Horror Movie Review: Day of Reckoning (2016)

Day of Reckoning is memorable for one thing, the shockingly poor CGI. It’s impossible to not burst out laughing the moment the first creature appears on screen & that laughter will keep you sustained throughout this snore-fest of a movie.

15 years ago underground creatures crawled out from deep within the Earth & attacked humanity. The creatures attack lasted 24 hours before they crawled back underground & they’ve not been seen since.

Now it appears as though they’re coming back. All the same signs are there & humanity is woefully unprepared for another huge attack. Seriously, woefully unprepared. Other then a few bunkers that don’t seem to house many people & ‘gates’ at the entry points the creatures have used, you’d think nothing had ever happened.

These ‘gates’ in particular are hilarious as they are staffed by a skeleton crew & don’t seem to be any kind of actual barrier. When the creatures emerge, they stroll out as if nothing was there. Good job, humanity.

Most of the film is focused on one family, David (Jackson Hurts), son Tyler (Jay Jay Warren), his girlfriend Maddy (Hana Hayes) & David’s ex-wife, Laura (Heather McComb). Together they fail to get inside a bunker so head off to a private shelter owned by Ted (Raymond J. Barry) and his wife, Stella (Barbara Crampton). Along the way they get caught up in the creatures attack on Earth & have to fight for their survival.

Day of Reckoning is a decently acted movie, it has to be said. The cast are strong & they interact well with each other & the CGI messes that attack them. Where it falls down is with its bland, seen it all before, story. It’s such a terrible box ticking exercise that you can predict every plot point long before it even happens.

Divorced couple at loggerheads but fall back in love over the period of the movie? Tick. Heroic last stands? Tick. Solider turning nasty for no reason? Tick!

There are so many pointless & vapid scenes that serve little purpose beyond getting us to the next scene involving terrible CGI. As said at the start of this review, the shockingly poor effects are what you’ll remember about Day of Reckoning. Words can do these things no justice & you have to wonder how anyone could have been happy with the result here.

With CGI this bad, how can you buy into anything that happens on screen? Laughable.