I was intrigued by the high and low ratings here and gave this a try. After watching, I still find them perplexing. This is an okay movie. It is not a masterpiece. It is not crap.
Menendez is a strongly supernatural Spanish exorcism flick-- there's no bandying about with potentially mundane explanations. Our title character is a tortured former priest, just out of jail for murder of a previous exorcism beneficiary/victim. His method? Beat the ever-living crap out of the possessed until the demon is forced out, then beat the ever-living crap out of the now manifest demon. A jail buddy convinces him to go back for One Last Exorcism....
And, in this, Menendez is perfectly acceptable. It doesn't make you think or go Oh Wow or anything like that. It doesn't care if it makes sense or not. It's just a regular old horror movie. It's on the melodramatic side, even considering the melodrama bias of exorcism flicks in general, which might explain some of the "It's Comedy" reviews (no, it's not comedy.)
Where it is notable is where it's willing to go-- and that might be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the audience. Menendez spends a decent amount of time on straight-out torture porn. As promised, we get to watch our possessed victim get the ever-living crap beat out of them. Then, we get to watch their fingernails pulled out. Then, there's some incest. Which isn't too unfair, this is just Linda Blair's crucifix updated for the current millennium. It's not sexy, but it's still exploitative (not necessarily intended as a pejorative.) This isn't A Serbian Film, but fans out of that kind of stuff will probably get some similar enjoyment out of Menendez. And a lot of other people will probably get really turned off (which at least might explain some of the 1 ratings here.)
The story here is acceptable, nothing special. The torture porn is at the level where it will turn off most viewers, while not being extreme enough for the die-hards. If you don't mind torture porn, this is an okay way to while away a few hours, but that's all.
Menendez is a strongly supernatural Spanish exorcism flick-- there's no bandying about with potentially mundane explanations. Our title character is a tortured former priest, just out of jail for murder of a previous exorcism beneficiary/victim. His method? Beat the ever-living crap out of the possessed until the demon is forced out, then beat the ever-living crap out of the now manifest demon. A jail buddy convinces him to go back for One Last Exorcism....
And, in this, Menendez is perfectly acceptable. It doesn't make you think or go Oh Wow or anything like that. It doesn't care if it makes sense or not. It's just a regular old horror movie. It's on the melodramatic side, even considering the melodrama bias of exorcism flicks in general, which might explain some of the "It's Comedy" reviews (no, it's not comedy.)
Where it is notable is where it's willing to go-- and that might be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the audience. Menendez spends a decent amount of time on straight-out torture porn. As promised, we get to watch our possessed victim get the ever-living crap beat out of them. Then, we get to watch their fingernails pulled out. Then, there's some incest. Which isn't too unfair, this is just Linda Blair's crucifix updated for the current millennium. It's not sexy, but it's still exploitative (not necessarily intended as a pejorative.) This isn't A Serbian Film, but fans out of that kind of stuff will probably get some similar enjoyment out of Menendez. And a lot of other people will probably get really turned off (which at least might explain some of the 1 ratings here.)
The story here is acceptable, nothing special. The torture porn is at the level where it will turn off most viewers, while not being extreme enough for the die-hards. If you don't mind torture porn, this is an okay way to while away a few hours, but that's all.