The Damned

The Damned

Starring Peter Facinelli, Sophia Myles, Nathalia Ramos, Carolina Guerra

Directed by Victor Garcia

The Story:
David (Peter Facinelli) and his fiancee Lauren (Sophia Myles) are in Columbia to pick up his wayward daughter Jill (Nathalia Ramos) to come back to America for their wedding.  Angered that her father is getting re-married after the death of her mother, Jill is reluctant, and then says she can't because she left her passport at her aunt Gina's (Carolina Guerra) house. So David, Lauren, Jill, Gina, and Jill's boyfriend Ramon (Sebastian Martinez) travel to retrieve it.

On their travels they come into contact with a flash flood, rendering their car useless as it keeps pouring.  They find shelter in an old inn where there's no phones and no reception, so they decide to wait out the storm.

Jill discovers a girl locked in a room in the basement, and after she releases her, terrifying things begin to happen, and it turns out the girl isn't as innocent as she seems - she's a bruja, or a Spanish witch, and she inhabits the body of anyone who kills her.  Now David has to protect his family, and make sure the ancient evil doesn't escape.

The Synopsis:
"The Damned" is a quaint little movie that you'll enjoy in the throes of Halloween, or on a rainy cold day when you want to cuddle up under a blanket and enjoy some mindless entertainment for 90 minutes, but it doesn't offer anything revolutionary to the genre.

The story is as simple as it comes.  An ancient witch was killed centuries ago, and her spirit haunts the bloodline of her killers.  She's kept in a dungeon-like cell, because anyone who kills her instantly becomes her next vessel.  So, basically, she's unkillable.  Is that a word?  If not, I just made it up.  Anyway, on the path of the witch's plan of death, a hapless group of people accidentally release her, and, even though they had nothing to do with her curse, fall victim to it.  No good deed. 

Now here's where I have issue with people who insult actors' motives.  Yes, we keep screaming to not go up the stairs.  Yes, we know you're supposed to always stick together.  Yes, if it were us, we'd let the strangers know that there's an ancient evil witch confined in the basement instead of being stoic about it and them accidentally letting them go.  Still, it's the script, and they have to follow it.

That's not to say they don't make stupid decisions.  However, these people take the cake for the stupidest decisions ever made in pretty much any B-level horror work in the last 31 years.  After repeatedly saying they should stick together, not two seconds later they're splitting up for no good reason.  Even after they learn this witch can inhabit anyone, they don't mind spending time alone.  There's stupidity, and then there's a whole nother level of stupid.  These people achieve that goal.

I won't even talk about the ending, which epitomizes the stupidity of the people, as someone makes the biggest moronic move ever, which left me angry that they made that decision in the first place.

Still, for it to be terrible, I wouldn't have cared.  Since I do care, I guess it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, so...plus to that.

The Summary:
Adding nothing new to the genre, "The Damned" is an alright small film decent enough to see when you're bored, but not when you're actively seeking to see it.

The Score: B-