Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 7:3	Budget Medium

More Catholic School Girls in Trouble! Works for me.

The movie opens with Alex's dad dropping her off at her new school. They argue about it and we get a hint that there is more to Alex than meets the eye when the door locks itself. Upon entering the classroom we find that the other four girls have been standing on their chairs reciting prayers while waiting for her to show up. Father Drake berates Alex for being late and after a quick blood test, the girls head off to bed. Having been warned to stay away from the third floor, they immediately set up an expedition to this proscribed region. While the adventure brings the girls together, it also attracts the attention of Headmistress Anne. After Alex has her backside whipped with a yardstick, Mara reveals that she is a healer and takes away the bruises. Soon the girls visit the third floor again and we find out that Headmistress Anne is actually practicing a bit of black magic that, of course, does not work out quite the way she wanted and as the final girl walks away, we find out that demons have been loosed on the world.

I was not going to review this movie. It is competently done, entertaining, and fleetingly interesting. But as I was hiking this morning, my mind kept returning to the movie and its shortcomings. Chief among these is that after a huge setup none of the important early bits come into play. Oh, there are plenty of clues to the eventual outcome, but other than these little hints everything else in the movie is a red herring.

Let's start with Father Drake (Ron Perlman from "Hellyboy" and "Beauty and the Beast"). When we are first introduced to him, he is discussing a homework assignment with one of his students. She has translated a passage from the bible to Latin. Wait. What? (see below) As he reviews her work, he places his hand on her shoulder and asks why she always focuses on the dark aspects of the bible. She replies that the dark makes the light seem brighter. Then she places her hand on his, gazes longingly into his eyes and states "I learned that from you.". With a guilty start, Father Drake pulls his hand away and exits the room. The door slams and Elizabeth has a confrontation with the devil that freezes the clock at 3:OO and leaves a puddle of blood on the floor but no corpse. Our next encounter with Father Drake gives the impression that he is in charge of the school. After a small show of weakness, he is confronted by Headmistress Anne and we find out that Drake has spent the last few years as a drunk. Anne may be running the show, but we still expect Drake to be able to take on the devil. I mean if you are going to tackle the lord of the underworld, wouldn't you want Hellboy on your side? Alas, Drake does not survive his first direct encounter with the demon. Our expectations of who Drake is and what he can do changes every time he comes on the screen. We are kept busy reevaluating his role.

So, lets move on to the girls. We know that Alex has had a troubled past that has killed her father's love for her. We also infer that she has supernatural powers that she can't control and this is likely the cause of the rift between them. Alex's telekinesis is soon shown to be real. But then we also are shown that Anne seems to be aware of it and that Alex can shut it down if she really wants to. Shortly after that, Leah reveals that she can walk through furniture but can't walk through a closed door. Cecilia is blind but can read the Tarot cards using second sight. Connie apparently is a conduit (this is never explained and I am not familiar with the concept). Mara eventually demonstrates her ability to heal open wounds. A great deal of time is spent establishing that the girls have supernatural powers. Clearly these abilities will come in to play in the final confrontation between good and evil, right? Umm, no. Once the shit hits the fan the girls' powers aren't even mentioned or shown until the very end when Alex saves the day (sort of). Yes, Mara seems to heal Connie but think about it. Mara can only heal fresh wounds, not return someone from the dead. She certainly did not rid Connie of her demonic possession. Cecilia is supposed to have second sight, but she can't read the cards effectively nor can she see the ghosts. She can not even see that the girls are becoming possessed. Leah's ability to phase through material objects is shown once and ignored after that. It is of no help to her when she is attacked by a possessed Connie. Once she is taken over by Legion, we see her walk through a door, but it is pretty much a given that doors don't stop demons. Alex's telekinesis is not used to break up the pentagram or free the girls from it, force open a door or lock or anything of significance. No part of the main plot of the movie required the girls to have super powers. They were not chosen for the school because of their abilities, they were at the school because their parents did not want them. Their powers did not help them in their efforts to stay alive nor did they seem to be an entry way for the evil. Much like Father Drake, this entire subplot is simply misdirection.

What about Elizabeth then. Apparently she was a profoundly Christian girl with an unshakeable belief in God and so when Legion tried to possess her, he did not quite succeed and she is left in some sort of limbo. Assuming that Elizabeth really was a virtuous girl and the look that she and Father Drake shared was not an indication that they had been exploring the pleasures of the missionary position, are we given to think that this was the chink in her armour that the devil was waiting for? Seriously? A teenage girl sees a priest as a man for an instant and her soul is placed in jepordy? Actually Legion states later on that he is planning on remodeling the world in his image which makes me wonder if she dealing with a demon with multiple personalities or the devil himself.

Anne's character is probably the most stable throughout the film. We don't really trust her right from our first meeting with her actions fitting her intentions all through the film. Still when her full story is revealed it is a bit of a head scratcher. It turns out that she is Elizabeth's sister. Once Elizabeth disappeared, Anne was able to determine that because of her purity the devil was not able to take her soul. Anne and her father then were able to work a deal with the devil where they would exchange five souls for Elizabeth. But apparently not just any souls. Now it is possible that Anne just opened up the school again and these five girls turned up who just happened to be unwanted by their families, have supernatural powers and were virgin. (Because the girls were all being compelled by their parents to go to the school, you have to assume they were under 18 even though they all look to be in their mid-twenties. Still it is hard to believe that they are all virgins.) Because Elizabeth was so devout, one would assume that her father and sister would at least be counted among the faithful. Yet they seemed to be pretty quick to turn to satanic means to rescue Elizabeth. As for Elizabeth herself, you have to believe that she is unaware of her sister's plans. If a single lustful thought got her into this much trouble, just imagine what would happen if she were involved with an actual deal with the devil. Yet is she is not aware of what is going on, why is she appearing to the girls? And why is she being seen by the girl with telekinesis and not the girl with second sight?

In truth there are a lot of little things thrown into the movie that do become relevant later on. Cecilia glimpses the future and see's Alex draw her last breath (though she cannot interpret this properly). Anne mentions sisterly love. The ghost does Alex's class work for her but translates to Aramaic instead of Latin. When Alex makes a Wiccan circle of protection, she also manages to imbibe the knife she was holding with some sort of power that drives the demon out of Mara's body without killing her. Also the final girl is not the one that you would expect even though this is followed by a highly predictable surprise ending. The movie's pacing is good, the actors are quite engaging and the dialog is not weighed down with any lines they can't handle. It is clear that a great deal of thought went into the movie, perhaps too much. Father Drake would be a great distraction all by himself. Throwing in all the supernatural powers for the girls is overkill, raises a lot of questions and then plays no part in the outcome of the movie. Perhaps it provides an avenue for the girls to bond over, but the girls had lots of other reasons to become friends.

Last but not least is the lesbian kiss, in fact this may be the final straw. From the time that Alex arrives at the school to the conclusion of the movie is only about 36 hours. Alex spends time with each of the girls and displays no particular preference for any of them. Further, while Mara professes to be lesbian, Alex does not. And yet, once they have drawn the circle of protection and are sitting in it waiting on their doom, Alex states that it has all been worth it because she got to meet Mara. Mara responds to this by planting a kiss on Alex that is not returned and the girls then silently sit next to each other not touching. I don't get it. Three of her friends are dead, Father Drake is dead and the head mistress of the school has unleashed a demon that is on its way kill them and it is all worth it because she got to meet Mara. She doesn't seem that interested in having sex with her, just being her friend. After the rather awkward kiss, the two girls sit next to each other without touching. The exchange adds nothing to the movie.

And yet, the movie is entirely watchable. The pace of the movie is very fast and we are not left with much time to ponder what just happened. What the script really needed was some good editing. I can't get a grasp on the world these people live in. Alex's dad seems oblivious to his daughter's ability and yet Mara's dad toured the country with her doing faith healing. Leah's ability to phase through solid objects does not surprise Alex at all and Leah readily admits to it. Anne kept her mother's family name yet teams up with her father to bring back Elizabeth (was her mother devout but her father pagan?) The girls all seem to be Catholic, yet Connie professes to be Wiccin and Alex has a clear understanding of the rituals and is able to cast spells. Is magic a common component of their world? Do the girls need to be virgins to be part of the exchange. If so, it is pretty strongly implied that Mara has had sex with other girls. They seem to be following a pretty narrow definition of the term here, and it is not like any of the girls are what I would call pure. A good script editor would have made the writer justify every scene and character trait. Why is Cecilia blind? If she has second sight, why can't she see Elizabeth? Remembering that she is blind and a virgin, exactly what did she do that made her family send her to the school? Also consider this. All five girls have done something bad enough that their families want to be rid of them, three of them have dabbled in the arcane arts, and one has clearly lost her faith. Aren't the chances pretty good that the devil is going to get these souls anyway? Would he really trade the soul of a devout believer for the souls of five doubters? Probably not. But if Anne were to have a moment of weakness where she explains to the girls that they were chosen because they were virgin (which technically fulfils the contract) but probably doomed to hell anyway (which would sooth Anne's conscience some) it would restore a bit of order to the plot. Anne would be trying to cheat the devil by sticking to the letter of the contract not the intent. Purchasing the pure soul of an innocent with the tainted souls of the doomed. It could be that Sonoda was trying to show this when Anne reminds the girls that their parent don't want them, but she is so cold and cruel that it is hard to believe that she feels any remorse.

Sonoda does a much better job directing the film than he did writing the screenplay. As I have said, the movie holds your attention and is enjoyable. And there are plenty of movies out there with similar traits; entertaining but vapid. Compared to a movie like "The Core" 5ive Girls looks pretty good. But compared to "Serenity" or even the 2009 version of "Sherlock Holmes" the lack of a coherent storyline really becomes apparent. There are worse movies out there and if it seems like I am damning the movie with faint praise, I am. While it is an entertaining movie, it could have been much more.

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Translating the bible to Latin? Really? Presumably the bible they are working from is one of the American English ones (of which there are dozens) which may have been translated from Aramaic, Hebrew, German, Old English, or Latin. Typically you would be translating Latin biblical passages to English. Elizabeth has not only translated an encounter with the demon (demons?) Legion into Latin but also Aramaic. This is borderline blasphemy, you don't reverse engineer the bible. Back