[Scourge]
Plot:When an ancient evil escapes from a primitive containment system, a rapidly-growing organism immediately begins invading and consuming the bodies of unsuspecting citizens of Harborford, Washington. It bores into it’s victims through the navel. As it gestates, the Scourge consumes internal organs and assumes control of gross motor functions, driving the afflicted person to consume massive amounts of calories. Eventually, the victim can no longer sustain life, and dies if a gory shower of vomited blood and tissue.

Cast:Nic Rhind, Robyn Ledoux, Russ Ferrier.

My Thoughts:Pretty Entertaining.

Review:"Scourge" is a new creature-feature from director Jonas Quastel. The pic begins with an early morning church fire, which come dawn, the local fire department is dispatched to put out and search for survivors. One of the firemen however is nearly pulled into a small hole by something which later ends up burrowing into his body. A demonic parasite called "The Scourge". It feeds on the intestines of it's victims, causing them to begin pigging out on anything they can get their hands on. Eventually, the person dies and the creature jumps to the next warm body.

Yeah, this is another body-jumping movie, similar to "Jason Goes To Hell", "Slither", and other related pictures. But for a B movie, "Scourge" is pretty good. When the fireman is possessed, he and the others soon return to the fire station having put out the fire, and once back in town the parasite of course begins to spread. This coinciding with a local man who's the lead chracter of the film, trying to win back an ex-flame. He already has a bad rep in town due to his family's past transgressions, and his own transgressions as well. The dudes even done time in prison for hauling car parts, a crime which means little to nothing in the city but being that this is a small town, it's of course enough to land someone in prison and breaking rocks.

So when murders start happening, one of which being his current on again off again girlfriend, who also doubles as the town whore...and who ends up getting taken over by the demonic parasite...and he's seen running from the scene, the locla sheriff automatically assumes he's back up to his old tricks again, only this time raising the antie on his criminal career. This throws a big monkeywrench into any plans he has of reuniting with his ex-girl, and also puts him in a position where he's on the run and having to piece together the dark supernatural mystery of what's happening in order to clear his own name.

"Scourge" does bring something new to the table as far as the B-monster-movie subgenre is concerned. The creatures backstory is alot more intriguing and well-written than in most B horror films. It's supernatural origins give the movie a boost in the writing department, whereas the writer could've just went with the typical B-monster movie standard, i.e. government or secret experiment gone wrong. Or even worse...giving the creature outerspace lineage. But instead, the monsters supernatural backstory, while a bit choppy in some areas, gives the movie a little something extra to be proud of.

The creature itself is a cool conundrum as well. It devours the insides of it's victims so it can eventually stop body jumping and be able to reproduce on it's own. While it seems unstoppable, it does have one weakness which as far as the films script is concerned, is an interesting twist to the story that I won't give away here. But it's really cool as far as gross-out factor is concerned to watch what it does to it's victims. Along with the constant hunger for food, the victims also make gross stomach noises and burp alot.

Fans of gross out humor and gross out horror films should enjoy those moments, as this film has alot of them. Blood and gore are not as strongly present as they should've been, but they're strong enough which doesn't hurt nor hinder the movie. The creature is the films one weak spot though. It's a CGI creation, and while I know budget restrains from expensive creature fx...seeing small cgi creatures terrorize people in horror films always annoys me on some level, even if it's a very small one. I just can neve rbuy into being even slightly afraid of a computer generated anything in a horror film quite frankly.

The pics conclusion is an exciting one, and the final scene is about as cliche as you can get...but moreso in a fun and humorous way, which I can accept over the ending being cliche in an annoying, tedious sort of way. ''Scourge" is a decent time waster if you like monster movies with some new wrinkles added to their design.

Positives:Good backstory to the creature, suitable amounts of blood, gore, and gross out moments, good looking women, and a good finale.

Negatives:CGI monster.

Overall:Three out of four stars.





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