Stickman (2017) Reviews

• Painful To Watch

  blood-lust6662017-11-18

  I'm typically a fan of SyFy made-for-TV movies. Stickman, however, was terrifying for all the wrong reasons. The atmosphere was creepy and the creature was well done, so this could have been a great creature-feature. But, alas, this movie suffers from extremely poor writing. Just a few of the inconsistencies/nonsensical aspects of this movie: 1. If the poem is what summons the Stickman, why on earth was Emma carrying it around with her everywhere she went? Seriously?! If she knew if summoned an evil entity, shouldn't she have enough sense to destroy the piece of paper with the poem on it? I guess not. 2. Obviously, death scenes are the best part of horror movies....Unless you're talking about this movie. When the two women running the boarding house (the only adults conveniently) are killed Emma's first night at said boarding house...Well, it was very anticlimactic indeed. And then the 5 other girls boarding in said house don't bother calling the police even though they know Emma was locked in a psych ward for 7 years for killing her mom and sister. I just face-palmed at that entire scene. 3. Thinking the movie would turn around and get better, I kept watching. No such luck. Emma and two of the other girls drives back to Woodbury for 'answers' and, conveniently, there has been an escapee from the psych ward so they easily get in. I watch a lot of horror, so I understand defying belief, but common on! And, just to point out another wrinkle in the writing, why did she have to go back to Woodbury for answers when, earlier in the movie, she said she could trap the Stickman by drawing his picture? Why not just, I don't know, try drawing his picture? That seems a lot easier. But what do I know? And...that's where the movie ended for me. I just couldn't finish it. Believe me, this is a very rare thing for me to turn off a horror movie prematurely.

• Not bad at all for a SYFY

  aw19632017-12-25

  I honestly enjoyed this movie,which is saying a lot when SYFY movies (and Canadian),are usually so bad.The acting was excellent and convincing,special effects were way above SYFY standard effects,as was the cinematography. Yes the story line was cliche'd as was the ending,but lets face it,you didn't watch it thinking this was going to be a masterpiece.I'm not going to sit here and over analylise it as one reviewer has,it's not that sort of movie,seriously dude,get a life.Take this movie for what it is,a pretty good horror movie worth a watch,enjoy.

• Good low-budget horror hindered by half-baked premise

  Wuchakk2017-10-22

  RELEASED TO TV IN 2017 and written & directed by Sheldon Wilson, "Stickman" chronicles events when a 7 year-old girl is accused of murdering her mother & sister and put in a mental institution. She's finally released ten years later and finds residence at a halfway house for girls. Unfortunately, the evil spirit that slew her kin is on the loose again and threatens all the girls at her new residence. A few of them travel back to the hospital to find a way to put an end to the creature's reign of terror. There's a lot of good in this flick: The filmmaking is proficient for a TV-budgeted movie; the locations are decent, which include the asylum, the transitional home, and points in between, like the town and the woods (there are several cool shots of a truss bridge in the dark); it's nice to have a black protagonist for a change (Hayley Law); the five other girls at the halfway house are all regular lasses with no stereotypical "hottie," although a few of them COULD have played that role (e.g. Sara Garcia, Sarah Fisher, Zoé De Grand Maison, etc.). In addition, the film successfully creates a spooky ambiance here and there, e.g. in the woods near the psyche facility; and the demon is pretty effective for a CGI monster, coming across as a meshing of the demon from "Scarecrow" (2013), the aliens in "Signs" (2002) and maybe Freddy Krueger (i.e. the claws). Unfortunately, I didn't buy the premise behind the creature, which came across as half-baked gobbledygook; the poem that unleashes the demon reads like it was written by a 13 year-old and the climatic explanation didn't resolve the overall ill-conceived impression. This naturally hinders the movie from being engaging; it limits the thrust of events and therefore suspense. Note to emerging filmmakers: Work the kinks out of your premise BEFORE making the movie. The director, Sheldon Wilson, needs to work on his scriptwriting skills because the movies he writes tend to be problematic story-wise ("The Hollow," "The Night Before Halloween," "Neverknock" and this one) while his movies written by others can be quite good for TV-budgeted flicks ("Mothman," "Red, Werewolf Hunter" and the aforementioned "Scarecrow," which is excellent). Lastly, the final scene is predictably lame. Still, there's enough good here to make "Stickman" worthwhile for those who appreciate these kinds of flicks. THE FILM RUNS about 89 minutes. There's no info on where it was shot, but since this is a Canadian production it might've been somewhere outside Toronto. GRADE: C

• Enjoyable enough creature feature

  kannibalcorpsegrinder2017-10-22

  Suffering from a series of strange dreams, a woman with a history involving a strange figure that forces her into bizarre behavioral patterns finds the creature is loose and stalking her friends forcing them to band together to find a way to stop it once and for all. This ended up being quite the decent and enjoyable effort. What really makes this one seem enjoyable is the fact that there's a reasonably enjoyable and sensible backstory for the creature at the core of this one. Taking into account the main poem at the heart of the creatures' origins, this setup is quite fun and manages to bring out a rather enjoyable time here when giving all the different guidelines for his resurrection as well as the rather complex rules that are featured here for his emergence makes for a generally effective creature. The amount of time he has here isn't that bad, either, giving this one a really strong overall setup which generates some solid stalking scenes, from the opening dream sequence on the bus to the first encounter in the sanitarium and the incredibly chillings attacks at the foster home that sets the whole plot in motion. Other big scenes include the creature attacking the couple in their car driving along the freeway which offers all the usual fun of trying to keep the creature from breaking through and leading into the stellar crash while the second half has some fun with the group in the asylum looking for answers to the creature as it begins knocking the group off throughout the hallways which give this a kind of rather exciting kick during this section of the film. With some fine encounters surrounding this with some fun in the convenience store and the group out in the woods as there are some decent enough times here with the creature resulting in some solid gory kills throughout here. These hold the film up over its rather blatant flaws along the way. The most apparent issue here is the fact that there's just no reason here for the connection to the poem and the creatures' release, as this is severely underwhelming and really seems quite unlikely. This is the easiest problem to fix and doesn't really deserve to be as big an issue as it is due to the central premise being it as the notion works, but the whole concept is a big enough issue. As well, there are some big issues with how long it takes for the creature to become known to the group as this has some pretty lame reasons to keep them from believing her even after witnessing an attack that she couldn't be responsible so this one does have an issue there. Along with some spotty CGI for the creature, these here hold this one down. Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

• A surprise from SyFY...

  paul_haakonsen2018-06-09

  This was actually a rather surprisingly nice movie for a SyFy production. Yeah, they usually put out some rather questionable movies. But every now and again they do strike gold, and they happened to do so with "Stickman". Sure while the storyline was generic as in terms of horror movies go, but it was still an entertaining movie. They had some nicely talented acting performers to fill out the various roles and characters. I will say that the performance level was quite adequate all-round. There was a good continuous flow to the storyline, which made for better enjoyment of the movie, for sure. And the creature itself was actually rather nicely made. And this being a horror movie, you of course need to have a proper scary creature or special effects. SyFy did manage to deliver here. So you might want to sit down and watch "Stickman" if you enjoy a good old fashioned creature feature.