Eastern Carolina Style

Eric Bana plays a New York cop who has seen some horrible things, which he makes sure to tell us about in a hard to source accent.  Is the terrible accent the result of something horrible you saw, Eric Bana?  Can you just take your shirt off now please?  I find it must easier to ignore your stupid voice when you look pretty.  Also, it is apparently raining for most of the movie and I am sure you will increase the box office receipts if you sell the movie as  “half-naked and dripping wet Eric Bana keeps his mouth shut while fighting evil.”

So, Eric Bana has a daughter who is both annoying and cute, in the way of child actors.  He also has a wife.  Apparently, her job is to be his wife, dress is sexy nighties, and raise their daughter, so it’s one of those movies.  Anyway, he gets called out to the Bronx Zoo at night, and now it sounds like a Boston accent?  Maybe he watched Good Will Hunting before showing up to work?  Anyway, there are strange goings-on at the Bronx Zoo in the middle of the night.

Cut to a scene from Penny Dreadful (wolves looking shifty at the zoo!  Probably werewolves because…evil).  The cops wander aimlessly, and find a woman doing some frankly unsettling shit.  I am sure that giving crazy eyes while on your knees scraping at the unforgiving ground is bad enough, but the trailer editors amp up the disturbing factor through the use of nails on the chalkboard music.

Then, a priest with a hard to source accent appears.  Spanish?  I think it might be Spanish.  Anyway, blah blah evilcakes, but Eric Bana is like, blah blah spiritual void, blah blah I dare this movie to change my mind about God and the Devil.  Screaming, scared lady with scary husband, more rain, bodies fall from the sky.  Third mention of scratching as a plot point HOLY CRAP THERE IS A CREEPY DEMON GUY HOVERING OVER HIS DAUGHTER, oh, wait, that was just in the mirror, guess it’s safe to walk away and leave his daughter in the clearly haunted room.

At what point did Eric Bana see that demon guy in the mirror?  Because she is in bed during a lot of scenes in the trailer, and while I’m on the fence about the scare value of the rolling hooting owl head, if I see something weird in my son’s room, like, I don’t know, a demon guy, for example, we’re all going to sleep in the car that night.

Spiders, more screaming, that dude is tied to a chair, that other dude is popping out of a dumpster, more rain.  Apparently Eric Bana’s daughter is named Christina, because that’s the name he keeps repeating,  He doesn’t sound that worried though.  More like he found out that she drew on wall in permanent marker and needs a time out. Definitely looks decent, but every time I see the trailer I notice that Joel McHale (The Soup, Community) has a role, and I am dying to know where he could possibly fit in.  Maybe the wisecracking Chief of Police?