John’s Horror Corner: Lo

Hello all. Mark here.

I too was intrigued by the poster for this film. I never watched it and I’m glad I didn’t. Thanks John for saving me from this flick! Enjoy the review.

John’s Horror Corner: Lo

 By John Leavengood

MY CALL:  For horror fans, this film is the lump of coal you find in your stocking on Christmas morning when you thought you were being such a good little boy.  The writer/director had a great plot idea, amazing in fact, and came up with an brilliant twist at the end, however the execution was unforgivably poor.  I don’t know what I did to deserve to suffer through this one.  [I’ll give it an F…maybe a D for an excellent premise?]  IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH:  Not that the movies are similar, but the love story feels strangely like Night of the Living Dead 3.

This is the one-act play-style story of a man who attempts a conjuration ritual to summon a demon (named Lo), from whom he demands to have the soul (and, I assume, the rest) of his girlfriend returned from Hell.  When I read something like that in the product description I thought “cool”.  But cool it was not.

An uncreative 12-year old was likely responsible for this stunningly poor screenwriting.  Lo’s lines feel out of place as he threatens “I’ll have you in my belly” or “I’m going to eat you” with all of the unseriousness of a cartoon fairy tale.  Quite inconsistently, other times Lo speaks more to the tune of a poorly written R-rated demon movie as he uses foul profanity while explaining that he will rape, kill and eat anything, “especially babies”.  Sounds like the kind of dialogue a lonely, antisocial preteen horror fan would dream up.  The set design and deliberate melodrama of this wanna’-be arthouse horror satire are exhausting.  And I offer no forgiveness for the desperate overacting, either.  Maybe a drama major or theater junky could appreciate some aspects of this film, but I find the very act of its production deplorable.

This film is a prime example of what happens when a sexually repressed loser who still high-fives and lives in his mother’s basement cashes in his Barmitzphah bonds to chase his dream of being a famous writer/director.  This winner probably considers his brilliant film to be about as cool as his 80^th level Warlock in whatever online fantasy game that serves as his social life surrogate—you know, where he hangs out with other virgins in their 30s.

This film is complete with a painful musical number.  Not surprisingly, the lyrics were poorly written and distastefully off rhyme scheme.  Later there was an awful interpretive dance routine with an anthropomorphic rat and Hell’s bartender.  I also endured some very long (and boring) asides.

Everything about this film was detestable except for the idea, which was simple, but truly great.  I’m also happy that I had become desensitized to the bad acting so that I could take a moment to appreciate a very clever twist at the end.  So clever, in fact, that I struggle to believe that the person who developed such a poor script could have also crafted this genius closing nuance.  I wouldn’t dare ruin the great ending, nor would I dare suggest that anyone suffer through this film in order to see it.  Sort of an ironic statement, huh?

I saw this movie without first seeing the trailer.  Honestly, seeing it would have scared me away like a light switch would a cockroach.  What caught me was the movie poster.  Doesn’t it look tempting?