User reviews

I'm writing this with 30 minutes left. The main actor knows Latin and it's a good thing she does because what else would they do to look up what phrases mean? Oh yeah, they could google it.

This movie is neither scary or entertaining but I took the time to watch it and I appreciate you taking the time to read my review.

Jeremy Piven and Sean Aston are in this, and they probably didn't realize what they were signing up for. The script is kind of a mess, I guess there are fire riots going on and the police are nowhere to be found, leaving a paramedic to crack the case.

I was going to watch a Jennifer Lawrence movie on Netflix and ended up watching this instead and I profoundly regret it, guess I'll start cleaning while this move finishes.

Wow. Full disclosure, I couldn't make it through this. It honestly felt like a bad attempt at a parody of "Seven" but directed by someone whose background is in Nickelodeon sitcoms and has never seen the film. If you want to piss off Jeremy Piven in a bar, ask him about this project. Fairly early on (but not too long before I shut it off) there is a scene where they show a defunct theater marquee advertising Jerry Lewis' "A Slapstick of Another Kind," one of the worst wide theatrical release films ever produced. I assume it was a tip of the cap or a thumb of the nose to someone on the production related to that steaming present. In retrospect, it may be the best thing in the film because it makes me laugh that such a horrible picture would intentionally reference one of the few films it keeps company on the very lowest of celluloid rungs with. The best I can say about this picture is the camera is always in focus though the lighting is all wrong, along with its direction, script and existence.

Somehow, I had some hopes for this one. The cast is good, the premise was interesting, it just needed a good direction and execution.

Which completely lacked sadly. A movie that is very fast forward, few stops, always on the run, until the flashes start..and end with the movie.

The origin story here takes forever and becomes annoying and infuriating, the development stops, the killings take a back seat and we are in a third act that does nothing but hit us in the head with why is this all happening.

It started quite good I must say, very raw movie that showed exactly what it wanted to show with no holdbacks, but it became sort of a joke while moving on. Scenes that looked ridiculous, dialogue written by kids, out of the blue nothing seemed to make sense anymore. I really think it had some nice vibes from Sin City and V for Vendetta, but wow did this turn bad.

You should give Major Grom: Plague Doctor a chance, that one actually is a good movie and has the same style.

Vindicta is not recommended at all, movies like Daredevil, the short version or Elektra are its equals.

Cheers!

Vindicta is a revenge serial killer film. It follows the tropes of this genre almost to the T. It is heavily cliched and trite, both in plotting and dialogue. Lead character is a spunky, tough woman who is a paramedic following in her fire fighter father. Oh, and she studied languages in college, specifically Latin and Chinese. This is important because the killer writes Latin phrases at each murder site. (Oh she also speaks Mandarin because she was raised in China town. No reason for this other than one other minor character speaks Mandarin for her to speak in an emergency situation.)

Stereotypical characters abound simply to fit plotting and structuring of the film. So many elements of this film are contrived that they blatantly shout their message out of the screen.

Not hugely mysterious, so the ending isn't much of a shock. It could almost be a good drinking game given how predictable this film is. Though I wouldn't want to watch it a second time.

The potential was there for this to be an OK flic. Good actors, not a terrible story. Exceptionally poor script. As a horror fanatic I've seen everything. I can appreciate campy, cheesy, poorly written horror done for the sake of being that way on purpose. I even enjoy horror that's "so absolutely bad that it's actually good." Type of flics.... But THIS? The actually tried to be good and they failed epically. It's just so bad that i had to come here and write a review for the abomination that I just wasted my time on. I won't give any spoilers, but for the love of God, just don't waste your time. It's truly a showpiece of how to make a terrible movie. That being said, go ahead and watch it so you can see what I'm talking about.

I've watched many a low budget movie over the years. Some are groaners, and some are very effective. This one most definitely falls under the former. It dawned upon me, about two-thirds of the way through, that the production values reminded me of one of the many Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. The story felt like somebody was channeling R. L. Stine only without his sense of humor. The acting is wildly uneven as well. I suppose Jeremy Piven and Sean Astin needed to buy something. Why else would they to appear in this sad piece of dreck? Must be it. You have 90 minutes to waste? Here you go.

Greetings again from the darkness. Sometimes low budget horror movies work, and sometimes they don't. As a general guideline, the less complicated they are, the better the chance of successful entertainment. Director Sean McNamara (THE KING'S DAUGHTER, 2022) is one of the more prolific directors you'll find. His work includes TV series, videos, short films, and feature films. He currently has 15 projects in the hopper. Sean is a busy man.

With a script by Ian Neligh and Steven Paul, this film offers moments of hope, but mostly it's too ambitious ... a rare criticism these days. Trying to tackle too many story lines creates a mess in the exact place a decent little genre film could have been born. Elena Kampouris (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2 & 3) stars as Lou, a rookie paramedic just out of training. Fire Chief Rick (Sean Astin, THE LORD OF THE RINGS franchise) reluctantly assigns her to a first ride in the middle of riots, protests, and fires in a rough part of Seattle.

In addition to the mass chaos in the city, there is a masked killer on the loose - one who thrives on vicious and violent attacks. Suspicions arise when the same building burns that burned five years earlier, killing a mother and son. Fortunately, Lou is not a typical newbie. She possesses fighting skills and is fluent in Latin and Mandarin. Latin comes in quite handy since the killer scrawls his messages in Latin, leaving Lou to assist Detective Russo (Travis Nelson) with clues in the case.

In addition to her skills, Lou is also the idealistic daughter of retired cop played by Jeremy Piven ("Entourage"). The two are so close she even has a bobblehead of him on her car dash. Lou still blames her 9-year-old self for not saving her mother's life, no matter how many times people remind her she was just a kid. Perhaps you are starting to sense the issues with the film, and I have yet to mention the corruption and greed at the heart of the killer's mission of vengeance. One nice touch is the mask ... it's Michelangelo's David, and it's plenty creepy, even if most of the characters here don't come across as real people. Elena Kampouris is to be commended for giving her all to the role, but the writers and the film likely would have benefited from the KISS approach, Opening in select theaters and on digital beginning October 6, 2023.

I thought this could maybe (please) be a story of a clever serial killer with a grudge. More like Kevin Spacey in Se7en. It's not.

Worse for the plot line is having a pretty young paramedic who coincidentally speaks Mandarin and Latin and knows jujitsu...And nobody at all thinks to look up events from only 5 years earlier with this same building?

The irritation for me was the mix of dog Latin with quotes from Virgil's Aeneid, and, worse still nobody explains the inclusion of Ancient Greek gods rather than Ancient Roman gods in this Latin fest. Ancient Greeks spoke Ancient Greek. And they came well before there even was Latin. Ancient Romans spoke Latin. And they had their own gods.

While the city is in chaos with riots, protests and vandalism, a mysterious killer with a face mask resembling Michaelangelo's David terrorizes the city. He brutally kills his victims and leaves Latin graffiti at every crime scene.

Meanwhile, Lou (Elena Kampouris) - a fire paramedic - is ready for her first day out on the job, partnering with Jason (Jaime M. Callica), who has been on the force for 15 years. While the killings appear to be random at first, there are a few twists as the film develops. David made for a creepy and memorable villain.

Yes, this is a slasher movie, but there's more to it than meets the eye. This is a vengeance movie, and told from the perspective of a victim turned villain. I found this approach rather interesting. Still, be prepared for a few disturbing and grotesque scenes.

There are several issues, though, and the biggest and most obvious is probably the killer's reveal video. How did he get all this footage? Who filmed it? Some of the events fell into place far too perfectly to David's advantage, and wasn't always believable. Nevertheless, it is still a good turn of events which justifies the killer's actions (to a certain extent, off course).

'Vindicta' has a 'Scream/Halloween' feel to it. Although by no means a perfect movie, I rather enjoyed it and predict it will become a cult classic.

The movie in general, and the ending specifically, are beyond stupid. But I like what happened to Jeremy Piven. That was nice.

Plus watching Travis Nelson in a suit for an hour and a half is a good use of anyone's time.

There isn't much more to say. It comes across as a C-story plotline in a WB spinoff of a spinoff of a spinoff of a DC television program. As if they scrapped the bottom of the barrel of comic characters and added dumb cops.

Think Catwoman's cousin's hairdresser's cop brother moves to Seattle and finds all the worst type of overly elaborate serial killers with goofy MOs. Then a Serbian AI bot farm wrote the script.

Yeah. Costumes were viewable though.

I have seen this amazing actor in just about everything! JAIME M CALLICA did such a wonderful job with his character. To be honest, i wanted more! No spoilers but i expected more screen time for him! Love this guy! This movie was awesome and had a great cast! So many iconic actors. Very well crafted movie! I love the character development of each of the leads. This movie had lots of drama, gore, intensity, and intrigue. Absolutely thrilling! I learned a few words in latin also! All in all, this movie is one for the books! JAIME M CALLICA is definitely a rising star! Now, all that's needed is a sequel!

My Google Latin didn't come out as expected, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, id quod est.

Vindicta feels like a meld of a couple of other movies, without their budget, Daredevil (2003) and Elektra (2005) come to mind, as somebody else stated in these reviews. It does seem to be a bit of a mash, parts were good, others not. Writers Ian Neligh and Steven Paul were possibly not on the same page. That's just my opinion though.

Elena Kampouris was, I felt, miscast in this role, although she did have some credible parts in this movie.

David (Daniel Cudmore) wore this mask that only had two small holes for his eyes. His peripheral vision must have been crap and wouldn't have helped him on his killing spree.

Jeremy Piven was in this, and that's all I have to say about it, that's how impactful his presence was.

Anyway, overall, Vindicta had a chance to be good, but all it managed was average. I would recommend this, but with the above warnings.

This movie is laughably bad.

It seems like it was written by the school age child of a big Hollywood producer or something.

Because I'm not sure how anyone could read a script like this and think it was a good idea to make.

It's literally that awful.

Whoever it was has been watching way too many marvel movies "for inspiration".

Neither the writer, director, or any of the actors in this film should ever work again.

Everyone involved should be immediately blacklisted, going forth.

The actors are all very recognizable faces...but they put on some of the most half-assed performances I've ever seen.

I genuinely can't tell if they suck that bad, or weren't even trying.

But it's real bad.

I can never look at them with any modicum of respect ever again.

The whole thing is so poorly constructed...it's not inherently clear what the hell is actually going on.

There's definitely a serial killer on the loose...amidst widescale riots aimed at a corrupt police force...and a polyglot paramedic, that still lives with her father, and has a fluent understanding of latin.

But what the point of it all is?

Who the hell cares.

If I wasn't trying to watch every horror film made in 2023, I honestly would have shut this off after the first 3 minutes.

It, quite literally, has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Actually...that's not entirely fair.

Because I genuinely couldn't stop laughing at how bad it is.

It's confounding to think that there's actually some idiot out there that greenlit this.

I'm not sure who that was...but whoever it is should be publicly flogged for their transgressions.

The writer, however, should be jailed indefinitely.

Because, you'd think it would take skill to suck this hard.

But they brought the suck here effortlessly.

1 out of 10.

I love Sean Astin and have since childhood, but nooooo. There isn't enough wine for this much cheese. Bring on the quesadillas and tacos and maybe a fondue fountain. So much awful cheese it kept getting worse as it went along. Time wasted.

The actors were perfectly fine. They didn't do a bad job at all, but the writers and director along with the special effects team at the behest of the director were terrible. I won't give spoilers, but the final moments made me totally cringe then break out laughing.

I also could have felt bad for the killer, but the writers did all they could to prevent you from doing that.

What a mess! Terrible story telling. Perhaps to cancel the project were simply more expensive. Should be an excruciating experience for the actors.

Terrible dialogues. I was screaming boos to my screen for every line.

I had 1 hour 27 minutes to spend on learning how to waste time in the worst possible ways since I have checked the reviews prior to watching it. Apparently the previous reviewers were very generous. I'm contemplating on asking to have that 1 hour 27 minutes returned.

I still have some characters to go and I cannot use profanity, otherwise the kindness of giving 2 stars would be wasted.

I never even heard of this movie nor did I have it on my radar at all. I saw it was on Paramount and figured it would be a passable/tolerable time killer.

What I got was a surprisingly refreshing, true to form old school slasher. What made this one stand out is that all of the horror takes place during civil unrest. It helps the killer blend in with the madness already taking place.

Were there a lot of implausible scenes and spotty acting? Of course. But overall the lead did very well and the whole Latin/Greek connection made it interesting as well.

It's not so much about who the killer is but the motive that keeps you captivated. The death scenes were pretty gnarly, some good suspenseful moments and a fun chase scene in the third act.

8/10 but waaaay underrated on here.