CHILD OF SATAN (a.k.a. Neron) * USA 2018 Dir: Mitesh Kumar Patel, Sam Son 100 mins
Five years after a dubious drunken encounter in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead, handsome bastard Yves Bright alternates doting on his new baby with nurse wife Kacey Barnfield with shagging her slutty best friend (Caite Upton).
Born during a solar eclipse, the baby is soon exerting its apocalypse-bringing evil influence upon various secondary characters while the soap opera B-story climaxes with the applaudable line “Fuck you, you home-wrecking cunt!” Pedestrian beyond belief, this cliché-ridden snooze-fest takes a kitchen-sink approach, throwing in a patronisingly portrayed superstitious Mexican nanny and listless scenes of the imperilled heroine struggling to convince everyone else that she’s not going crazy. Eric Roberts stops by for an amusing cameo as a Basil Exposition priest / “Guardian” who boldly delivers embarrassing lines (“He will be immortal soon…”) with a straight face and fortunately owns a world-saving dagger. Devoid of horror and suspense, and written without irony (“the craziest eyes I’ve ever seen!”), this had the potential to be a fun 70’s style post-OMEN devil-movie but constantly insults its audience with brain-dead plotting, passionless sex scenes and predictably useless CGI blood.
Review by Steven West