Curse III: Blood Sacrifice

The Curse movies are exactly alike the Beyond the Door series in that none of the films bear any relationship whatsoever from each other. In this third installment of the series a white woman stops the sacrifice of a goat by the local tribe not understanding the significance of the act is to appease the death of a young boy who was killed in the beginning of the film. This really gets the Witchdoctor's goat (see what I did there) and in turn he places a curse on her. Apparently this involves being dispatched by the local sea spirit who kills friends and family alike. One can almost imagine the sea monster going onto ancestry.com and looking up extended family members in an ensuing sequel. Lone survivor Elizabeth enlists the aid of an older British woman and a young annoying child along with a haggard looking Christopher Lee as Doctor Pearson. The monster looks like the one of the fishmen from Castlevania. Who knew that sugarcane fields were so flammable.

Blah, that's all I can think about this movie. There really isn't anything memorable about this film to differentiate it from the tons of other monster mash flicks like it. This is by no means a Christopher Lee movie as he's only in it for about twenty minutes and he appears rather lifeless in his few scenes. Sometimes you just need the paycheck. Jenilee Harrison doesn't do that bad of a job as the main actress though I have to admit this is the first film I've ever seen her in since Three's Company. What I don't understand is this creature that was summoned uses a Panga - an African machete - to kill his victims. What's the point? Why didn't the crazy as hell Witchdoctor just kill them instead especially since he did just that to the boy in the beginning. By the way, it's not too smart to give away your position in a sugarcane field by incessantly cackling like an Arsenio Hall audience member. Some of the murders are rather graphic and there are a couple of nude scenes but other than that this is mostly a forgettable affair. Hope that check didn't bounce Christopher.

I should point out that "Curse III" is not, despite the name, a sequel. I know this is confusing.

The story is set in Africa in 1950 and is, despite this, a slasher film. A British colonist has married into a family of idiots. When his wife and her sister are on a drive, they come upon a tribe about to sacrifice a goat to their gods. However, the women insist on taking the 'poor goat' and therefore incur the wrath of the tribe. Not surprisingly, soon folks start getting hacked to pieces...and for our supposed amusement.

I know that slasher films are popular with many folks, though I find them very dull because they are all essentially the same. Despite the change of locale and African gods aspects, this is just a slasher pic...complete with gratuitous nudity, stupid people you wouldn't mind seeing die and lots of blood. It's pretty mindless, though for the genre it's reasonably well made. Plus, it features Christopher Lee in a supporting role...which is something. Overall, I didn't enjoy the movie but perhaps slasher pic fans will.

A likable cast and and decent location photography make this low budget horror film watchable. Jenilee Harrison (Suzanne Somers' replacement, Cindy, on "Three's Company") plays a 1950s great white huntress in Africa who interrupts a sacred tribal ceremony, so the tribe unleashes a demon-like creature to torment her. To add a bit of gravitas to the low budget cheese-fest is the great Christoper Lee, still in his career slump before Peter Jackson sparked a late career revival for Lee with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I also noticed in the credits Gavin Hood as a supporting actor, who's now better know as the director of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," "Enders Game" and other big Hollywood projects. This film's director never directed another film, but he didn't do a bad job. He was actually the editor on some pretty cool movies including "Quadrophenia" and "Return of the Jedi." Overall, this is nothing to go our of your way to watch, but it did have a scrappy, entertaining Charles Band/Full Moon Features kind of vibe that was enough to hold my interest.

An American bride's sister is visiting her and her sugar plantation owning husband in South Africa. While out one afternoon, the sister disrupts a native tribe's voodoo ceremony in an attempt to keep them from sacrificing a goat. As a result, a witch doctor puts a curse on them. It isn't long before a demon from the sea is stalking the family and anyone else they know.

Originally titled Panga, this is also known as Curse III: Blood Sacrifice, but none of the four films in that series have anything to do with each other. While this is far from a great movie, it is a fun watch. The African locations make for nice eye candy and we get Christopher Lee in a secondary role as a doctor who may be involved in the killings. Jenilee Harrison makes for an attractive leading lady, but her character can be rather annoying. No one else in the cast makes much of an impression, but they're mostly there to be machete fodder anyway. That's right, this demon uses a machete. It's funny to note that the director's last name is Barton, also the last name of the director behind Zaat, which I watched not long before viewing this one. The fish-like demon on display here reminded me of the creature from that film, only with much better effects work courtesy of Chris Walas.

The score for this film is rather odd, but you can't deny that it's catchy. It was stuck in my head for a good day afterward. Speaking of odd, there's a neat sequence where a character is burned alive after he's caught spying on the main characters from a sugar cane field. You would have to see the scene to realize how bizarre it really is.

Curse III: Blood Sacrifice is quite an entertaining film. As of yet, I have only seen this one and Curse I in the series. I hated "The Curse", because I felt it was one of those "quick films" to try and make Wil Wheaton a star. I had read that none of the sequels had anything to do with the original, so I figured that I would enjoy this. I did. I figured the budget was low, and I always enjoy when filmmakers work well on a shoestring budget. A women interrupts the sacrifice of a goat. The leader of the tribe summons a curse from the sea to pay her, her friends, and her family back. The movie was well done, and the East African scenery was a nice addition to an already well done film. Christopher Lee was in fine form, and the film made some sense unlike the original. The "sea creature" was a little cheesy, but the mystery and suspense made up for the cheesy, low budget special effects. It's one of those films that leaves you guessing about what might happen next. "Curse III" is definitely one of the best purchases I made. See this film, I guarantee you that if you don't like it, you won't hate it!