The only thing shocking about this movie is IMDb's rating!...

Rating: 1/10 (10 June 2009)

On the way to the theater, I tell my buddy "This has an 8.0 on IMDb, it MUST be good!" Ummm...No. I've seen better movies on a 3-D View-Master!
OK, so the movie begins with the main character, aptly played by the wet-dream-inducing Alison Lohman, getting a cursed placed on her by an old lady who's about to get evicted from her home unless the bank helps her out. Every cliché in the book is thrown at you to get you on the side of Alison, a bank employee who decided to help throw the old lady on the street for the benefit of the bank. (The film-makers resort in their attempt to show remorse towards Alison...to showing the old lady having terrible hygiene, her contempt towards Alison, disgusting habits, and emptying the bank candies into her purse). The old lady, by the way, apparently has "powers" the rest of us don't, like the ability to place a deadly curse on others, having super-human strength and tremendous dexterity while fighting, and having the knowledge that Alison could potentially have helped her personally (although she wasn't near the conversation Alison had with the bank manager).
The curse described by the old lady then begins happening to Alison. She goes to a palm-reader (a guy who has a knack for not mentioning extremely important things until it's nearly too late) and he tells her that she is cursed.
I cannot overstate the stupidity of this palm-reading character (played by Dileep Rao). If there ever was a "Professor for the Occult" at your local University, this character would be it! He informs Alison that she would be tormented by a demon for 3 days...then the demon would come for her and drag her to hell. Alison asks Dileep if there is anything that can be done. He says "Well, you can attempt an animal sacrifice that might appease the demon". (I thought the word "might" wasn't very reassuring for a person in the midst of a fight from hell!) Anyway, Alison doesn't pick up a stray cat or one destined for the back room of her local animal shelter...no, she uses her own precious kitty for the slaughter! After murdering her kitten, she thinks everything is now fine, as a day or so goes by without incident. As the 3-day-clock is ticking down, she gets terrorized by the demon again, goes back to Dileep and proceeds to verbally beat him like a rented mule. Dileep then (AND FINALLY I MIGHT ADD) says "Well...I know this special lady who does exorcists and can drive the demon out...but it's costly, $10,000, and you need the money tonight." ** Note, I yelled out in the theater: "Could you mail that suggestion back to 2 days ago when I originally asked about what can be done?!" -- the crowd began laughing hysterically! ** Anyway, her boyfriend (played by Justin Long's mangina) gets wind that she needs the 10K and gives it to Dileep on her behalf.
I'd like to quickly add this eye-rolling sequence. Alison decides to show up at the old lady daughter's creepy mansion of a house to ask for forgiveness and to tell the old hag that she would help her get the house back. The daughter answers the door and tells her to leave...then oddly lets her in after a rude verbal tongue-thrashing. Alison walks into the house...it's very quiet...she is led through some rooms, down some stairs...then asks "Where is she?"...and her host says "Right around the corner"....she turns the corner, and get this, A PARTY IS ENSUING! People drinking, eating, talking...a scene inconsistent with a house that looked as if it hadn't had a visitor in years...and with not many cars parked out in front as Alison walked up...and knowing you hadn't heard a sound the entire time Alison was walking through the house! The scene ends with you finding out that this is actually a gathering for the old lady's funeral. How do you find this out? Alison, not paying attention to where she's walking in an odd house full of strangers, trips over the old lady's casket, making her fall out of the casket and on top of Alison, where the old lady pukes embalming gel all over her face. Wow. You can't make this stuff up.
Back to story. Dileep then takes Alison to his psychic friends house. This lady was the most cliché of all the chock-full-of-cliché people in the movie. She was fully equipped with mood-rings, the ugliest new-age jewelry possible, candles galore and items from the occult (one item on her séance table, I noticed, was a dated and dusty jar that was completely empty...oohhhh, scary!). I won't spoil things here, other to say that the exorcism doesn't go well and there's a talking goat. (Yes). After things go badly, and Alison feels she is destined for Hell, Dileep offers up one more piece of advice that would have been best said 2 days ago. (This guy is the king of yesterday's news!) Dileep, amazingly enough, tells her that she can simply give the curse away as a gift...but the recipient would go through the same hell she is and would be dragged to hell themselves in 3 days! Much to my surprise...NOT!...She can't possibly think of ANYONE who she can gift this curse to! She sees an old creaky man...yes!...Oh, his wife shows up, nevermind. She calls her rival at work...she could kill 2 birds with 1 stone by gifting him the curse...Nah, he's too sad now, nevermind! So she decides to, again, get this, go to the graveyard and dig up the body of the old lady so she can shove the gift down her throat! Wow. I told my buddy "She should give it to George W Bush!" But, seriously, she couldn't have visited a prison and gave it to a rapist or murderer? That would have required logic I guess...something this movie lacks badly.
JD