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"The Crooked Man" dir. by Jesse Holland



"The Crooked Man"

Where I watched it: Netflix

The Crooked Man has no affiliation with The Conjuring universe. A public domain nursery rhyme that a production team decided to capitalize on after the success of The Crooked Man's appearance in The Conjuring 2.

I believe there are plans to release a Crooked Man movie that is directly linked to the character in the Conjuring film... hopefully with Javier Botet reprising the role as he is the lankiest of the lanky bois.

This film came out almost immediately after The Conjuring 2 and its release can be likened to the release model of the Asylum films: Make movies that your audience might mistake for other better made films, ie Transmorphers, Ape Vs Monster, Fast and Ferocious, etc.

This film is extremely low budget, the effects, camera work and acting are all in the vein of Asylum/SyFy movies. Actually I think this is a SyFy movie. The main actor is so bad she actually reminded me a lot of Maria Sofia from Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The crooked man himself doesn't look too bad, although his look is more along the lines of the Hitcher from The Mighty Boosh than the genuinely terrifying version seen in The Conjuring 2.

Michael Jai White is barely in this, clearly where most of the budget went. And just like these kind of movies, they've got him front and center on the movie poster and his name billed first in the opening credits when it's basically a glorified cameo.

Wish I could say that this was at least laughably bad but sadly this was not the case.

Some of the gore effects were alright I guess. The glitchy effects that they slapped all over the crooked man made no sense at all.

2/10

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