From my favorite movies..

Don't listen to the negative reviews

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

GOBLIN is a typical monster-on-the-loose type horror flick. It was made by the SyFy Channel and shot in Canada, which is never a good combination; after an elaborate set-up involving a historical curse, this turns out to be business as usual with a CGI monstrosity stalking the woods and picking off a group of characters one by one.It involves plenty of cheesy acting from the unfamiliar cast members, lots of all-too-familiar chase sequences, and some gobbets of nasty gore to spice things up for horror fans. Unfortunately the premise is better than the execution: what could have been an interesting, supernatural-themed horror flick turns out to be the usual monster guff with every cliché in the book rolled out.The CGI creation in this - a goblin, apparently, although it looks nothing like one - is fairly effective, looking more like the Grim Reaper than a fairytale sprite. The effects are quite good actually, as are those aforementioned blood shots, but the characters are dull and the situations that unfold are strictly routine. Not much to recommend here if I'm honest.

My advice would be to watch this movie in full before you judge it. Every Halloween, a small hamlet in the deep woods is visited by a fierce goblin, intent on capturing infants and brutally murdering anyone in its path. I refuse to totally dismiss this, because I find it quite engaging, in a guilty pleasure sense. The cinematography is stark and bare, with only the soundtrack adding some effect. Other than that, it was an okay film, and I would recommend that people watch it. My girlfriends and I were so excited to see this movie, thinking it was going to be a fun movie. It gets a final good rating of 7 out of 10 from me.

Goblin starts on October 31 in 1831 as the residents of Hollowglen are gathered around a raging fire, the townspeople are scared of a deformed newborn baby & toss it into the fire to keep the town clean & pure. However the baby's mother is understandably upset & since she is also a Witch decides to put a terrible curse on Hollowglen, every Holloween from this night forward a demonic Goblin from hell will rise take any baby that it can find. Jump forward to the present day as Neil (Gil Bellows) & Kate Perkins (Camile Sulivan) reach Hollowglen after a long drive, with them are Neil's seventeen year old daughter Nikki (Tracy Spiridakos), her best friend Cammy (Erin Boyes) & their young baby son Nathan. In town to complete a real estate deal the Perkin clan find the locals rather strange & somewhat hostile, eventually the family learn of the curse & also find out that the baby stealing Goblin of legend is very real...This Canadian production was directed by Jeffery Scott Lando & is yet another Sy-Fy Channel original creature feature that in truth has nothing original about it, as expected Goblin is just a string of clichés & bad CGI computer effects padded out to an hour & a half. Most of the plot elements from Goblin have been seen many times before, the ancient curse, the Halloween date, the supernatural monster, an unsuspecting family caught up in it, the small creepy backwoods town, the crazy old drunk man no-one listens to but is right, annoying teens who are there just to get killed off & the final magical implement that is used to destroy the monster. You can tick the clichés off, Goblin is uninspired & throughly predictable. The first half of the film concentrates on the squabbling between the Perkins family while I do admit it does pick up in the second half it's still not very good. For a start why were that couple trying to make a deal with the killer Goblin? Do Goblins understand English? Did they not think it might just kill both of them & take the baby anyway? The final plan to kill the Goblin wasn't that well thought out & sounded like Nikki just had to stand there as bait while no-one decided what to do once the Goblin showed up. Also why did the Goblin go after & kill the teens in the woods? Wasn't it's purpose to take babies? None of them had babies or were hiding babies or had anything to do with babies so why randomly kill them?Although Goblin is meant to be set during Halloween everyone is wearing summer clothing, also much of Goblin takes place during broad daylight which does nothing to build the tension or suspense. While the Goblin is definitely a monster the makers decided to place a cloak over him for most of the film so there are scenes of this cloaked figured chasing teens around the woods that feel more like a slasher than a creature feature but the cloak does come off eventually & while the special effects vary from poor to average the Goblin looks alright for the most part. There's a bit of gore which is really the only thing stopping me from rating Gobin a one, a guy's head is crushed, a girl is seen ripped in half with her guts strewn everywhere & there's some blood splatter & spurts.Probably shot on the usual low budget Goblin looks alright, much of the film takes place inside the same cabin & stretch of woods though. Filmed in British Columbia in Canada. The acting is about the same for this type of film, nothing special & no-ones going to win any awards.Goblin is yet another routine creature feature from the Sy-Fy Channel that isn't as bad as some of the crap it makes but in the grand scheme of things you can do without seeing it. If you can get through the first half then you might find the second half better but overall it's a difficult film to recommend.

Filmed in the deep woods of British Columbia, 2010's "Goblin" tells the story of a cursed forest hamlet wherein an extremely tall and malicious goblin appears every Halloween to kill newborns in the town and anyone else who may get in the way.Unlike joke-horror films like "Cabin Fever", "Goblin" takes the material totally serious with zero camp or goofiness. This is the way monster movies should be done. After all, once an element of goofiness is introduced it's no longer possible to take the film serious and therefore impossible to be horrified by the events, which is one of the main purposes of horror movies.I was impressed with the quality of the acting & writing, particularly for a low-budget TV movie. The characters are not one-dimensional; they're written as believable human beings and the actors, professionals that they are, are able to follow suit.This one has all the mandatory staples of a deep woods horror flick -- gorgeous babes, gorgeous babes fleeing in terror, gorgeous babes fleeing in terror with titillating clothing (I'm just having fun so don't take me too seriously, lol), youthful romantic liaisons, creepy malicious monster, good characters to root for, particularly the father (Gil Bellows) and his family/friends.The "gorgeous babes" include the main protagonist Tracy Spiridakos, blond cutie Erin Boyes and Julia Maxwell, the latter clad in a hot-goth-girl costume with sexy stockings & high heels (no wonder the Goblin goes after her!). Bellow's wife in the story, Camille Sullivan, also deserves an honorable mention.Speaking of the monster, aren't goblins supposed to be small-ish creatures? Not so here. The goblin in this movie is close to 7' tall and has the ability to teleport. When he's fully revealed in the final ten minutes he looks too-obviously CGI and Grade-B Pumpkinhead, but throughout most of the film he appears in a cool black hooded robe, which makes him somehow more mysterious, Gothic and eerie. The fact that he emits a horrible stench is an excellent touch.One critic on the internet criticized the film on the grounds of "the reasoning behind the random killings is terrible. If the thing hunts babies why's it laying waste to random people with no babies? Totally retarded." My response: The goblin's prime directive is to kill babies in light of the curse and because infants represent undefiled new life and potential. As for laying waste to random people, the old man clearly points out near the end that, because the goblin hunts babies, it sniffs out the scent of infants on any person who's been near one; hence, his attraction to the girls who were babysitting the baby Nathan. The goblin is obviously a demon, a minion of the devil, do you think a demon is going to spare the life of anyone who gets in its way? What's the purpose of demons anyway? To "kill, steal and destroy". Hence, the goblin was excited at the prospect of extra people to terrify and kill.On the downside: Although the story takes place during Halloween, it's obviously summertime (look at the kid's clothes and the foliage, etc.). Also, the climax with the car and spear is rather roll-your-eyes. But these negatives are minor in view of the entire film.FINAL WORD: Make no mistake, despite being a TV film, "Goblin" is a standout deep woods monster flick. The goblin is actually frightening and the protagonists are so believable and three-dimensional that you care about them, and are literally shocked when the monster tears them to pieces.GRADE: A ENDNOTE: On another site a reviewer accused me of somehow being involved in the production of "Goblin" since I gave it a "glowing review." The truth is I had nothing to do with this production or any other film production. I'm not in the business. I write amateur reviews simply because I like to write and share my views. Secondly, I had no qualms about pointing out the film's (minor) flaws. Regardless, I stand by my review. I evaluate films according to what they are and aspire to be. No genre is beyond redemption or above contempt. In this case "Goblin" is low-budget TV monster flick and I rated it accordingly.