Audience Member
LONDON VOODOO (Independent, 2004)
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY: Robert Patten
FEATURING: Doug Cockle, Sara Stewart, Michael Nyqvist
Trisha Mortimer, Sven-Bertil Taube, Vonda Barnes
Steve O'Halloran, Roy Borrett, Carmen Abela
GENRE: OCCULT THRILLER
TAGS: Voodoo!
RATING 7 PINTS OF BLOOD
PLOT: Voodoo is alive and fashionable in Westminster! A dead Voodoo priestess snatches the body of a yuppie housewife, then sets her sights on the husband in this novel, swank supernatural chiller.
COMMENTS: Engaging, to-the-point cinematography, Steven Severin's moody score, and a fresh, pensive story make London Voodoo an arty choice for the thinking horror patron. It's brooding, yet suspenseful, with good timing and a quick pace. This is writer/director Robert Patten's first of two independent feature efforts. Patten achieves a good balance between credible horror and reality that doesn't insult our intelligence.
Business executive Lincoln Mathers (Doug Cockel) and his wife Sarah (Sara Stewart), move to a posh London town house. It's everything they could want. Quaint, chic, and historic, with a pair of century-old corpses in the basement. Of course, the moldy cadavers aren't a selling point. Sarah discovers them during renovations. That's normal for an old historic house, right? Except maybe for the eyes-rolled-up-in-the-back-of-her-head seizure Sarah endures when she tampers with them
Buried with the bodies are oddball religious artifacts. Sarah's damned curious. Her latest hobby is local historical research, and she wants to solve the cadaver mystery. Doug is overwhelmed with a new high-salaried, 16 hour-a-day, executive position. He wants Sarah out of his hair so he leaves her to it.
Makes sense.
Sarah's hobby turns out to be ... well, consuming. The cellar dwellers aren't actually dead, they just smell that way. They're an evil Voodoo priestess and her lover, slain by her prior followers. The un-dead duo decide that existing in their decaying, de-animated bodies under the basement floor is a bit boring. The priestess condemns Sarah's sumptuous body for a soul transfer, and she's taking possession now!
Before you can say, "that old black magic," Sarah's mere presence sours milk and rots fruit.. She finds deep joy in collecting bits of Doug's skin and hair. Sarah prowls the flat like a puma in heat. clad in BDSM lingerie, nipples erect, an obsessive, determined look in her eye. When Doug postpones sex to read a prospectus sent home by the boss, Sarah rips off the cover page, stuffs it between her legs, then crams it in his mouth while cursing in Creole.
The friendly neighborhood Voodoo sect wants to help, but Doug dismisses them as crackpots. ( Not that they're any stranger than the way Sarah's been acting.) Doug's too distracted with his soul sucking finance job to do more than write off Sarah's shenanigans as a midlife crisis. But as Sarah transforms into an undulating, deviant, sexually insatiable vixen, family politics grow awkward.
That local Voodoo cult has a solution, if Doug will only listen. It's not a pleasant treatment option to say the least, but Doug had better wise up because the Voodoo vixen and her dead lover think Doug's man-flesh is just what the witch doctor ordered.
Viewers may remember movie composer Steven Severin from Siouxsie and the Banshees and Sara Stewart as Martha Wayne in Batman Begins.
Fans of the genre seeking other intelligent entries of the same quality as London Voodoo might also enjoy Don't Look Now (1973), The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988), and True Believer (1989).
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Extranya pelicula de serie B, variante del tema posesion, aqui asociada a una trama de vudu en el Reino Unido contemporaneo, aunque el aspecto visual del film recuerde a los anyos 80. No tan aterradora como se presuponia y cargada de defectos ( cabos sueltos, personajes fuera de lugar), pero tambien dotada de cierta personalidad en la puesta en escena y el montaje, cosa que hace presagiar un futuro esperanzador para su director.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
un-entertaining a complete waste of time i dont want to know how it won so many film fest awards
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I was lucky enough to see the London Premier of this movie and I was blown away.
So of course I wanted to have the movie all for myself. The DVD was superb and had a great transfer.
The movie is about someone who unwittingly releases a voodoo spirit. The spirit possesses a person and we the viewer are treated to a highly original way of looking at the possession myth.
This is a subtle terror movie as the slow burning plot twists and turns before coming to a satisfying end.
Superb and well acted with a haunting soundtrack. This is one to add to your collection...
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Ok, Voodoo thriller. Just wondering why Voodoo always has to be portrayed in such a dark manner. Anyway, this time they also showed some of the more love orientated aspects, although very destructively. Unfortunately.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
allaaam, bi gun bi filmi ilk kez ben reytingliyebilicek miyim acaba? :))) uzatmadan soliyim, yok bu da guzel deel! :/
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
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