurry on the corners of the screen and I have no idea why they did such a thing. Also, there was an odd transition toward the end of the film where Alan is walking with some old guy in the park as the screen will slowly fade to normal and the dialogue doesn't kick in until after it happens. I have no idea why that transition happened, unless they wanted to make it like some time had passed or something. I don't know. Those moments really didn't make too much sense to me. Aside from that, though, the camerawork here is pretty good. Sound-mixing here is also competent, and the lighting here is also really good.
Music...oh dear lord, the music. OK, I will say that the score here is fine for what it is. However, there is one piece of music that plays almost every time the camera focuses on Bonnie. It's suppose to sound ominous and creepy, and that would've been fine...except they play almost the exact same fucking music over and over every time she's on camera! And if the goal was suppose to make Bonnie look scary and is about to murder someone, then I'm sorry, but it does not work. Because they play the same fucking music every time she's on camera and I grew sick of it very quickly. In fact, if anything else, it makes your child killer less threatening, aside from her kills almost all being implied. So yeah, the score here is fine, except for that one piece of ominous music that you'll grow sick and tired of listening to.
So, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Godsend"? Personally, no. The premise itself is really weak, and though it could've been really interesting, it just fumbled with it and doesn't really do much of anything with it. I'm also not particularly fond of children, and this movie didn't really make me change my mind of them. So yeah, there's really nothing much here I can say that is even worth watching for. In fact, I mentioned earlier that I was batting a thousand with this combo pack that I bought, and I was hoping that this movie would also continue the positive trend I had with these movies on that combo pack. However, I ended up eating my own words here because this movie ended up being a dud, so my perfect streak with this combo pack is over. However, there is still one more movie on here, which I'll get to later on. For now, though, I'm gonna go watch something better. Um...perhaps I'll just watch something like "Audition" again. That one, actually, I haven't seen in a while, so I'll go and do that next, just so I can be rid the thought of ever watching this movie again.
So anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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