Grim Reaper (2007 Video) User Reviews (22)

Why Oh Why Did You Do This To Me?

[weaglestone · 1/10 · 5 February 2007]

I hate to criticize anything from low budget independents but this film is just plain awful. The characters are barely credible, the script is disjointed and weak and the directorship is poor. Low budget films can still be pleasing to watch, but not this one.

I fully support independents and believe that some really fine talent comes out of smaller productions but this film has left me reeling.

The concept has been flogged to death by the likes of Final Destination and now suffers from any form of originality. Please Please Please do not produce films like this unless you have a) A sensible Budget B) A credible cast and C) A decent concept.

Death (and Tax) Come to Us All

[claudio_carvalho · 3/10 · 18 November 2007]

The stripper Rachel (Cherish Lee) is hit by a cab but survives in the emergency room of a hospital. However, she sees Death chasing her, but she does not succeed in convincing the nurses. She is drugged and wakes up in St. Joseph, a mental hospital administrated by Dr. Brown (Brent Fidler). She finds five other inmates that had a near death experience and also claim that Death is coming for them, but Dr. Brown tells them that they are subject of a mass hypnosis experiment. Meanwhile, Rachel's boyfriend and student of medicine Liam (Benjamin Pitts) seeks her nearby the night-club. While trying to escape from the facility, Rachel discloses the truth about Dr. Brown and St. Joseph.

The very low-budget "Grim Reaper" has a promising weird beginning, with the confused state of mind of Rachel after the accident. However, the story shifts to a terrible and inconsistent rip-off of "Final Destination", with a messy and ridiculous screenplay. There are many flaws in the story, but the worse are: (1) Liam finds Rachel in St. Joseph and runs with her downstairs trying to find an exit. (2) How Rachel decides that she must die and face the Reaper? (3) How could a student of medical school accept the words of his stripper girlfriend that seems to be deranged and kill her in a death experiment? (4) Why Cherish Lee takes of f her overcoat after defeating the Reaper? As a stripper, she takes off only the winds of angel of her costume. The scariest scene is the conclusion with Rachel in the bathtub with an open end and a hook for a sequel. I like independent low-budget movies and horror is my favorite genre, but the story and screenplay of Ellis Walker is a lack of respect with viewers and cast. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Ceifador de Almas" ("Reaper of Souls")

May as well have been a sequel to the horror movie room 6!

[reeves2002 · 2/10 · 11 February 2007]

I had a feeling when i rented this movie i may not like it because of all the horrible straight to DVD movies these days.It reminded me a lot of the movie "room 6" that came out a year earlier.Literally the exact same plot in almost the exact same screwed up hospital which no longer existed.Hallucinations and weird nurses running rampant as some chic is trying to escape encountering other weird patients who are trapped.Finally some soul ripping creature dressed in a black cloak is killing off each patient in her dreams.This movie makes no sense.There is no way to tell what is really happening and it has no continuity.She wakes up from a nightmare to find out she's still in it. Meanwhile her boyfriend is searching for her after she was struck by a car and nobody believes him that she's missing.I agree the plot is predictable and lame.It is a complete rip off of the other film i mentioned.If this was a sequel to it then it would make more sense,but it cannot stand on it's own.I couldn't even stay awake to watch the rest of it as i lost interest thinking i have seen this all before.

Should have been a Sci-Fi original picture.

[mbj123-1 · 1 January 2007]

Grim Reaper's premise is simple: Think Final Destination meets any cheesy slasher flick from the last 20 years.

I really hate saying bad things about anything independent, but this movie is just awful. If anyone is familiar with the old television series Forever Knight, you'll have a nostalgic feeling when you start watching this movie. The camera work is very similar to it. Unfortunately, that's where the similarities end.

Grim Reaper was certainly not a good movie. Character development is simply not present and the acting is borderline comedic. It has the feel of a Sci-Fi channel original film on a budget of $30 and free pizza filmed in an abandoned warehouse.

Better Than Expected

[rls0812 · 4/10 · 14 August 2011]

When I picked up this bargain bin movie ( $1.99 USD new ) I was expecting a cheap knockoff of "Final Destination".

I was a bit surprised that there were almost no references to the other movie at all. This film can be rightly called a fairly original concept.

As far as the movie it's self, the videography was decent, and the lighting was OK.

I had an issue with the editing. A lot of scenes seem way too short. As soon as the plot point is revealed, the movie jolts to a new scene.

The acting was all over the place, ranging from deadpan, to completely out of character, or not appropriate for the situation.

One glaring example is the boyfriend character, who seems completely disinterested in his girlfriend ( main character ), though his dialog suggests he is suppose to be very concerned, and "dropped everything" to try to find her.

The story line it's self is pretty good, though due to poor directing and / or script, parts of it can be slow. There was some actual suspense built up toward the end, though most of the movie really didn't get me too "invested".

As far as the main antagonist, the Grim Reaper, when they reveal him at the end, he looks ridiculous! It looks like some one with a cheap rubber mask, and rubber foam glued to their costume.

If they didn't have the budget for a half way decent costume, they should have left the Reaper in his robes. The undead from "Evil Dead 3" are a lot better looking.

The sound effects the Reaper made got on my nerves also. No matter what surface he was walking on, it would make the generic "walking on metal grating" noises you hear in quite a few older video games.

On a final note, the mausoleum were the opining credits and the scenes near the end were shot at, look exactly like the one from "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Guest" .

Grim repair

[cobalt_blueuk · 2/10 · 11 January 2007]

First 10 minutes is the most grim, stupid, predictable, screaming female, dark, predictable, bad acting....god it goes on. The taxi accident was the worst crash effects I have ever seen. Rachel rolls over the taxi like a sack of wool (in slow motion) mixed with potatoes....

The script is jarred and seems to go from one point to the other - there's no cohesion.

This is I'm afraid as bad as it gets. I didn't watch the full film, so I might be wrong and all actors and director might have improved after the halfway point...yes, I could not take any more the 35 minutes. I like movies, but not this one.

This is 1 point above Ed Wood directing.

Well......... What can i say? Ridiculous?

[alionline83 · 3/10 · 19 November 2007]

I am so disappointed but still giving it 3 out of 10. First of all heroine is a stripper who whenever thinks, thinks herself either with her boyfriend on bed or naked in bath. Really disgusting. Story line is not awful but the direction and dialogs are extremely weak. She said "ANYBODY, SOMEBODY, LIAM" Millions of time in this movie and all the time, emotionless. The special effects are so amateur that my 8 year old brother can tell that its funny. And again the whole film was predictable and i presumed before every scene that it was going to happen. So Bad. Grim Reaper is a ghost type creature and when she her her boy friend hide behind crates right in front of the Grim Reaper, the Stupid ghost did not see them. Please Please Please do not see this movie in theater

Yet another bad horror flick for 2007

[D-Sligar · 1/10 · 15 September 2007]

Man, I am fed up with the rash of garbage we've been subjected to this year. I knew this movie had the whole Final Destination premise going, but I was hoping for a twist or something. What I got was another director trying to fill in for a bad script with a hot bod. Sorry guys, but that doesn't cut it anymore.

Cheesy acting, sound that seemed to be piped to us through a can, and a story so thread-bear that it was difficult to watch even a short part of the film. Don't waste your money, check the reviews and rating before watching this film (there's a reason it went straight-to-video). Oh yeah, most SciFi originals are leagues above this film, so take that as your measurement stick.

This movie could have been better!

[legutsa · 1/10 · 31 December 2006]

In Grim Reaper, a terror movie from director Michael Feifer, Cherish Lee plays Rachel, a surviving victim from a car crash stalked by the Grim Reaper himself who feels she should have died. In the hospital, Rachel tries to convince the staff that Death is hunting for her. Thinking her nuts, Rachel is committed to a mental health facility, where she finds herself with other inmates that have also cheated death. That night, the Grim Reaper comes for them. The movie is full of the usual terror clichés and formulas, where common sense is absent. It is a sloppy hash of a movie, poorly directed and plotted in a way that looks as if it were improvised on the spot. Feifer, who has produced over 30 independent films, could have done a better job staying closer to reality, than trying to frighten his audience at every turn. Grim Reaper feels like one cheap shot after another. Even the film's target audiences (terror junkies) are probably going to bail on this one.

A horror of a horror film

[hashmanis · 1/10 · 18 January 2007]

This movie made me cringe in my seat and at times I was forced to look away... but not for the reasons the filmmakers intended.

Disgusting and pathetic acting topped with the most stupid story and direction by an idiot.

Hated every millisecond of it.

At times I thought the writers had supernatural powers...

When the main 'thing' (I wont disgrace anyone and use the term actor) starts ranting 'Someone help me!' I was taken aback as that is exactly what I was thinking at the time.

When they discover an old newspaper that reports the closure of the asylum they are in and she quips 'This doesn't make any sense' I could only agree.

If there is a film god, then everyone on the project will never work again. I'm hoping the reaper gets them.

Amateurish rubbish at its finest! Just who slept with who to give this crap of a production the green light.

Strippers have to STRIP!

[vegeta3986 · 2/10 · 28 October 2008]

let's start off with the first big problem of this movie. the back of the DVD says "a stripper". now, forgive me if i'm wrong, but the concept of a stripper is to strip until she is naked for people's enjoyment. am i not right? OK good. i thought i was crazy. When the main character is a stripper you should be GUARANTEED nudity. however, in this WONDERFUL tale, we get a half assed actress who strips down to her big underwear and leaves the stage. are...are you serious? did a stripper just.... not strip? oh god this movie's going to suck already. it was probably something retarded like she didn't want to get naked for the camera. Well here's a hint. if the character design is a stripper and you don't want to get naked... DON'T ACCEPT THE ROLE! god. it's not that hard. whew. sorry about that. now that i got THAT rant out of the way, onto this convoluted mess of a movie.

Miss stripperella finishes her fake stripping, leaves the building, talks to her boyfriend on her cell, (cause yeah. i would TOTALLY have a stripper as my girlfriend) and then proceeds to get hit by a taxi in slow motion (which was actually mildly amusing). she wakes up in a hospital where she sees the grim reaper own the taxi driver, gets drugged by a nurse, and wakes up in an abandoned mental hospital. OH MY GOD HOW MANY OF THESE ARE THERE?!. seriously it seems every other movie has an abandoned hospital. why are there so many?! sigh. anyway, she meets the rest of the people there. a supposed mute artist, a blind girl, miss wrist slitty and some other people you don't care about. we then meet doc brown. no he didn't come back from the future. just a dude named doc brown. who apparently is the only guy in charge in this building... by himself, and for some reason gets repeated heart attacks. He doesn't lock up our heroine at first, only threatening her with a tazer. Hell, i would just beat his ass with a chair, but that's me. anyway, the boyfriend is looking for her ala silent hill style and can't seem to find her. Everyone around her gets owned while she keeps having random visions of her in a bath. no don't get excited, they don't show anything. eventually the boyfriend finds her, she goes into her subconscious, goes back in time (AHA! I KNEW it was doc brown!) to her accident and has the grim reaper get hit by the taxi. she is then transported to a mausoleum where the grim reaper turns out is a mummy (wtf?) and the sun then makes him explode. and then the lovers are finally together! and then she drowns in the tub. the end! no. i'm not kidding. that's how the movie ends.

The main problem with this movie is the fact that it's all sorts of confusing. ESPECIALLY the ending. the ending made no sense whatsoever. so he's a mummy grim reaper? (scratches head) and why does the sun kill everything?! she keeps having weird visions too which don't fit really well into this movie. The acting is also pretty terrible, but the worst has to be the grim reaper. he looks like the fisherman from i know what you did last summer and voldemort's secret gay love child. he walked like he had a gimp leg and he was INCREDIBLY nonthreatening, especially when he started STABBING people with a scythe. yeah. i scratched my head on that too. All in all, this movie is bad because it doesn't make any sense. it's not the WORST movie ever, but it definitely deserves to be in the same family. maybe the estranged retarded cousin of the crap family, but still in it. The Grim reaper in a game for your soul, wins 2 games. out of 10.

It may be crap, but God, was it funny!

[Tinter_Ninja · 7/10 · 1 December 2007]

Am i alone in thinking this movie is so bad it's good? This has become one of my favourite movies purely because it's awful! Lets review a few choice moments....

The part where the boyfriend gets stabbed with an amazing rubber knife that moves about 6 times in one shot....

Another favourite the crazy Asian doctor who does a graceful twirl and lands on his arse.... Also when he gets stabbed by the grim reaper you can see the plastic knife bending on the window!

The incredulous mewling of the grim reaper when the fat guy who gets killed with the paintbrush slams the door in his face, only for the grim reaper to convey in a angry mewl that he was having none of it and blasts the door....

And the most amazingly funny part of the film has to be when the grim reaper gets struck by daylight and could've of moonlighted as a extra in thriller with those funky shoulder rolls and pelvic thrusts! At one point he bucks his neck so hard getting into the role that his ear is flat on his back almost!

Yes this movie is rubbish, but unlike many rubbish movies which just leaves you bored at least this was humorous (even if it was unintentionally amusing!)

I recommend that you watch this movie if you just wanted a couple of cheap thrills. If however you can't appreciate the humour in a situation then don't bother!

Complete waste of time

[jjoss-nl · 1/10 · 8 March 2007]

There is only one way to describe this movie and that is that it is a complete waste of your time. A new definition for the low budget movie. Poor choice of scenery. The script must fit on a paper napkin. Only good thing I can say about this movie is Cherish, she looks beautiful (in the first 10 minutes). The movie starts of promising but after 5 minutes it's clear you made the wrong choice to go for the catchy title. If you really want to see this movie and even enjoy it a little bit try increasing the playback speed. When everyone sounds Donald Duck it wastes only 30 minutes of your time. It took me 15 minutes to start doing this and I am happy I did. By the way, Donald Duck is still 100 times better.

Another predictable "horror" movie

[aius24 · 29 December 2006]

If you need a "horror" movie that gives you the feeling you could have done a way better thing just using your imagination after a few extra beers...this is the 1. I was watching Discovery channel while watching this movie and still i was able to guess most of the dialogues. Bad acting, poor storyline, the idea is not even close to something original, music that sometimes doesn't even fit with what happens in the movie, after the first 10-15 minutes you will easily guess the whole movie...what else can i say about this movie? Oh yea, after the first five minutes of the movie it gives the impression that the director ran out of mood and ideas and left the janitor to deal with the directing while he was around the corner having a joint. If those people can make "movies" it means i chose the wrong career. I'm sure most of you will feel the same after watching this...umm... whatever i'll just call it "no budget movie". My only regret is that i cant get my 1:30 hours from my life back

Not all bad...

[Billybob-Shatner · 5/10 · 18 January 2007]

I took this film out because I've been writing a script that happens to deal with the Grim Reaper (in a sense at least) and I wanted to make sure I wasn't ripping anybody off. Plus I like to check out other low budget indie horrors.

In general, I think the flack it's getting is a bit extreme. It's obviously a low budget movie and by no means a terrible one.

PROS: Great editing/pacing (the film moves very well and has a terrific energy to it)

Good lighting - sets the mood quite well

Good technical direction - camera movies effectively, some scenes are staged quite well

Good sound design - very creepy and ominous

CONS: Mixed acting - at times its all right, at other times, its unacceptably, um, bad.

Plot - it's too familiar and too silly for its own good. And the twist with the doctor, is so ridiculous, it has to be seen to be believed.

Characters - just not unique or fleshed out enough to be satisfying.

Overall, a reasonable B horror movie.

4.5/10

Lousy actors

[daniel-nilsson82 · 1/10 · 29 January 2007]

This movie contains the worst actors I've ever seen. I got the felon that they had an open casting on the street outside Burger King and selected the persons who wanted the least amount of pay. But the idea of the movie is great. I think if it was a higher budget on this flick and if a better director made this movie it could be a really great movie. The idea of escaping and cheating death and then try to get the Grim Reaper of your back is really exiting. So if you like the idea and don't pay much attention to the effort of the actors see it. But if you think the actors is very important in a movie "like myself" then DO NOT see this movie.

Oh, god!

[kalasmannen · 2/10 · 3 February 2007]

I got this movie just a day ago, and i must say that i regret that i bought it already. Maybe if i rented it, i would be able to laugh about it, but for the money that i paid, it just wasn't worth it. I feel robbed! The story isn't all that bad, in the right hands, and maybe a few minor changes, it could have been way better than this, i think. It's just that the dialoges and the acting in all seems so fake. The end was quite predictable, the boyfriends saves his girlfriend, blah blah blah. Too predictable.

The bottom line: This movie was a horrible attempt to make a horror movie/Thriller. Most of the time you just shake your head over the poor acting, and the fact that "Death" makes you laugh every time he appears. If you're (like myself) like scary movies, horror, or thrillers, please don't see this!

One of the worst horror films ever? Maybe...

[poolandrews · 1/10 · 24 May 2008]

Grim Reaper starts as an exotic dancer Rachel Wilson (Chersih Lee) waits for a taxi to take her home, unfortunately said taxi runs her over instead. For no apparent reason although it's hard to feel sorry for Rachel since she was standing right in the middle of the road. Rachel survives & is taken to a nearby hospital where she meets a creepy nurse (Alice Ensor) & before she knows it Rachel wakes up inside a room inside the abandoned St. Joseph's mental institution where Dr. Brown (Brent Fidler) has collected several teenagers all of whom have had near death experiences. Insdie St. Joseph's the teens start to be stalked & killed one-by-one by a hooded figure that could very well be the Grim Reaper himself as he search for those who escaped him the first time round...

Produced & directed by Michael Feifer one has to say that Grim Reaper is awful in every just about every way & it takes a horror film buff with high tolerance levels to sit through all of it's eighty odd minutes, as for those who aren't particularly interested in the genre you probably wouldn't last much more than twenty odd minutes. The script by Ellis Walker is a total mess from start to finish, there are flashbacks, flash-forwards, dreams, dreams within dreams, hallucinations, a confusing plot that doesn't work, a terrible ending that makes no sense & the whole film is just a narrative nightmare as you are thrust from one scenario to another in the blink of an eye & thus not really giving you the chance to take the already confused plot in since it chops & changes so much. The whole point of a film in my opinion is to entertain, if a film entertains me for it's duration & I have fun then I can forgive almost anything but when it comes to a film such as Grim Reaper which is such a chore to watch I find myself rapidly losing the will to live. Considering that Grim Reaper only lasts for a relatively modest eighty odd minutes & it feels like it goes on for literally hours one could quite easily come to the conclusion it's a really boring slow moving film. The plot revolving around several teens escaping death feels right out of Final Destination (2000) only there's no clever death's & it pretty much turns into a really awful teen slasher as the Grim Reaper becomes your average Freddy Kruger type killer. The ending is awful too, since when does dying for a few minutes enable you to travel back in time & change past events? A real mess from start to finish.

Director Feifer does OK & to be fair to Grim Reaper it's fairly well made, I am not sure why there are no lights in St. Joseph's since it appears to be the darkest mental institution on Earth but as a whole the film is reasonably well made & photographed. Unfortunately reasonable production values still don't save it from being conceptually awful & a complete total utter mess. The gore levels are disappointing, a couple of people are stabbed by the Grim Reaper while someone has pencils stuck in their face & someone is sliced in half in an unconvincing totally bloodless CGI computer effect. You will notice a lot of comments for Grim Reaper saying Rachel is a stripper but she never takes her clothes off & is more of an exotic dancer.

With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 Grim Reaper was a reasonably well funded film & it show's with it's decent production values although as I have already said the film is terrible so that doesn't really matter. The acting is probably below average but not the worst I have seen.

Grim Reaper is a really awful film thanks to a terrible script that is confusing, has a rubbish story & is as dull as dishwater. Definitely one to avoid if you can help it. Not to be confused with the Joe D'Amato Italian gore film Anthropophagus (1980) which was widely released in the US & UK under the title The Grim Reaper.

B Grade acting at its finest

[dalessandro_laurence · 1/10 · 10 February 2007]

After watching this (and I use the term loosely) film, I find myself wishing that the Grim Reaper had killed me before I chose to press that accursed play button. Terrible story, Horrible acting, the only redeeming feature of this monstrosity is they all die in the end.

I've never seen any Michael Feifer films before this and if the rest are of a similar quality I won't be seeing any in the foreseeable future.

I'm glad that I chose to download it instead of wasting money buying it. I'm happy in the knowledge that a simple press of the delete key has removed this piece of s#!t from my collection forever. Now if only I could delete it from my memory.

Not really all that bad

[Bryan_Clark · 7/10 · 21 May 2007]

This movie was in no way shape or form anywhere near as bad as described by 99.9% of reviewers on IMDb. Now is this movie great? No. Is there better? Well, yeah, much better. But (now this is the true question) is this (or among) the worst? After finally watching this movie last night on a pay channel for $3.99 I can honestly answer no. It's not the worst. Maybe nearing the area of the worst but for the most part it was a fairly entertaining, kinda psychological, horror/thriller. The added plot twist is rather obvious IF you're looking for it. I was just obliviously watching it not looking for it so when it came I was kinda surprised. Then kicked myself for not realizing it anyway but you can't have everything. The setting is perfect, what kind of movie that takes place completely in a mental hospital not at least somewhat good? Now throw in the Grim Reaper stalking a bunch of kids throughout the facility and you've got an added 30% of excitement. Could the Grim Reaper (the actual character) have been better? No because it was thee Grim Reaper. Cloak, hood, the whole 9 yards. Could the movie have been better? Yeah, they could have had the title character in it much more. He had very little screen time, although the time he had was pretty interesting. Never really boring or slow. Just the anticipation of seeing the Grim Reaper might make this film seem a little slower than what it is. A very deserved and earned 7 outta 10.

some people

[magicmmirror · 2 August 2007]

This is a response to Mr.Cagney's "review" ,which basically called anyone who has ever written a negative review here an "uneducated" half-wit.You see,his main criticism was that people didn't watch the entire movie before critiquing it,and even if they did, they weren't in the cast or crew, and therefore were not entitled to speak on the subject.His comments led me to believe that he was an extra,or otherwise had some "inside" information entitling him to a sense of superiority over those not directly,no matter how insignificantly,involved in film-making.Furthermore,he postulates,that unless an opinion is specifically solicited,it should not be ventured.Ironically,he himself had not seen even a microsecond of the particular film in question,and so far from making an apology for his inconsistency,he boasts of it as a point of merit to his argument!

I guess I will have to state the obvious and school the illustrious thespian;There are too many movies around too see them all,therefore a means of FILTERING is required,thus-REVIEWS.We CAN'T rely on the cast and crew of these films to supply them,because of conflict of interest(did I have to say it?).As far as his unsolicited argument,a movie review blog is an IMPLICIT solicitation ,INDB does not have to individually e-mail it's membership requesting a review.Sorry to pontificate,but the arrogance of that guy disturbed my otherwise peaceful reading of the reviews.Keep it up,there are some good writers among you all.

straight low budget garbage

[dariusforte · 29 December 2006]

Now I'm gonna keep this short and straight to the point this movie sucked and was very lo budget usually some low budget films are decent but this one just didn't do it for me I mean especially how the monster died yuck! Made me mad to I'm just glad somebody else spent there money except me.Between the terrible acting and the flashbacks i didn't know what was going on or how this people thought this was a good script when i saw the picture on the cover i thought well it looks decent so I'll guess I'll watch it but then 10 minutes into it it seemed like they spent more money on the on the cover then the actual movie now I'm not saying that it was th worse movie i ever seen but it damn sure was close to it.