User Reviews

*sigh* I was really disappointed with this movie. Too many sub-plots and not enough movement on the main plot. I thought this was a movie about a girl who inherited a house, not a zombie, religious fanaticism, slasher/romance... the list of sub plots goes on. It never really goes anywhere. As for the acting, pretty sad someone actually put a camera on the actors. I thought facial expression is supposed to be used while you recite lines. And you can't forget the token dumb stoner... how cliché to have one in a cheesy horror movie. Please don't rent this movie. Not only are you out of nearly two hours of your life, but you are out of your money. I will never get the time spent on this movie back, it's totally wasted, never to return again.

Okay, apologies to Chuck. The "killer" in WAGES OF SIN--styled variously as "The Preacher," "Grandpa," "Reverend Walker"--has simplified the basic tenets of salvation per Martin Luther or John Calvin. All one must do to be "saved" is to let the holy man hack you to pieces with an ax and then eat your remains (minus Hannibal Lector's "fava beans and chianti"). This film is so low-budget that the Preacher would be hard-pressed to come up with even Hamburger Helper or Velveeta.

One must wonder about the commentators raving over the merits of this lame flick. When a Billy Graham-clone is exhorting his nine-year-old daughter to eat Mommy for dinner while "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" plays in the background, at least make the sacrilege as eye-popping as DOGMA--or even STIGMATA! Why be damned for 30 pieces of lead?

...and it was actually the better half of a lo-fi double-feature I recently endured (the first half was the execrable "See Jane Run"), but "Wages of Sin" simply still fails to entertain in any significant way. It features four attractive but oh-so-bland leads, with the exception of Prentice Reedy, who showed flashes of genuine talent. The listless plot centers on Sue Walker (Ashlie Victoria Clark), a young lady who's inherited a desolate house out in the middle of nowhere, and decides to check it out along with her noticeably younger boyfriend, Ron (Brandon Michael), and another young couple, Taylor (Reedy) and Jane (Lauren "The Ashlee Simpson Show" Zelman), who are there primarily to elicit exposition from poor Sue, and to be possessed and die. Wow. What a thriller! Ms. Clark is quite attractive, but a remarkably unconvincing actor. Ditto Ms. Zelman and Mr. Michael. Mr. Reedy, as mentioned, shows promise. Both ladies show cleavage and nothing else, very disappointing in an indie "horror" flick. The Reverend Bad-Guy, the well cast but indifferently directed Billy St. John (any relation to Jill?), is occasionally creepy but not at all threatening. Writer/director/editor/producer Aaron Robson should have gone back to the drawing board a few more times. Co-DPs Tim Otholt and Chris Reilly turn in some nice work, thoroughly professional at many points, and the overall production values of the film are quite good for a cheapie (especially compared to backyard efforts like "See Jane Run"), but it's all in service to a derivative, uninspired script. Even with top-flight acting, the audience would have no reason to care about these characters, because most of their dialog is expository rather than character-driven.

Please, novice movie makers, please use scripts that allow the characters to live and breathe and converse like real people, not cardboard cutouts who have to tell the audience what they need to know. Acting is doing, not telling. And movies should be as visual as possible. Don't tell us, SHOW us. Everyone, and I mean everyone, will be much happier all the way around.

This one gets a "4" from me strictly for libido stimulation thanks to Ms. Clark, and the film's well-spent low budget.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A quartet of young adults -- troubled and sensitive Sue (the lovely Ashlie Victoria Clark), her supportive boyfriend Ron (Brandon Michael), sweet gal pal Jane (pretty Lauren Zelman), and obnoxious stoner toolbox Taylor (the extremely annoying and unappealing Prentice Reedy) -- check out an old house located in the remote woods that Sue has just inherited. The unfriendly local yokels warn the kids about said house, but naturally the kids don't heed their warnings. Of course, the house turns out to be haunted by the evil spirit of a twisted preacher (blandly played by Billy St. John). Director/co-writer Aaron Joseph Robson clumsily mixes sappy romance, family dysfunction, religious fanaticism, eerie apparitions, spiritual possession, and supernatural hokum into a singularly insipid and underwhelming cinematic stew that fails to effectively jell as a remotely compelling or cohesive feature. The talky and uneventful script, flat acting, and excruciatingly sluggish pace suck all the energy out of the meandering narrative, thereby making this dead slug of a dud a real grueling chore to sit through. Worse yet, there's no hardcore graphic gore or gratuitous nudity present to alleviate the numbing severity of the stupefying boredom. Robert Guerrier's polished cinematography makes this film look better than it deserves and Robson shows sporadic traces of style and flair, but overall this clunker proves to be duller than an old used butter knife. If you haven't seen this yawner, then you ain't missing a thing.

Man, I've really got to stop buying DVDs out of the bargain bin at the supermarket. I've had a really bad run of flicks lately, with "Wages of Sin" coming in very close to the bottom of the pile. The film's trailer leads the viewer to believe that they'll be in for a spooky good time, but what appears on screen is a slow moving, talky, dull religion-based horror starring a cast with limited (that's probably being kind) acting ability.

The set up is promising enough: the attractive-but-troubled Sue has inherited a house in the country and she's headed up there with three of her annoying twenty something friends to check the place out for the first time. Sue was adopted at age 9 after a family tragedy that she can't quite remember, and the house dates back to before she was adopted. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this house will eventually be revealed as Ground Zero for said tragedy, though the audience will come to this conclusion way before Sue and her friends will. The run-down house is littered with Bibles that have "FORNICATION" scribbled across the pages, spooky sounds emanate from empty rooms and the woods outside, and Sue starts seeing visions of her long-dead twin sister. After an ill-advised game with a homemade Ouija board, things hit the fan and one by one the gang turn against Sue and each other, possessed by an insane religious fury. Turns out when Sue lived in the house as a child, she and her sister were victimized by their grandfather, a crazed preacher whose idea of providing "salvation" to his family was by murdering them and eating their remains. Now that Sue has returned "home," he's been reawakened and he plans to finish the job he started twenty years ago. Yeah, it sounds like pretty nasty stuff, but the description is way more promising than what came out on screen. None of the young performers can act their way out of a paper bag (the girls are cute though, and boy can they scream!), the endless flashbacks become incredibly annoying after a while, and the gore quotient is next to none. For a movie with cannibalism as one of its supposed "shocking" revelations, you'd expect to see more red stuff, but... nope. What was the budget on this movie anyway, six bucks and a broken cracker?

Part "Exorcist," part "Frailty," part "Amityville Horror," "Wages of Sin" is a yawn-fest. I'll give it a couple of grudging points for the decent cinematography but that's about the nicest thing I can say about it. Ignore, delete, destroy.

What the f*ck did I just watch? Evil Dead, The Shining, and The Exorcist all mashed into one horrible movie probably filmed by 7th grade children. Almost as bad as Skeleton Man. I just... I... Please don't watch this. Help me dear lord. How come every time one of them screamed, it was like, 10 seconds after something 'bad' happened to them? O_o I suppose I should've realized how bad this movie would be when they show an extreme and painfully silent close up of a wandering-eyed man in the beginning... After that, it seemed like the darn actors themselves could barely hold back laughter at how poorly the script was.

Before I hand this review over to my friend who is surely going to rip this movie to shreds, let me just say:-the plot (until it got WAY too confusing to follow) was good. From an aspiring directors perspective, there were too many extreme close-ups, when really a couple medium or regular close shots would have sufficed. To add to that, there's also something called pace. Especially for the script-too much info in too short of a time. And too long for a scene to actually carry. Might I add I when it comes to creepiness, the moonlight of nature is usually the best answer. In the basement the light was "eerily" red. And there's a reason eerie is in quotations. Let nature (especially the night time) do it's thing for creepiness. But seriously, silhouettes with partial faces are better than faces with crappy eeriness. Nature is usually the best. There were a lot of high shots, and some low ones would have been nice. There were however AMAZING shots-like the ones that took place in the woods, panning (on a dolly I think) the branches-props to whoever did those. Ron, neglected to use his eyebrows which drove me NUTS throughout the entire film, his voice was very monotone as well. Basically the only characters that were even slightly believable were the two stone-rs. There were some scenes like after Sue puked outside the car door, before they even got into the house, she wipes her mouth and then Ron holds the hand. Ew. At least make it somewhat plausible and make her wipe he hands on her pants! Also after Sue coughs up blood, her chin isn't stained, nor are her teeth. or if they were she rinsed her mouth out with a glass of water before they shot the next scene, which makes it less believable. As well, I'm pretty sure it doesn't take all night to climb down an effing ladder, considering Ron was able to climb up one in order to help her kill the ONLY COOL GUY in the entire movie. Oh and destroy the body? did anyone hear of salting and burning the bones?!?! She should've at least smashed the skull in instead of letting it roll off the spine and onto the floor. Oh yeah, you sure showed him.

Hi there, now that you've had a taste from the directors perspective, here's one from the horror genre admirer. First of all, I'd like to express how unbelievably BAD this movie was. I watched the first HOUR of it, took it out of my DVD player and whipped it across my bedroom. I was so angry! The story sounded great, it got my hopes up and then crashed and burned them. The only reason I even watched the rest of it was because the director buff made me, though I was glad because there were ten minutes of this movie that was actually worth watching. It started when Taylor gets possessed. While I'm at it, Prentice Reedy's acting was the only BELIEVABLE performance in the entire movie. It ended when the pulled "The Shining" trick with the axe scene. That irked me beyond belief. The GULL the writers had to have! To take something from one of the greatest horror movies ever created and put it into this piece of crap! The only saving grace, that Ron was killed. I was so sick of his bad soap-opera acting. Like my friend mentioned earlier, every time he needed facial expression, no eyebrow movement. It was like his face got a bad botox injection.

Anyways, to wrap this movie-bashing up, bad acting (save Prentice Reedy's), bad plot, bad movie altogether. Want to see this movie? Don't. However, if you DO choose not to listen, have fun with this little gem.

Two college couples drive to a remote region to stay at a house Sue Walker inherited from her real family, from which she was separated at nine. One guy in the nearby town had that classic small town "parents are cousins" lazy eye. They can only get preaching on the radio, but there is cell phone service, but alas none of them seems to own one. Fornication is sin and the wages of sin is death.

The one couple likes to play pass the doobie and hide the sausage. Sue has numerous visions on her way there, the old preacher, and a young girl about 9 years old. Weird things happen at the house as it is clearly haunted.

The movie was done well for a low budget but suffered from some really bad plot flaws, like not remembering your sibling with whom you lived with for 9 years.

I watched this film very closely and wondered what kind rating I could give it.

To begin I thought it was fairly entertaining, the pace was slow moving yet it maintained a good character development {Not often seen in this line of film} the acting has a lack of depth, for example you don't often see a lot facial expressions during serious moments and the reactions at best are like extremely dull.

At least the storyline is good, and the director created a not too bad look for the film.

Overall, a relatively good choice for horror fans but don't expect Oscar winning performances.

I am a huge fan of horror films and I really enjoyed Wages of Sin. I was very impressed with the directing of this film. I thought the Director, Aaron Robson, did an incredible job. His vision was apparent in the first shot. His choice of actors was excellent. The Casting Director, Partricia Phelan, has a fine eye for talented up and coming actors. I hope we get to see these actors in more films. Not only were the actors very talented, they were beautiful as well. Mr. Robson drove the story forward with well thought out scenes, plot points, themes and top notch acting. I thought Cheyne Wilson did an amazing job on the make-up. As well as the DP and lighting were superb. Since I am a director and writer myself, I could clearly see the creativity, talent, hard work, time and dedication Mr. Robson put into this film. He tackled a tough subject and made it into an entertaining and scary film. Aaron Robson is a director I would like to see do more films. He created a unique and truly original film.