[5ive Girls]
Plot:Five wayward teenage girls are sent to a reformatory and discover they possess unique powers to battle the ancient demon, Legion, which holds thrall over the sinister institution.

Cast:Ron Perlman, Jennifer Miller, Jordan Madley, Terra Vnesa, Barbara Mamabolo, Tasha May, Amy Ciupak Lalonde, Krysta Carter, James Kidnie, Richard Alan Campbell.

My Thoughts:Five reasons to love this movie.

Review:"Five Girls" or "5ive Girls" or whatever you wanna call it, is yet another indie horror pic that reminds us horror fans that original and unique ideas are still making it through to become horror films. The movie is kind of like "The Craft", only alot cooler and a helluva lot more entertaining. The film starts off with the daughter of one Father Drake (Ron Perlman), getting taken out black magic style by a powerful demon, who later on in the film...we learn is the infamous legion.

Yes, legion are up to their old tricks again...after all, they are many. At any rate, Perlman's character takes his daughters loss pretty well, or as well enough as a dad could take that sort of thing. He even shows up back at the same reformatory awhile later to help out with reforming some more young women, hence where the five girls come in, Alex (Jennifer Miller), Mara (Jordan Maley), Cecilia (Terra Vnesa), Leah (Barbara Mamabolo), and Connie (Tasha May). These five girls are apparently troubled (I guess a wiccan, an anarchist, and a timid blonde passes as troubled in mainstream america these days)..and need some good old fashioned catholic church styled verbal and physical abuse to put thme on the road to good behavior and becoming productive members of society.

The girls arrival at the school is met with a harsh attitude by the schools headmistress Ms. Pearce, who herself isn't all she's cracked up to be. While Father Drake shows a less stern hand with the young women. But the evil spirit which claimed his daughter still haunts the school, and the five mysterious girls are about to come face to face with it. Writer director Warren P. Sonoda does some excellent things with this movie, creating a really dark villain in the mostly unseen legion demon, while creating some very interesting yet unsure antagonists who later become protagonists in the titular 5 girls.

These girls aren't your run of the mill trouble-making teens either, they all have abilities such as being a spiritual conduit, telekenesis, and the ability to heal others. Powers that don't put the film on an out of control dorky and dopey level, but yet still manage to toss an interesting new wrinkle into the movies battle of good vs. evil, which is set up nicely once the girls go snooping around in the buildings closed third floor, which brings them closer than they expected to the evil within. The actors who play the five girls are pretty talented (along with good looking), which makes it alot easier to watch them on screen, as opposed to if they were annoying characters who just made you want to toss the remote.

"Five Girls" doesn't offer up much blood, gore, and guts, but it's eerie set pieces, most of which are located in the school itself, the great chemistry between the characters, and the very intriguing storyline managed to keep me interested all the way throughout. Despite the movie being pretty soft on the hardcore violence, atleast up until the final act. Perlman's character makes for an interesting watch, and you're never really sure if he's good or evil considering his change in personality and atittude throughout the movie.

The film certainly tosses out alot of different possibilities with it's characters and sets up alot of different possible avenues and directions for the storyline to go in. It's certainly alot smarter written film than the normal B-horror stuff, and while the director/writer could've gone nuts with the story he kept it very intriguing and down to earth which made the movie that much better. "Five Girls" ends on a very entertaining note, as the women come face to face with many evils, one of which they didn't expect to have to deal with, and a massive battle between good and evil ensues.

Although some of the fates that the characters meet didn't exactly rub me the right way, I still was satisfied with how the movie wrapped up nonetheless. And Kudos to Sonoda for the twist ending, that thing came out of total and complete left-field.

Positives:Great acting, good characters, good fx, great story, and a weird yet intriguing ending.

Negatives:Nothing major...but some characters died that I felt should've lived.

Overall:Great supernatural horror picture.





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