Dying God (2008) Reviews

• Could have been a sleaze classic, however it's not.

  poolandrews2008-08-02

  Dying God is set in some unnamed city where hooker Lisa Douglas is found brutally raped & murdered, her uterus found blown open from the inside. Corrupt cop Sean Fallon (James Horan) is put on the case, as the dead bodies of hookers continue to pile up Fallon believes something odd is going on & that he may not be dealing with a human adversary but instead an ancient Amazonian creature with a huge retractable penis that is trying to mate because it has cancer. Fallon teams up with pimp Chance (Lance Henriksen) who has lost several hookers to the creature, together they must face it & put a stop to it's vicious killing & raping spree... This French Argentinian co-production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Fabrice Lambot & if you read my brief synopsis about a ancient creature with a huge penis running around raping & murdering prostitutes because when it cums it's sperm bursts through it's victims uterus wall you would be forgiven for thinking that Dying God might be some sort of gory sleaze classic. Unfortunately it's hard to imagine that a film about a creature that goes around raping & killing prostitutes could be so dull & uneventful. I suppose the main problem with Dying God is that the raping & killing monster part of the story is reduced to nothing more than a subplot, all the rapes & murders happen off screen & are largely implied (the pathologist saying things like 'she was brutally raped' to Fallon after the event) & the main focus of Dying God seems to be some sort of character study of corrupt cop Fallon & in this sense it actually felt like Bad Lieutenant (1992) at times. We see scenes of Fallon accepting sex from hookers & cheating on his girlfriend, murdering people in his way, using his authority as a cop to push people around & steal money, he steals guns & sells them, generally swears a lot & is in league with most of the local pimps. The final twenty odd minutes picks up a bit as Fallon & Chance in his harpoon armed wheelchair face off against the monster with Fallon fighting it with a circular saw (which just happened to be lying around) but for the majority of the duration of Dying God it's a largely dull affair populated by very unlikable character's who I found it impossible to feel any kind of sympathy for, hell I was rooting for the monster at the end. How can a film about a rapist creature be so dull? I still can't quite figure it out. The film looks weird, the location is never named but it feels like it is meant to be a city in the US but it doesn't feel like one. It's interesting to note that the IMDb lists a 'Translator' in the 'Writing Credits' section for Dying God which one would imagine means there were communication problems during filming. Most of the names in the credits are unpronounceable for me. There's some decent gore, an exploding head, a head gorily bashed against a wall, some ripped out guts, a gory birth scene, lots of dead bodies with holes in their stomachs, some guts splattered around & a bit of blood splatter. There's some nudity too although not as much as you would expect & as I have already mentioned the rapes happen off screen. The film has that annoying shaky hand-held camcorder feel to it which I just hate. The monster when seen at the end looks alright, it's green & humanoid in shape & yes we do get to see it's huge retractable penis if that sort of thing turns you on. The creatures origins & why it exists are never really gone into other than some vague explanation about it being some ancient Amazonian God. With a supposed budget of about $500,000 Dying God has reasonable production values but looks cheap like a lot of low budget horror does, at least the special effects are alright & thankfully there's no CGI computer effects. Filmed on location in Buenos Aires in Argentina which probably caused problems since the film was shot in English. Genre favourite & the always watchable Lance Henriksen has a part in this as a wheelchair bound pimp, he probably only agreed to do it for a free holiday to Buenos Aires or at least that's what I hope since he is definitely better than this. Dying God had an outrageously sleazy plot about a rapist monster but the film never really satisfies in that department & to much time is given to dull character study, it's like some dull cross between Bad Lieutenant & Breeders (1986).

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• Corrupt cop seeks god

  isaged2013-01-24

  Having just spent a mostly-happy evening watching it on my laptop, I'm forced to disagree with those who gave Final Spawn such a low rating. James Horan, as the corrupt policeman and protagonist, gave a convincing performance. Despite what one reviewer claimed. The minor players who portrayed leaders of Buenos Aires crime were adequate, and the gore was adequate, too. Sure, the plot was silly but it never lagged, and had this been a straight serial-killer detective movie instead of a horror one, it would have been a medium-fine one. So, generally I agree with Kittysafe's review. Keeping in mind that this film was made in Argentina and reading lips as I listened, I was fascinated that most of the actors and actresses (except for the one who had been mute since childhood) spoke unaccented American English. Another reviewer referred to poor dubbing; again I beg to disagree. Nor did I find the use of hand-held cameras distracting. My only real complaint? The poor green Dying God was so Skinny!

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• softcore porno, with a killer monster plot and a couple of real actors

  hexrei2008-07-07

  I think if I had come into this knowing it was basically a porn studio, with porn actors, and porno cinematography creating this film, I might have passed itup. I saw Henricksen and Moran in the cast and somehow I imagined that Misty Mundae must have made the leap to real movies after The Rage and her Masters of Horror episode. Nope. This movie features plenty of softcore scenes, nudity at every possible opportunity. They obviously had a lot of porn props and actors because there are stank hos dildos and cheesy bondage leather all over the place. To be honest I like porn and naked people but it doesn't add anything to the plot, and I've never liked porno that tries to have a plot, so they get a big fail from me. I think perhaps they thought all the sex would add to the "dark and decadent" aspect of the film but it just seems forced. The high point of the film is the wheel-chair mounted concealable harpoon gun, that was truly original. Also the titties were good. The monster suit looks like it was recycled from a late 90's sci-fi series, and although it apparently rapes its victims to death and has a giant penis in the one illustration we see, no such deadly phallus is ever seen on the monster. Obviously even monsters like to exaggerate the size of their member. Overall, Henriksen must have been hardup for cash because this is a new low even for him. Only see this if you are trapped in a porn store or something, cause that's probably going to be this film's primary outlet.

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• Poorly acted, cliché ridden worthless rubbish.

  Good-Will2008-07-06

  If you started off with the premise that you could make one of the worst films ever whilst talking to a group of ten year old school kids, and then wrote a script together with them that contained no original dialogue, a plot that was predictable in every way possible and then cast a bunch of incompetent actors (Even Henriksen is bad in this one!), mix it together with an absurd blend of clichés and some bare breasts, then this is what you would probably end up with. Some films are so bad that they're good fun. The trash aesthetic and all that, but this one is just trash. Rubbish. Truly and utterly awful. The only thing that kept me watching was the vague hope that it couldn't get any worse. But at least it didn't disappoint in that respect. The score was good. And there you have the one and only redeeming factor for this execrably bad, fetid piece of tripe. Cheers, Will

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• Not as bad as I expected it to be

  matches812010-01-21

  First off: I have a weakness for bad movies, especially for the ones that are so bad they're funny again... also I like horror movies. Liking bad movies and having seen tons of them, I can say with certainty: This is not the worst movie ever, not by a long shot. The story is based on an idea that hasn't been beaten to death already, which is good. Other than that, it's not great, but it works, if you're kind enough to look the other way every now and then, and I actually found it interesting to watch. It's pretty coherent overall, too. Sure, the actors won't get any awards for this movie, but they do a bearable job. Some of the minor roles are noticeably worse than the leads, but overall the acting is good enough to not be distracting. The production values are those of a typical non-Hollywood B-movie: Picture quality is somewhere at the lower end, although I've seen worse, the special effects won't wow anybody and the action scenes are pretty weak overall, which hampers the finale especially. Still, the movie surprised me in a good way. Although it's not bad enough to be funny, it's not bad enough to be a pain to watch, either. I had entertaining 80 minutes with it. Don't expect an award-winning masterpiece, get over the low production values and you should be able to enjoy it, too.

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