[Killing Ariel]
Plot:A family is haunted for centuries. It is now up to Rick, a man that has long put away the gruesome memories of his childhood and the deaths of his parents, only to realize that those horrors have come back for him as well...

One night, a female demon attacks Rick, a contentedly married man. Under her spell, he takes a beautiful young woman, Ariel, off to an isolated cabin for a weekend fling. There, bizarre and frightening things happen, and accidentally Rick kills her. But she doesn’t stay dead. He soon realizes that she is the demon that first attacked him and he must defend himself by killing her again...and again...

But, no matter how many times he kills her, she keeps coming back. When he finally escapes and returns home, he discovers that his life has disappeared into a nightmare of madness, lust, adultery, and coldblooded murder.

Cast:Lindsley Allen, Suzete Belouin, Michael Brainard, Axelle Cummings, Gary Edward, Maggie Fine, Lisa Franks, Joseph Gatt, Lauren Mary Kim, Steven Lamprinos, Paul Mackley, Stacey Martino, Miguel Nájera, Sal Romeo, Shana Sosin, Brad Whitfield.

My Thoughts:What a nightmare.

Review:I think it's safe to say, the "Groundhog Day" thing has been done to death in the horror genre. Between "Ian Stone", and various other recent horror films, people reliving the same events or days over and over again, has been way overused. Such is the story with "Killing Ariel", which follows a married man named Rick who's parents were killed by a demon when he was a child. Now that he's an adult, he has a run in with the same demon, a succubus.

This leads him to meet a woman named Ariel, who he falls madly in love with, and eventually ends up cheating on his wife with. But what Rick doesn't know, is that Ariel is the demon that killed his parents, and attacked him. Now, in order to be free of her, he has to kill her as many times as it takes. Which is pretty much all this film has to offer. Rick screws Ariel, then learns she's a demon, and then kills her. But she returns, and he kills her again, and then she comes back.....again.

Obviously, anyone can see the plot point of the film is that Ariel, as a supernatural being, has a lifelong connection with anyone who she exchanges "fluids" with, but do we really need to be witness to a film like this? At what point does horror just draw a line, and say..."okay, if you can't come up with a plot that doesn't sound like it was conceived by a heroin-addicted drunk, then you cannot direct or write a movie?" I guess no point really. Because "Killing Ariel" kills the viewer...quickly, painfully, and sadly.

It wasn't long before I found myself squirming in my seat, waiting for this film to just end already. I foresaw the path of repetitive boredom, nonsense, and blatant retardedness it was headed down. And I looked at the clock, and said to myself..."Only 60 more minutes to go...good grief." "Killing Ariel" offers nothing new, or good when it comes to indie horror. Indie horror can be a really good medium when someone brings fresh, creative, and new ideas to the table.

But this film just comes up with a crazy, black humor-esque idea, that is supposed to make the viewer laugh and cringe? Well, I didn't laugh, and as far as cringing is concerned, I cringed for many reasons, none of which being the good reasons one should cringe while watching a horror movie. The film just has nothing going for it. It starts off with slight potential, but that is quickly flushed down the crapper and the nightmare of the next 70 minutes of cinematic lamness begins.

The performances were also really bad. And giving the succubus woman a euro-trash accent was a really bad idea. It didn't help the film, and it annoyed the hell out of me. The film doesn't even do it's best ot offer up some decent gore. It's basically just a sex romp with some oddities thrown in, and the female-demon and a nasty suicide scene, being where the titular "horror" comes into play.

Not that I have a problem with horror-blended sex romps, but for god sake, atleast make it a decent and watchable one. "Succubus:Hell Bent" was better than this mess. While the idea of watching a stupid middle-aged guy who can't control himself, cheat on his wife and screw up his family with a female demon who unbeknownst to him...killed his parents, and then having things lead to him murdering her over, and over, and over, and over again...may be fun for the lowered-expectations crowd, for genre enthusiasts such as myself, it amounts to total cinematic disaster. And a waste of a perfecrtly good 90 minutes. "Killing Ariel" is one movie that should do us all a favor, and kill itself.

Positives:A modestly decent opening scene.

Negatives:Bad acting, the lead females accent, lame story with no real point to it, and a severe lack of entertainment value.

Overall:Half a star out of four.





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