Having now seen more SyFy Channel films than I'd care to admit I can at least say one thing about them: they're certainly consistent in their mediocrity. And I can also give them faint praise, if you can call it that, for not quite being the outright Hollywood riffing that pretty much everything coming from The Asylum has been for the past five years - though it looks as though those unashamed folks are making stuff for SyFy also with the teen pop queens Tiffany and Debbie Gibson starring in the Asylum produced Mega Python vs. Gatoroid recently. That's not to say almost every one of the SyFy flicks doesn't fall victim to weak writing, poor (often awful) CGI effects, and a good measure of ho-hum and Goblin is no exception.

Things start off with surprising promise as we enter the town of Hollowglen in 1831 as the villagers are about to toss a deformed baby into a fire. The tyke is the spawn of the town's local witch and she soon places a curse on the residents which unleashes the title creature to get her revenge. Fast forward to modern day and Hollowglen (an appropriate name for a location in a horror flick if there ever was one) is still dealing with the curse which just so happens to be nearing its anniversary date. Into the picture come Neil (Gil Bellows) and family which consists of his teenage daughter Nikki (Tracy Spiridakos), her stepmother, and new baby brother who've just moved to town. They've chosen to arrive around Halloween and are greeted, in horror movie cliché fashion, by the town drunk who warns them of impending danger.

Seems that it's time for the witches' goblin to return and remind people of their forefathers dastardly deed and, between lots of pointless banter, our creature starts picking off those that get in its way with the ultimate goal of stealing away Nikki's baby brother for itself. This leads to some fairly decent gore moments and a plot twist in the final third that didn't work for me that contains a double cross, cheesy spear moment and a showdown by a bonfire.

While Goblin isn't as slipshod as most SyFy creature features it's just too generic and saddled with weak writing to be worthwhile. Director Jeffrey Lando has helmed a few genre films in the past (Decoys 2: Alien Seduction, Savage Island) and keeps things going at a fairly brisk pace. They've also, wisely, chosen to keep the title beast covered in a black cloak for most of the film which helps make it a bit more menacing rather than just being an unscary CGI creation. Don't get me wrong, the CG does rear its cheaply done head occasionally with some menacing lip-curling and such but it's not nearly as painful as past SyFy fare.

In the lead Canadian character actor Bellows ("Ally McBeal", Love and a .45) is the weakest link amongst generally acceptable performances. Taking up the heroine role, Spiridakos does fine while Camille Sullivan gets to do the bitchy stepmom thing before being tossed through a patio door in what amounts to my favourite scene.

It may sound like Goblin will make for an unassuming night of entertainment, and there are a few positive moments, but the reason you should skip this lies mostly in the scripting. As written (I use that term loosely) by Raul Sanchez Inglis the plot here just feels like they cut up slips of paper containing various horror movie conventions, threw them into a hat and went with the first five choices. Then again, this is the guy who also wrote The Thing Below and fellow SyFy flick Sand Serpents so I shouldn't be too shocked. (Chris Hartley, 2/11/11)

Directed By: Jeffery Lando.
Written By: Raul Sanchez Inglis.

Starring: Gil Bellows, Tracy Spiridakos, Camille Sullivan, Reilly Dolman.