The Binding (2016) Reviews

• Not enough horrific & thriller!

  lion_month2016-08-03

  As a big fan of horror films who has already watched more than 700 horror movies, I would say that this work was not good enough. I tell you why! The movie was a story about a family; a couple with their little child. The husband was a priest who underwent possession. He thought to be bound to god and was commanded to sacrifice his kid for the god's sake as Abraham did. However, he was possessed by evil. His problem couldn't be solved by psychologist and exorcism until the end of the film. As I realized. this movie was the first long film direction by Gus Krieger. I understand it was a cheap product but the story was not powerful and it didn't scare me at all. The movie did not have enough factors to thrill anybody. The movie, in fact, lack appropriate horrific music and characters. Josh Heisler, as the husband, was not a perfect option for this role and his action was weak and even Amy Gumenick as Sarah. It was better they could use a scary makeup for the husband. To this end, I gave 3/10. might be seen for only once but not definitely more!

• He never came

  nogodnomasters2017-10-29

  Sarah (Amy Gumenick) is married to reformed drinker and minister Bram (Josh Heisler). They just had a daughter. Bram gets visions and a voice from God that he must kill his daughter (binding of Abraham, Isaac etc.) to prevent the apocalypse...which is part of prophecy. The story is a long drawn out drama of Sarah taking precautions to isolate the child while getting her husband professional help, talking to everyone including Stuart Pankin. While the ending proved interesting, it took too long to develop to get there. This is a film religious people might enjoy more than the rest of us as it concerns tests of faith. Guide: 1 F-word. No sex or nudity

• Objectively, not a bad film

  cjs65472016-10-06

  If you're either very religious or not at all this film might find a way to offend you. Just the thought that God-fearing Christians would deliberate 'visions of commandments of sacrifice' would be offensive to both God-fearing Christians AND atheists. But regardless we have to admit this is how some people in the world would ACTUALLY behave, and more people than we like to admit. Yet in the end I was not left with any religious impressions - mainly just a very strong one of parental love. In the end I could believe that the father had been through torture (psychological and/or divine) and chosen to save his beloved daughter. I was disappointed a bit by the ending I must admit, to think that the director would end with something as ridiculous as an actual prophesied apocalypse is nothing short of thick in this day and age, and somewhat demeans the whole parental love motif that was going on, but at the same time, perhaps it heightens it. I don't know, and for that alone (for who cares about cinematography, score and whatnot when there's controversy afoot) I give it 6 stars. The father having made his sacrifice, one has to wonder at the look of fear in the mother's eyes at the end and think, would she have done the same, and what would she do now?

• The Boring

  wrightiswright2016-08-26

  Wonder why I hate religion? Because, from my experience, it's the cause of most of the world's problems. Check out The Binding, for example. Here we have a husband who flat out repeatedly states says HE'S GOING TO CUT THE HEART OUT OF HIS OWN BABY because of some dumb constant hallucinogenic vision of Moses telling him he must to save the world... and the reason why the wife doesn't flee to the cops straight away? Because she comes from a 'conservative' Christian sect, where the man is always the boss. Instead, they see a pastor, who simply pays lip service to the problem by referring the man to a God fearing psychiatrist... who turns out to be even more of a nut job than the husband is. What are the odds, eh? Two bible-bashing wackos in the same community, in the heart of white collar America? Pinch me, I must be dreaming. Anyway, the fact the wife stills stays with him after he starts drinking the booze and banging his head against the wall makes her almost as culpable as he is... until one day a Nice Man who's as deathly dull as her partner is bat sh*t crazy unexpectedly arrives on her doorstep one day, and they instantly hit it off. What odds to I get on him being the dude to save the day, take her away from this outdated, cult-like, scripture led hell? Who cares. I'd given up by this point... After all, if the film I'm seeing has characters that are stupider than your average Jeremy Kyle guest and you're expected to sympathise with them, I bail. Just a little rule I have. 3/10

• Three times longer than it should be

  cyberknight2017-10-01

  It plays like a Twilight Zone episode, but it's 1h27min long, so, about one hour longer than it should be. The first actual action only happens after half an hour. If you don't want to watch it, keep reading, otherwise, skip and go watch it. Yes, -= SPOILER ALERT =-, I'm going to spill out all the story (it's kind of necessary for my after comments to make sense). The story is about a Christian priest, married, who starts receiving a commandment from whom he believes to be his god, every time he closes his eyes: to kill his daughter, akin to biblical Abraham (so is said in the film), otherwise, the world will be taken by darkness and horror. The priest believes it's a test of his faith in his god, while everybody else believes he is just going crazy, like another member of his family (people got killed because of that). As the film moves (slowly) forward, someone suggests it's not his god talking to him, but Lucifer, so he gets an exorcism done, which fails, but he doesn't tell anybody until the end of the film (surprise!) Just before that, we see a dream (supposedly his) commanding him to kill his "flesh and blood", which he interprets literally, killing himself, instead of his daughter. The last scene shows his wife sitting outside, at night, relieved that it's all over, when, suddenly, the city lights below start going off and everything gets dark. The story was not original (recalled me of 1988's "The Seventh Sign", about sacrifices, and "Prince of Darkness", about prophetic dreams), but the film was just too long with too few happening on screen to be entertaining. The director also doesn't seem to trust in tripods or steadicams, so the images are usually "shaky", like in the "Battlestar Galactica" television series remake, also with too close close-ups. It's pretentious, annoying and very distracting, something that didn't happen in "Absentia" (2011), for example, in which the camera style worked very well to add emotion to the scenes and the storytelling. Boredom makes it fail as a thriller, the lack of tension makes it fail as an horror, the shaky camera and thin story makes it fail as entertainment and the supernatural ending just lifted the meter a bit, but not enough to save it. In the end, the question is not answered, if it was really a vengeful god or Lucifer messing around with the priest's head and the world (or if it was just a power shortage in the city, how dumb would that be?)