Despiser

I was cruising the sell-through bin at Hollywood Video. You know the one? Pickup a previewed movie for a few bucks? So I see this one with a CG beast on the cover called DESPISER. It's about purgatory. Okay, I'll bite. How bad can it be considering the price I paid? Well … first let me say this is not mainstream Hollywood. This is a little no-budget picture shot in 1998 before the advent of SIN CITY, SKY CAPTAIN and other hi-budget fare. So, needless to say, it's a bit crude by that standard. However, considering its budget, it's really quite impressive. Mind you, it needs a bit of suspension of disbelief, but it has heart and it has soul. It concerns the quest of an artist (Mark Redfield) who travels to purgatory to rescue his wife from despotic forces. He encounters a band of men and women from different times -- I'm reminded of the Piers Anthony story with a similar conceit. He teams up with these folks (Doug Brown, Michael Weitz, Frank Smith, and Tara Bilkins) and they head out on a CG adventure to face down the Despiser -- a CG critter who's holding the hero's wife in his "bad guy" castle. All in all, it's a bit juvenile. But hey, what fantasy ultimately isn't? I enjoyed the film. I got into it. I suspended disbelief. I wanted Gordon to succeed. I was sad when the hero's hit the fan.

Somehow this picture seem to invite love/hate reviews! Wow. What's with that? Chill out folks. For six bucks, it's a fun view. I liked it. If you have a heart for fantasy, then perhaps you may like DESPISER too.