With Josh Lobo's VERY slow-burn, would-be horror-thriller, I TRAPPED THE DEVIL, prepare to shred your disbelief

That's right: Do not simply, as they say, "suspend your disbelief." Instead, shred it, stomp on it, burn it and bury it, if you plan to even vaguely enjoy a new "scary" movie entitled I TRAPPED THE DEVIL. As though -- let's say, to begin with, one even believes in the devil -- you could actually "trap" the thing. What? The devil is to be that easily had? In any case, if you have even paid attention to the title of this movie, then the first third of the film -- the what's up here? portion -- will be quite clear to you, even if it is not to two out of three of the movie's protagonists.

These would include two brothers and one's girlfriend or maybe wife, the latter two of which, come to visit the other brother at Christmastime.

As written and directed by Josh Lobo, shown at left, once all three characters are on the same page, the rest of the film is then devoted to some very paltry discussions about morality and philosophy and various things to which said devil might be up.

The final third is, as expected, devoted to what is really locked behind that basement door, along with the requisite would-be suspense and bloodshed and -- it must be said -- the sort of heavy-duty boredom during which TrustMovies thought he would go straight put of his fucking mind having to sit through.

The leading cast members do what they can with material that is, at best, been-there/done-that. These would include AJ Bowen, above, as the bro who comes to visit; Susan Burke, below, as his wife;

and Scott Poythress (below) as the bro who's done the trapping. I've seen them all in better films, and will no doubt have this pleasure again. And I hope to eventually see another, better movie from Mr. Lobo, too. (If the finale of this film does not put old-time movie buffs in mind of Toby Dammit, the Fellini segment of Spirits of the Dead, I shall be surprised.)

Distributed by IFC Films and running just 83 minutes, I Trapped the Devil opens in a select and very limited theatrical release this coming Friday, April 26 -- at which time it will simultaneously appear on VOD nationwide.

Joel Potrykus & his loony-tune protagonists return with THE ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK

TrustMovies was a big fan of the movie Buzzard, bizarre as it was, and so he looked forward hugely to whatever its writer/director, Joel Potrykus might offer up next. Well, that "whatever" opens this week, and it is something quite else.

I have not viewed a movie this annoying and utterly unengaging in a very long time. In the couple of days since I watched it, I've been mulling over what made it such an negative experience for me. To that end I've come up with a theory or two.

In Buzzard, Mr. Potrykus (shown at left) had a perhaps equally crazy and unlikable protagonist. But there, we see much more of the guy's interaction with others. We also learn much more about him. In THE ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK, our sociopathic jerk protagonist (named Sean and played by Ty Hickson, shown below and further below) is someone we learn next to nothing about in the course of this 82-minute movie -- except that he is partial to devil worship and seems to be trying to conjur Belial all on his own. What Mr. Hickson is asked to do, he does just fine. Unfortunately, he is asked to do damned little.

The character of Sean begins crazy and only goes further down that same path. As a character, he's pretty nearly a cipher. As for interaction, he has a friend (played by Amari Cheatom) who visits and brings him supplies, but their interaction basically amounts to the rather tried-and-tired "Fuck you" "Fuck you, too" sort of thing.

There is one scene involving the wrong kind of cat food -- yes, there's a cat here (above, center), and also eventually an opossum (or phonetically/ ungrammatically, a possum) -- in which both actors are allowed to show us something that approaches actual "behavior." They do, and briefly the film comes to life. And then it's back to the basics of would-be scares and horror -- of which there are practically none. Unless you scare and get horrified very easily (for instance, if you imagine that The Conjuring was the least bit shiver-provoking).

I'm almost ready to suggest that Mr. Potryus is trying to update Blair Witch and conflate it with any number of other witchcraft and let's-go-into-the-woods-'cause-they're-scary movies that we've seen over the past decade or so. He manages a few scenes that hint at scares, but all this could also be going on only in our protagonist's mind. Either way, there is very little real content here, though the music is often deafeningly loud and ugly. For my taste, The Alchemist Cookbook is a distinct come-down from Buzzard. But maybe you'll have a different reaction. Good luck.

The movie is being distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories, which is opening the film in an unusual manner this Friday, October 7, when The Alchemist Cookbook will be available worldwide for pay-what-you-wish via BitTorrent Now, before (or in one case, simultaneous with) its screening debut in (very) select theaters across the country. You can find those various theaters by clicking here and scrolling down.

Michael J. Bassett's SOLOMON KANE (from the Conan man) gets tardy theatrical debut

The character of Solomon Kane was first intro-duced in 1928 by the pulp fiction/sci-fi/fantasy writer Robert E. Howard, who also created Conan the Barbarian, and who was immortalized by the excellent actor Vincent D'Onofrio early in his own career in Dan Ireland's fine film, The Whole Wide World.

TrustMovies is leading off with the above information because the back-story here beats out considerably what we see on screen, even though what we see is very well produced (there must have been quite a budget for this one!) and decently acted, but written and directed (by Michael J. Bassett, pictured at left) just a little too slowly and heavy-handedly to keep the film's (and our) juices flowing fast enough. The other big problem may be that the story's rather odd combination of a religious (sort of), sword-wielding hero in the 1700s and some kind of not very well-explained but seemingly all-powerful and supernatural evil force is neither a marriage made in heaven nor hell. Instead it simply sits there on screen without ever quite coalescing. The combo seems somewhat original--let's give it that--but also rather unnecessary.

We want to be, and sometimes are, caught up in the human actions and reactions of the characters. And, then, dat ol' devil stuff (above) intrudes and interferes -- with special effects galore -- and it's as though we've entered another movie.

According to Wikipedia, the film was a critical success in England and was also well-received in France and Spain. If so, I wonder why it has taken three years for it to hit U.S. theaters? (One of its fine supporting actors, Pete Postlethwaite, above, has been dead for almost two of those years.)

The star of the film is the brawny, buff actor James Purefoy, above, who has had success in films both intellectual (the TV version A Dance to the Music of Time and the movie version of Mansfield Park) and action-filled (Resident Evil and Ironclad) -- though he may be best-known over here for the HBO series Rome, which combined his plentiful acting ability with some equally plentiful full-frontal work. As Solomon, in which he is mostly lock-jawed, taciturn and usually fully-dressed, he is perfectly OK but not, after all else we've seen him do, particularly interesting.

The surprisingly stellar (and really enormous) cast also includes Alice Krige, Max von Sydow (above), Rachel Hurd Wood (below) and Jason Flemyng, but they tend to get lost amidst all the glum and gloom, the many other cast members, and finally those special effects (just a taste of which are shown two photos up and at bottom).

The rights for filming this property are said to have been negotiated some fifteen years ago, back in 1997. I am surprised somehow that Mel Gibson did not grab them immediately and do the film with himself in the lead. I mean, there is a scene here in which Solomon is crucified, for goodness sake. What more could our masochistic martyr Mel have wanted in a role?

Solomon Kane, distributed by Radius TWC (that's some web site the company has bothered to set up!) and running 104 minutes, opens this Friday, September 28, here and there, I guess. In New York, look for it at the AMC  Empire 25.  In the Los Angeles area, try the AMC Burbank 16. Elsewhere? Your move.