Karma

Ever since Melvin Van Peebles' revolutionary iconic 1971 movie Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song credited for ushering in the blaxploitation era, the Van Peebles name has carried a certain amount of gravitas through ensuing film history.

That said, Mandela, son of Melvin's son Mario Van Peebles, I imagine does benefit from name recognition from older black moviegoers - even despite the fact that father Mario, to be fair, has had only a spotty movie career himself.

In this vehicle, Mandela and his wife do credible acting, working with poor stodgy storytelling. If you tuned in midstream to the movie you would think you were watching a life insurance commercial.

The wife, after literally PLEADING with her husband not to leave her and her mother alone out of sheer fear (he leaves anyway), inexplicably, minutes later, she opens the door to a bloodied creepy stranger, without so much as asking him "what happened", then leaves said stranger standing at her open door while she goes to fetch a cell phone which she takes forever to retrieve.

THEN, after this stranger has pawed through all of her personal longings within reach, she HANDS the creeper her personal cell phone and allows him to rummage through all her personal photos. Really? Does she ask for her phone back. No. She allows him to casually keep scrolling while she simply fidgets nervously.

THEN when she tries to flee the creeper she encounters one locked door after another because APPARENTLY even in her OWN house she doesn't remember which doors she keeps locked and which ones she keeps unlocked.

This is the level of logic we encounter throughout the movie.

Watch the movie if only by chance your some sort of Van Peebles completist.

This one could have been a great horror movie if the story was well-crafted and nurtured. I didn't know why the priest didn't intervene a little earlier. Not to mention earlier the weird fact that it's the priest who emerges whereas the audience was expecting the police.

Also the story lacks a certain logic; why the curse was still stalking Kevin if he passed it along to Manny? And Kevin's mother's face appear as the manifestation of the demon? Was she a sorceress? Why does she summon Dharma when Manny makes Kevin sign the eviction papers?

All I knew about this 2018 movie when I sat down to watch it was that it was a horror movie of sorts.

Now, the term horror should be used very lightly here, because this wasn't a particularly scary movie from writer Daniel Gilboy and at the helm of director Nick Simon.

The storyline definitely had some interesting enough aspects, but it just had a tendency of sinking down into stupidity, and that was a shame because it definitely colored the rest of the movie unnecessarily. The whole aspect of karma was a nice touch though, and one that is not seen all that much as a main focal point in horror movies, as it was used in this 2018 movie.

Mandela Van Peebles carried the movie quite well with his performance. And was actually the one that stood out the most in the movie, in my opinion. Otherwise it was adequate acting performances from the cast, taking into consideration the limitations of the script and storyline. It was, however, nice to see Tim Russ in a movie such as this, just a shame that his talent wasn't utilized more thoroughly, because he could definitely have brought a lot more to the movie.

"Karma" is the type of movie that you will watch once and then never again. Because it just doesn't have enough appeal or actual meat on the bone, so to speak, to support more than a single viewing. The storyline is just too linear and predictable.

This film could've been real good even with a not so good script, but the acting especially on the part of no range acting Van Peeples, made the story barely bearable to watch. Not that bad, but not that good either. Van Peeples really sucks at acting.

Trying to make ends meet, a struggling college student takes a job evicting delinquent tenants with his girlfriends' father ends up unleashing a supernatural curse on him and his family that soon turns into a race to stop the vengeful karmic demon following him to stop its effects.

This was an enjoyable enough effort. When this one does work is due to the series of supernatural actions that are undertaken due to the creature's curse coming into fruition. This one tends to favor the style of supernatural actions that could possibly be a coincidence to psychologically torment the one who's been afflicted by the curse rather than out-and-out killing them, starting off with the idea of just bad days to non-threatening events that strike them at that point. From the initial start by having friends see him at his lowest and having his car destroyed by accident to seeing his boss fall off the roof onto a running table-saw or the confrontation with the owner at the supposedly abandoned house in the middle of the woods which is a genuinely creepy sequence here, the film offers up some rather enjoyable sequences that provide some fun sequences. The fact that it's designed to break him down gives this a nice buffer to provide a variety of tactics here to generate that feeling throughout here which by coming out of nowhere tend to give this some rather solid suspense throughout here. The confrontation in the abandoned house also provides some solid fun as the supernatural antics are quite prominent here as well, leading to some enjoyable moments here which are what hold this one up for the most part over its flaws. The biggest problem with the film is the manner in which the curse is brought forth. The entire matter is an official affair that's taken up with different authorities on levels higher than his, so to have him be the target is entirely too convenient and simple especially for such a nonsense reason that's entirely well within his authority to perform. To them put the entire resources of the curse onto him because of that is rather simplistic and unnecessary by the fact that it never reveals anything about what it's supposed to be doing this for, rendering much of the scares here quite confusing as to how the curse itself is spread. As well, the idea of the curse designed to break him down psychologically means that far more often nothing here really puts him in danger as it's more about those around him which break him down so there's a slight disconnect from the curse in that regard. The last issue is a weak finale that has no bearings on the curse, plays out in an entirely confusing manner and just ends without any kind of real resolution with how it plays out. These here are what hold this one down overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.