Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film opens to a dream, then the writing down of the dream, then the discussion of the dream between the young woman Helen, and her analyst, Dr. Hoffman. Helen also does automatic drawing now and then, including after vivid dream. The opening dream concerned a young woman in the time of the Crusades being murdered by a Knight's Templar in armour. Helen's discussions with Hoffman are as vague and inconclusive as one might expect from a man who prescribes mind-numbing drugs.One thing definite from Hoffman was a set of photographs that match some of Helen's automatic drawings. Based on this match, Helen accepts tickets from Hoffman to travel to the castle depicted in the photographs. Hoffman's hope is that Helen finds the sources of Helen's dreams.The castle that Helen seeks has become a museum maintained by Yulin and a colleague. Yulin kicks out Helen, whose curiosity is instantly engaged that much more. She engages some of the locals to break into the place. As it turns out, the museum is in financial troubles, and insurance fraud is contemplated to bail out the museum. Helen's escapade gets resistance from those about to commit the fraud.Just to tie up the whole story, someone dresses up in Templar armour (and weapon, the 'sin reaper') from the museum exhibits and starts killing people involved in the double break in. So, will an explanation emerge from the carnage of the opening sequence? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 4/10 Some of it is fine, a lot of it is just plain poorly done, particularly the night photography.Sound: 3/10 The voice track to the audio sucked rocks. Lance Henriksen's voice and accent were fine, for instance, but not so much in sync with the movements of his face. The accents were to shudder at. Helen was supposedly an American, but her accent was broad and English. The English sub-titles for the German sentences looked more or less OK, but the dubbed English for the German speakers was between unintentionally humorous and stupid.Acting: 2/10 Lance Henriksen's performance was OK, but the lip-sync editing failure rather spoiled that.Screenplay: 2/10 Oh, goodness. The three threads I noted did not mesh up all that well. The dream of a past life seemed at first just the delusions of an ill mind. The unification at the end seemed a bit weak. With a good director at the helm, this should have been chilling or hard-core scary. As it was, it seemed boring and tedious; I could barely wait for the film to end. The thread of a troubled mind trying to be made healthy was just lost. The thread of insurance fraud seemed a red herring at best, and seemed to have little to do the rest of the film.

Lance Henriksen, one of my favorite actors and the reason I've watched many films, like "Lost tribe", "Scream of the Banshee" or "Screamers: The Hunting". And "Sin Reaper of course".Now, excepting this God of cinema, the actors, their characters, the dialogue, all of them, are amateur style at its best. Camera work looks cheap, like I've seen in a lot of C movies lately, dunno where they get it, but they should stop a.s.a.p because it makes everything look silly and childish. Hard to take such movies seriously. The action is beyond words, the conflicts between the characters is something you see in your backyard, when kids are having some innocent fun, everything is a complete mess, it's just a tired formula, clichée, clichée, a killer that barely moves but is everywhere, a main character that annoys more than anything, some dramatic moments that had no place whatsoever... and so many other problems.I gave it a 3, because it had some potential, had some budget, even wanted to be 3D, so plans were made...and gone with the wind I guess. I will recommend you "It's in the blood", perfect little indie horror gem, has Lance Henriksen in it, and will keep you a lot more interested than this one.Sin Reaper, one of the reasons why horror cinema is sinking more and more...

This one surprised me. I wasn't expecting Mutch, but she was good. Overall the acting wasn't perfect, but acceptable... after all, it's an horror film! I wish Hendrickson was in it more, but that's the way low budgets work, I guess.It definitely had high production value considering it's a low-budget horror film. While it delivered on the cheesy parts I expect from a horror film, I was really surprised with the cinematography and overall art design. The location was a perfectly goth, and the Reaper was also a great creation. He may not be as iconic as the Scream mask, but certainly memorable.I've got to hand it to those Germans! Overall way better than I expected!

This movie is highly recommended to all fans of slasher movies, just like myself. I have to say that I was very surprised to see a movie like this coming out of Germany. It doesn't look like a German production. But German movies have surprised me a few times lately. I don't want to spoil the story, otherwise I giving away to much.The design of the killer is outstandingly good, a monk with an iron mask and the most awesome weapon I have ever seen in a slasher movie. (Well maybe except from Freddy Krueger's claw) The location will give you the creeps. This I can promise. The monastery, where the story is set, is nearly like an own character in movie and adds a lot to the creepy, dark and Gothic atmosphere. It reminds me on the spooky Edgar Wallace movies from back in the days. And the cinematography knows exactly, how to use this location to build up tension. I was very entertained the whole way through. The movie brings a fresh new killer, which may could become the next iconic killer to the genre. The whole movie was more in the spirit of these classic horror movies anyway. You know like Halloween, Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elmstreet. I can see, why Fangoria presented the movie.It is always great to see Lance in a horror flick but he needed a bigger part in this. This is the only thing I truly regret. I mean his character is important to the story but he is only in a couple of scenes. The other actors are mostly unknown. But I will keep watching what will happen in the future with Nicolai Tegeler, who played Lukas in the movie. He delivered an incredibly performance and I was wondering, why I haven't seen him in any other movies so far. Hazuki Kato should be mentioned as probably the hottest thing in SIN REAPER. The lead is played by a British actress named Helen Mutch and she was a very good choice for her character Samantha. The chemistry between her and Lance, who played her fatherly friend and psychologist, just works. The other actors are doing more or less a decent job, too.All in all, an enjoyable and atmospheric horror flick with lots of cool elements, a very memorable killer.