Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Tells about 15 years ago, mysterious creatures emerged from the ground and wanted to kill all Mankind. A man tries to save his family from the destruction of the world. I think this film is quite entertaining.

I am a sucker for the horror genre, and I am the first to admit that I was lured in by the promise of the movie cover/poster. Especially because it did seem rather interesting, sort of a mixture between something demonic and zombiesque.First of all, it was an uphill struggle to actually sit through the entire movie, because it was a massively generic storyline, which offered very little in terms of entertainment value, and even less so in originality. Furthermore, the storyline was horribly predictable, to the point of where you just shake your head well ahead of things actually happening.But for a horror movie, then "Day of Reckoning" was scarily devoid of anything even remotely scary. And it would have served the movie well if they had opted to go for a proper storyline that could have bolstered the fact that this was intended to be a horror movie.Furthermore, as a horror movie it is essential to have proper practical effects and/or CGI. Alas, it can be said in all honesty that this is something that "Day of Reckoning" didn't have. And it was showing blatantly on the screen, because the CGI was laughable at best, and it was super poorly animated to the point of being an eyesore.I can't recall any of the acting performances in the movie, so it is safe to say the cast weren't particularly memorable. I am sure that they did the best they could given the severe restrictions they had anchoring them down.Surpringly enough I managed to suffer through the entire ordeal that is "Day of Reckoning", but it was a very hard struggle. And I can honestly say that this is not a movie that you will return to watch a second time, providing you get through it the first time.

The summary of this "thriller" movie was honestly the most exciting part of this horror show (pun intended). It had a great start, the characters were introduced in an obvious manner to let you know who were going to be key characters to the "plot", but as the movie progressed, the writers seemed to aggressively remove your choice of who to like and who to be suspicious of. The plot itself was very elegant in the fact that there seemed to be a really thought out story under the hideous coat of bad animations (there's obvious lag in the CGI and it was very annoying when there was a group of monsters and it looked as though the 1989 computer that processed this was begging to be freed from such medieval torture), stage fright acting, and overall underwhelming tone. It also felt as though there was no character development apart from the obvious divorced- parents-getting-back-together trope that was smashed in your face at the very beginning. This removed any chance to develop a relationship with any of the characters. What was extremely laughable was that the "divorced" wife instantly started dating her co-worker after a small remark, and he became apart of the family within what seemed like a day or so. What horrified me the most was the very annoying color palette switches between frames; not scenes or even chapters, but literal frames changed hues and saturation and it was very noticeable. The modern era touch with RGB spectrum colors would have been very nice if the colors had stayed consistent. Another thing, this movie takes place 15 years after the first event and no one has the slightest idea of what happened besides people died. 15 YEARS and yet the only information that was compiled was, "They come from underground and a table spoon of salt will stop them". The plot falls apart right there. Neil Armstrong could make 675 back to back trips to the moon in the time between the first event and the second. How did no one learn any valuable information about these creatures in that same time span yet they made sure there were sirens and one shelter (which just so happens to get destroyed) The premise of the plot is highly unbelievable, even for a movie. As well, nothing is really ever explained in the plot or through dialogue. It felt as though the "suspense" that was created was very intentional and it showed. For instance, Ted's wife gets bit and she makes a comment that is later forgotten until the "climactic" scene where she barely tries to take the pistol (that she was holding at first but somehow ended up in Ted's possession) and attempt to kill herself but just gets eaten. I've been ranting but let's end on a good note. Remember when the blond teenage girl cut the head off of one small snake and all of the sudden the knives became her signature weapon? What happened to those knives when the big snake grabbed her ankle with a smaller tentacle and all she did was watch for a full 5 seconds before she was pulled to the ground at -5 mph? I had never laughed so hard! She killed one snake and became a professional knife-stress!

The good points:1 It takes itself seriously, it is not a daft parody of science fiction like Sharknado.2 Interesting premise - millions of monsters from deep beneath the Earth's crust rise up world wide during some eclipses to eat people.3 Good dialogue and acting. Generally not bad direction and editing.4 Several types of monster (avian, bovine, humanoid, small worm things, giant worm things) suggest a subterranean ecosystem somewhere.5 Okay CGI. Vast hordes are depicted with conviction. Close-up hand to hand battles, less so.The problems:1 There is no attempt to understand or explain the creatures, which a sci-fi or horror film ought to try to do. Some people think they are literal demons, which some people would, but why would subterranean creatures react to a total eclipse they cannot possibly detect? Is it because they really are supernatural? I can see why cold would bother them but why salt? Salt is a traditional weapon against magical threats, again suggesting a supernatural nature. They decay rapidly into red mulch when dead but nobody mentions this, making me think this was added at the CGI stage and was not in the script.2 Just one is seen at night apparently either dead or paralysed, but mysteriously still intact. Nothing is made of this potentially intriguing episode.3 Several action scenes are missing short vital events necessary to make the scenes flow and make sense. Easily fixable, so why weren't they? Was it edited in a rush?It still manages to be one of the best SyFy channel movies.