Baphomet Blu-ray Review

Low-Rent Satanic Thriller

Baphomet is a low-budget Satanic thriller that never quite hits home despite some nice atmospheric touches. Filmmaker Matthan Harris writes and directs the dark movie about a Californian family cursed by a sinister cult, leading to a string of deaths. Baphomet has a great death-by-shark scene and some interesting ideas but the mostly hammy thrills are let down by awkward acting and half-baked plotting.

A Satanic cult led by the mysterious Henrik Brandr (Giovanni Radice) is intensely interested in buying Jacob Richardson’s land. Jacob has no interest in selling the property with his daughter Rebecca expecting a baby. Soon tragedy hits Jacob’s family when his son-in-law Mark (Matthan Harris) suspiciously dies.

…Baphomet is a low-budget Satanic thriller that never quite hits home despite some nice atmospheric touches

The cult has placed a death curse on the family, hoping to drive them off the land. A battle between good and evil ensues when the family seeks help from Marybeth, a “good” witch.

Baphomet isn’t a complete failure due to its menacing atmosphere that likes playing up all the familiar demonic tropes. The cast does the story no favors with several stiff performances and stilted line readings. There are some unintentionally funny notes like Radice’s terribly thick accent, which makes his “Satan” sound like satin. The climax is a hectic patchwork of colliding story lines.

To enjoy haphazard, low-budget horror like Baphomet you have to ignore many problems. Too many problems by my count. I guess the movie’s biggest selling point is an appearance by musician Dani Filth.

Video

Baphomet runs nearly 72 minutes on a BD-25. Thanks to the clean digital cinematography, the low-bitrate MPEG-2 encode doesn’t fall apart into artifacts. The indie production’s video quality could be more polished but it’s hard dismissing the excellent definition and strong detail. The color grading plays it safe with naturalistic skin-tones and normally saturated primary colors. The contrast holds up in the steady 1080P presentation.

Baphomet is framed at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio preserving its proper composition. The movie is definitely not eye candy but looks decent for a low-budget indie. Shadow delineation could be better, the darkest scenes have a touch of lost detail and crushing.

Audio

For a music label masquerading as a film label, Cleopatra Entertainment sure doesn’t believe in lossless audio. Baphomet’s 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack has some nice, creepy touches with mostly effective sound design. Dialogue is cleanly reproduced, neatly in balance with the stronger musical elements and audio effects. Surround separation isn’t heavily emphasized, mostly used for ambient support of the score.

Like the vast majority of their releases, no subtitles are offered.

Extras

Cleopatra Entertainment is pretty good about including special features and Baphomet is no exception. The Blu-ray is coded for all regions.

Deleted & Extended Scenes (13:17 in HD)

Outtakes (06:43 in HD)

Dani Filth Backstage Interview (09:10 in HD) – The musician while on tour explains why he took the role and other tidbits related to his role.

Baphomet Teaser Trailer (01:07 in HD)

TANK Featuring Dani Filth – “Shellshock” Music Video (02:59 in HD)

Cleopatra Entertainment Trailers (All in HD) – Scavenger, The Hex, Daddy’s Girl, Skinwalker, Game of Death, Lady World, Verotika

Storyboards By Jason Millet

Full disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. This has not affected the editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more.

The 15 unaltered images below represent the Blu-ray. For an additional 32 Baphomet screenshots, early access to all screens (plus the 120,000+ already in our library), 120 exclusive 4K UHD reviews, and more, subscribe on Patreon.