Very well executed

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Arriving in a small mountain town, a family staying at a local cabin-in-the-woods finds that the local curse about a ravenous goblin-like creature terrorizing children is indeed true and must race to save their infant son from its blood-filled rampage.This here was a rather good creature feature effort, but it does have a few flaws. One of the better features here is the rather strong storyline that comes about involving the central storyline of the creatures' curse over the town, making use of some really creepy moments and a great motive for the creature to get some good moments in. There's some good work done here about the creatures' conjuring in the opening scene that involves the ceremony performed and what's transpired out of it that looms over the town afterward is all quite well-done as the gradual revealing of this in the second half leads to some great times. That also manages to make the action in here fair enough and features plenty of great encounters here. The creatures first appearance in the woods, taking out the necking couple while interspersed with the tense chasing around the woods as the confrontations here make for some really enjoyable action, the attack on the house features some solid stalking with the creature running around the house and their different barricade attempts to hold it back before it breaks in leading to some more chasing to escape which makes for some really great times and the finale features them holding off the creature appearing at the conception pit before leading back to the final battle at the house, which along with the fact that the kills are great at delivering a solid, rousing finish to this one. Given the bloody kills throughout here as a whole, these provide the film with a lot to really like to hold off some of the flaws. One of the biggest issues here is the fact that there are the usual Sci-Fi Channel affairs showing up, so you know what the lame special effects for this one is going to be like. It's got all the usual hallmarks, from the obvious and badly-rendered design for the creature to way too much time of it performing inhuman feats like jumping around while stalking and even manages to come away with another issue here in having it hide away under a cloak for a vast part of the first half, which all makes for a slightly disappointing main villain. Likewise, there's also the fact that this one falls under the notion of featuring the cliché about people who are in the know about what's going on keeping it from those who would benefit from their knowledge, as not only does the one relative who knows how to finally get rid of the creature is truly unoriginal and really just drags the story out when it could've saved them a lot of trouble earlier. As well as a useless and completely overt homage to a classic horror film in a throwaway sequence that's stuck in here for no reason other than to showcase this homage, there's not a whole lot else to hold it back.Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Language and children-in- jeopardy.

I caught this film on the SyFy channel one night and had to watch it. Mainly because it was a bit better than a lot of films I see on the channel these days. There was some good bloody kills and the monster, while not spectacular was better than creatures featured in other SyFy films where giant sharks battle crocodiles or huge piranha terrorize the seas. I do not believe this film was made by SyFy which probably explains why it was a bit higher quality than those films I referenced. It was not great by any stretch of the imagination, but it did make for an interesting watch.The story has a family with an infant losing said infant. There is the general panic and then they hear of stories of the goblin, a creature that steals little children every Halloween. They soon find out this creature is real, but other things seem to be at play as the townsfolk seem to be keeping some sort of secret. Meanwhile, an old man may have the means of destroying the goblin once and for all.The story is your typical monster kills, but there is something else afoot because we need to make the film longer. The whole conspiracy thing going on is there simply to pad the film. It does not work, as the logic behind it is completely flawed. This creature has been snatching a child during Halloween over many decades now, why would it bargain with anyone? It gets what it wants, and people think that if they withhold what it wants it is simply going to give them what the want in exchange for what it wants? Completely flawed logic, and like I said it seems to be in the film to simply extend the running time.The goblin looks okay, most of the time wearing a cloak. It is fully computer generated, and at the end you see it in all its glory and it sort of resembles Golem from Lord of the Rings. Just not as there. I think the monster would have looked a lot better as a costume, because once again in a low budget film, a monster that is computer generated does not look like it is there. You know its just an image placed in a scene. I can sort of understand it when the beast moves in a way that would be difficult for a human to achieve, but that is just not the case here. They could have easily made the monster part costume and part computer and it would have been a much better monster.So this film was for me, not entirely good and not entirely bad. If they had tweaked the story a bit and made a costume instead of a fully computer generated monster the film would have been much better. However, there was a couple of good kills in it and for a low budget horror film it passed the time nicely and kept me watching. So not good not bad and that is my opinion of this film.

A teenager goes to the middle of nowhere with her best friend, her father, step-mother and baby step-brother. Unfortunately, the town they go to is cursed and every Halloween a goblin comes to life and steals babies. When the goblin comes for her baby brother this 17 year old must help save his life. It's not a great movie, but it's not terrible. The girls playing the 17 year old teenagers over do it and act more like they are 13 years old, which is a bit annoying. The CGI isn't bad for a lower budget movies and if you like horror you'll like this. Nothing new here, but you won't want to kill yourself while watching it. It would be nice if horror movies could work on improving the quality of acting in their films. Directors should always be asking their actors, "Is this how you would really react if this was real?"

Goblin starts on October 31 in 1831 as the residents of Hollowglen are gathered around a raging fire, the townspeople are scared of a deformed newborn baby & toss it into the fire to keep the town clean & pure. However the baby's mother is understandably upset & since she is also a Witch decides to put a terrible curse on Hollowglen, every Holloween from this night forward a demonic Goblin from hell will rise take any baby that it can find. Jump forward to the present day as Neil (Gil Bellows) & Kate Perkins (Camile Sulivan) reach Hollowglen after a long drive, with them are Neil's seventeen year old daughter Nikki (Tracy Spiridakos), her best friend Cammy (Erin Boyes) & their young baby son Nathan. In town to complete a real estate deal the Perkin clan find the locals rather strange & somewhat hostile, eventually the family learn of the curse & also find out that the baby stealing Goblin of legend is very real...This Canadian production was directed by Jeffery Scott Lando & is yet another Sy-Fy Channel original creature feature that in truth has nothing original about it, as expected Goblin is just a string of clichés & bad CGI computer effects padded out to an hour & a half. Most of the plot elements from Goblin have been seen many times before, the ancient curse, the Halloween date, the supernatural monster, an unsuspecting family caught up in it, the small creepy backwoods town, the crazy old drunk man no-one listens to but is right, annoying teens who are there just to get killed off & the final magical implement that is used to destroy the monster. You can tick the clichés off, Goblin is uninspired & throughly predictable. The first half of the film concentrates on the squabbling between the Perkins family while I do admit it does pick up in the second half it's still not very good. For a start why were that couple trying to make a deal with the killer Goblin? Do Goblins understand English? Did they not think it might just kill both of them & take the baby anyway? The final plan to kill the Goblin wasn't that well thought out & sounded like Nikki just had to stand there as bait while no-one decided what to do once the Goblin showed up. Also why did the Goblin go after & kill the teens in the woods? Wasn't it's purpose to take babies? None of them had babies or were hiding babies or had anything to do with babies so why randomly kill them?Although Goblin is meant to be set during Halloween everyone is wearing summer clothing, also much of Goblin takes place during broad daylight which does nothing to build the tension or suspense. While the Goblin is definitely a monster the makers decided to place a cloak over him for most of the film so there are scenes of this cloaked figured chasing teens around the woods that feel more like a slasher than a creature feature but the cloak does come off eventually & while the special effects vary from poor to average the Goblin looks alright for the most part. There's a bit of gore which is really the only thing stopping me from rating Gobin a one, a guy's head is crushed, a girl is seen ripped in half with her guts strewn everywhere & there's some blood splatter & spurts.Probably shot on the usual low budget Goblin looks alright, much of the film takes place inside the same cabin & stretch of woods though. Filmed in British Columbia in Canada. The acting is about the same for this type of film, nothing special & no-ones going to win any awards.Goblin is yet another routine creature feature from the Sy-Fy Channel that isn't as bad as some of the crap it makes but in the grand scheme of things you can do without seeing it. If you can get through the first half then you might find the second half better but overall it's a difficult film to recommend.