As much as I do dislike a vast majority of SyFy's movies, something about their badness makes them compulsively watchable. I found Jabberwock not their worst or even one of their worst, but it was an awful movie in my opinion. The effects, as I have said before for previous movies that were also lame but not horrifically bad, have been worse but that is in no way excusing how artificial, crude and un-menacing the Jabberwock in particular actually is. The scenery is not actually too bad, but I never got a sense of wonder because the camera work was so jumpy. The music is also generic and there is nothing thrilling about the action, it all feels half-hearted with the climax very tepid. I've known SyFy fantasy-adventure-genre movies to have anachronistic and horrendously stilted dialogue and Jabberwock was no exception. The story was sluggish and held few if any surprises, and the characters are not only clichéd but you don't get to know or feel for any of them. The acting is dire with none of the actors showing any sense of genuine dread or even concern for their situation. I'd actually go as far to say that they didn't look as though they wanted to be there. Overall, I've seen worse, but this was very poorly done and amateurish on the whole. 2/10 Bethany Cox
8 Reviews
Stay away from the Jabberwock
BornKnight28 March 2012
This movie is one of the many produced by the SyFy Channel: in general they are regular to bad (mostly) productions, in all senses, and Jabberwock is not an exception.
The movie is about two travelers, in the Medieval Age (aparently in our world, since they mention the Romans), and who traveling by the mountains, find a lake with some egg like stones - that are in fact eggs of Jabberwock.
One of the eggs hatch, in a rainstorm (in this area there wasn't rain for decades), and a dragon like creature, the Jabberwock, emerges, killing one of the travelers and starts pursuing the other, who ends up in a village, where we meet the other protagonists.
The rest of the story is the hunt to kill this creature, among other small clichés hooks of tragedy, heroism and romance.
The movie has nice scenarios, but the general acting in the movie is terrible, with no exception. The Jabberwock itself is made with CG, and is relatively acceptable.
The action and fighting parts of the movie are the worst: the camera shifts from views from the men branding swords, and the CG monster, like bad movies of the 60-70's, among many other incongruence in story and actions that occurs.
By the way, "Jabberwocky" is a poem from Lewis Caroll, that appears in the sequences of the book Alice in Wonderland - and many things are related to it in the film) - I don't know and don't want to know why they done this (in general all writers from Scy-Fy Channel are the worst writers that I've seen).
The sound effects and background music you don't even realize if they were good or not, since they are generic, and in a absolute background in the movie.
At the end, this is a very bad choice of movie, even to watch if there's nothing interesting in the TV: I had the displeasure of watching it in 720p.
I'd advise to stay away from the Jabberwock - my score: 2,0 / 10,0.
The movie is about two travelers, in the Medieval Age (aparently in our world, since they mention the Romans), and who traveling by the mountains, find a lake with some egg like stones - that are in fact eggs of Jabberwock.
One of the eggs hatch, in a rainstorm (in this area there wasn't rain for decades), and a dragon like creature, the Jabberwock, emerges, killing one of the travelers and starts pursuing the other, who ends up in a village, where we meet the other protagonists.
The rest of the story is the hunt to kill this creature, among other small clichés hooks of tragedy, heroism and romance.
The movie has nice scenarios, but the general acting in the movie is terrible, with no exception. The Jabberwock itself is made with CG, and is relatively acceptable.
The action and fighting parts of the movie are the worst: the camera shifts from views from the men branding swords, and the CG monster, like bad movies of the 60-70's, among many other incongruence in story and actions that occurs.
By the way, "Jabberwocky" is a poem from Lewis Caroll, that appears in the sequences of the book Alice in Wonderland - and many things are related to it in the film) - I don't know and don't want to know why they done this (in general all writers from Scy-Fy Channel are the worst writers that I've seen).
The sound effects and background music you don't even realize if they were good or not, since they are generic, and in a absolute background in the movie.
At the end, this is a very bad choice of movie, even to watch if there's nothing interesting in the TV: I had the displeasure of watching it in 720p.
I'd advise to stay away from the Jabberwock - my score: 2,0 / 10,0.
More terrible SyFy Channel creature feature crap.
poolandrews7 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Jabberwock is set in ancient times & starts as two men, Cid (Raffaello Degruttola) & his mate ride on horse back through a barren wasteland, it suddenly begins to rain & the two men carry on unknown to them that a strike of lightning hits a dormant Jabberwock egg & it hatches. A large winged mythical monster the Jabberwock feeds on flesh as it kills & devours anything it can catch, the huge beast swoops down & attacks the two men killing one & Cid only just escaping with his life by hiding behind some rocks. A few days later & Cid reaches a small village & tells his story where no-one believes him, that is until the Jabberwock appears & attacks the village killing several people. Brother's Francis (Tahmoh Penikett) & Alec (Michael Worth) seem to take it upon themselves to decide what to do for the rest of the village & eventually come to the conclusion that they need to trap & kill the Jabberwock before it wipes them all out...
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Steven R. Monroe who had previously made the I Spit on Your Grave (2010) remake between other crap SyFy Channel creature features like this, based on the nonsense poem by Lewis Caroll the makers here decided to drop the 'Y' from the actual title Jabberwocky probably for legal reasons & rights issues. I have never read the poem but I have seen the Monthy Python comedy Jabberwocky (1977) although I can't remember anything about it but I am willing put to a large sum of money on the fact that it's better than this lame attempt. The script is straight forward, some monster terrorises a village who then decide to fight back & kill the monster before it kills them, that's it really. Throw in some tepid romance, some tragedy as one of the brother's gets killed which then leads to revenge motivation & a bit of annoying comedy relief in the form of the bumbling Cid. Also why doesn't the Jabberwock kill Jocelyn or Alec? Can't it kill important character's? It just has to fly away with them & store them away for later? There are a few nods to the original poem, the village philosopher recites passages from the poem & claims that it's a story to scare children so at least the makers reference Lewis Caroll & his original poem. At just over 80 minutes Jabberwock feels longer, there's no depth here, the character's & dialogue are all forgettable & underwhelming while it's very predictable too. No surprises, no excitement & lots of annoying plotting & decision making means that Jabberwock carries on the SyFy Channel's long tradition of producing really crap creature features with aplomb. Good job all round then, well if you like crap monster films anyway.
Made for telly this low budget affair is a mess, the start of the film features a huge rain storm one second & then it's completely dry only a few feet away. Why would a lightning bolt hatch an egg? How could the Jabberwock grow to full size in about ten seconds? Where do the other eggs come from? If there's only one Jabberwock how could it mate & produce eggs? The original hunt for the Jabberwock is hilarious as out brave heroes decide clinging to the side of a cliff would be a good place to fight the Jabberwock, we aren't dealing with genius's here are we? Then the villagers make a huge mouse trap to capture the Jabberwock in another funny scene, then when Francis is first seen in his stupid looking suit of armour I did actually have to laugh. The CGI computer effects won't convince anyone, there's the usual SyFy Channel gore with a few bite wounds & a bit of blood splatter. All of the attack scenes look awkward as the poor CGI monster & actor's fumble through their scenes as people wave swords at thin air & the monster just sort of sits there & roars a bit.
Filmed in Bulgaria the usual woods & rocky mountains are used throughout, the village only seems to consist of one blacksmith & generally the whole production looks cheap. The acting is nothing special, not bad but not great.
Jabberwock is another production line SyFy Channel creature feature that has the distinction of being based on a Lewis Caroll poem, other than that there's nothing here to get excited about. Why do I carry on watching these films? Maybe because they are free to watch or maybe because I am a masochist. You decide.
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Steven R. Monroe who had previously made the I Spit on Your Grave (2010) remake between other crap SyFy Channel creature features like this, based on the nonsense poem by Lewis Caroll the makers here decided to drop the 'Y' from the actual title Jabberwocky probably for legal reasons & rights issues. I have never read the poem but I have seen the Monthy Python comedy Jabberwocky (1977) although I can't remember anything about it but I am willing put to a large sum of money on the fact that it's better than this lame attempt. The script is straight forward, some monster terrorises a village who then decide to fight back & kill the monster before it kills them, that's it really. Throw in some tepid romance, some tragedy as one of the brother's gets killed which then leads to revenge motivation & a bit of annoying comedy relief in the form of the bumbling Cid. Also why doesn't the Jabberwock kill Jocelyn or Alec? Can't it kill important character's? It just has to fly away with them & store them away for later? There are a few nods to the original poem, the village philosopher recites passages from the poem & claims that it's a story to scare children so at least the makers reference Lewis Caroll & his original poem. At just over 80 minutes Jabberwock feels longer, there's no depth here, the character's & dialogue are all forgettable & underwhelming while it's very predictable too. No surprises, no excitement & lots of annoying plotting & decision making means that Jabberwock carries on the SyFy Channel's long tradition of producing really crap creature features with aplomb. Good job all round then, well if you like crap monster films anyway.
Made for telly this low budget affair is a mess, the start of the film features a huge rain storm one second & then it's completely dry only a few feet away. Why would a lightning bolt hatch an egg? How could the Jabberwock grow to full size in about ten seconds? Where do the other eggs come from? If there's only one Jabberwock how could it mate & produce eggs? The original hunt for the Jabberwock is hilarious as out brave heroes decide clinging to the side of a cliff would be a good place to fight the Jabberwock, we aren't dealing with genius's here are we? Then the villagers make a huge mouse trap to capture the Jabberwock in another funny scene, then when Francis is first seen in his stupid looking suit of armour I did actually have to laugh. The CGI computer effects won't convince anyone, there's the usual SyFy Channel gore with a few bite wounds & a bit of blood splatter. All of the attack scenes look awkward as the poor CGI monster & actor's fumble through their scenes as people wave swords at thin air & the monster just sort of sits there & roars a bit.
Filmed in Bulgaria the usual woods & rocky mountains are used throughout, the village only seems to consist of one blacksmith & generally the whole production looks cheap. The acting is nothing special, not bad but not great.
Jabberwock is another production line SyFy Channel creature feature that has the distinction of being based on a Lewis Caroll poem, other than that there's nothing here to get excited about. Why do I carry on watching these films? Maybe because they are free to watch or maybe because I am a masochist. You decide.
Bad CGI ?
gurubesar2 January 2012
As if it is not enough to have unclear storyline, the director have to add it with bad acting as well and of course very bad CGI as well.
The dragon like creature that you will encountered on this one is exactly like what you have seen on the cover. Imagine an animal who has 2 way mouth opening, up-down and sideway movement of the jaw ??? Does it make sense ? I know this is fantasy movie, but even when you fantasize at least be a little bit realistic about it.
The acting is very bad, some of the characters do not even look that they are in a dire situation, even when this ugly dragon is attacking their village. A lot of the action on do not make sense. If you scare of something, the last that you will do is to dash across the frightening entity from your hiding place. Right ? Wrong...., this movie will tell you otherwise. If you scare of dragon, then you should parade in front of it.... to see if you can outran a dragon. And of course, when you have an airborne enemy, the first thing you do is to walk in open space instead of seeking the protection of trees.
Watching this movie makes you realize that movie world is a place where bad is not bad enough, but they have to make it into something really disgusting and then try to sell it...... My rating of 1 is too generous, but then that is the minimum that you can give....
The dragon like creature that you will encountered on this one is exactly like what you have seen on the cover. Imagine an animal who has 2 way mouth opening, up-down and sideway movement of the jaw ??? Does it make sense ? I know this is fantasy movie, but even when you fantasize at least be a little bit realistic about it.
The acting is very bad, some of the characters do not even look that they are in a dire situation, even when this ugly dragon is attacking their village. A lot of the action on do not make sense. If you scare of something, the last that you will do is to dash across the frightening entity from your hiding place. Right ? Wrong...., this movie will tell you otherwise. If you scare of dragon, then you should parade in front of it.... to see if you can outran a dragon. And of course, when you have an airborne enemy, the first thing you do is to walk in open space instead of seeking the protection of trees.
Watching this movie makes you realize that movie world is a place where bad is not bad enough, but they have to make it into something really disgusting and then try to sell it...... My rating of 1 is too generous, but then that is the minimum that you can give....
Not the Jabberwock you know!
etusciuk13 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I will first confess that I had bought the DVD over a year ago,and didn't watch it till just a couple days ago. I saw the DVD laying in my room and I thought, why haven't i watched this yet. Well now I know. I shouldn't have. First things first is the acting. It is absolutely atrocious. There are only 2 people in this entire film who even have any semblance of acting in this film,but apparently they don't want to use it. You can tell they may be good actors, but for some reason they don't want to show it, so the acting is still pretty much bad across the board. The soundtrack is stupid. It is awful and uninspired throughout the whole film, except in two places and even there it is mediocre at best. The DVD copy i have is actually entitled curse of the dragon, so i expected a western dragon, and not the jabberwock. The dragon on the copy i have looks way cooler, and better drawn than the actual creature. I just found out the actual movie title is jabberwock. The creature model was so terrible and didn't look right. The scene in which the dragon is slain is so rushed and dumb that i felt neither joy or sadness for the creatures death, and it looked like the characters themselves didn't care if it lived or died either. No one even shows any emotion in this film. I watched this movie once, and i refuse to watch it again. My copy is being donated to the local goodwill. Avoid this movie at all costs. Reign of fire is a better choice for your typical dragon-attack type film.
Beware the Jabberwock!!
tim-764-29185613 April 2012
Actually, I believe Lewis Carrol's poem, on which this legend is based upon actually said 'Beware the Jabberwocky', which is its full name, here shortened to differentiate it from Terry Gilliam's rather more Python-esque version from 1977.
This, more straightforward TV movie was on The Sy-Fy Channel who it was made for. The other reviewer (so far) did a good job at going into some detail about some aspects about it and I feel that the film doesn't warrant unnecessary repetition.
To say that the entire project is a lacklustre affair is an understatement. On the IMDb its budget was not listed but shoestring immediately comes to mind. Filmed in Bulgaria, usually either in a forest or a quarry, this supposed fairytale about saving a lovely damsel from the creature (it never attacked her, anyway) says remarkably little in quite a long time.
The dialogue is always stilted and often bad,"Guys!!?" in medieval times seems quite a wrong way to address your comrades in arms and is usually delivered with monosyllabic non conviction. People in fear of their lives tend to get a little emotional - it's called adrenaline and here there's none.
Common sense also fails when, for instance, the two brothers who are main characters decide to fight to the death by swords and knives as they cannot decide which of them will finally slay the Jabberwock. Out of an entire village, they're seemably only two of about four that are physically capable to possibly stand up to the monster. Hmmmm.
The Jabberwock lives in a cave. Which is a CGI-d hole at the top of a quarry, which the men climb the face of without ropes. Hmm again. And when nasty old Jabberwock swoops and carries off his prey, we have no idea what he does with them. We presume it eats them, but you'd never know.
Most of the actors look quite bored. The only one that is worth keeping an eye on is the 'damsel', previously mentioned. She, Annabel (a medieval sounding Kacey Barnfield!?) looks quite regal and beautiful and worth saving from most things, I'd say.
The CGI creature itself could be worse. But not in 2011. 1990, maybe.
The final slaying of the beast has a climax that's about as tepid as is possible.
However, one almost redeeming feature was the music which was always suitably rousing, melancholic and soulful. That alone cannot make up for a pretty lame film all round, but if you like your creature flicks, it's up there with the rest of them.
This, more straightforward TV movie was on The Sy-Fy Channel who it was made for. The other reviewer (so far) did a good job at going into some detail about some aspects about it and I feel that the film doesn't warrant unnecessary repetition.
To say that the entire project is a lacklustre affair is an understatement. On the IMDb its budget was not listed but shoestring immediately comes to mind. Filmed in Bulgaria, usually either in a forest or a quarry, this supposed fairytale about saving a lovely damsel from the creature (it never attacked her, anyway) says remarkably little in quite a long time.
The dialogue is always stilted and often bad,"Guys!!?" in medieval times seems quite a wrong way to address your comrades in arms and is usually delivered with monosyllabic non conviction. People in fear of their lives tend to get a little emotional - it's called adrenaline and here there's none.
Common sense also fails when, for instance, the two brothers who are main characters decide to fight to the death by swords and knives as they cannot decide which of them will finally slay the Jabberwock. Out of an entire village, they're seemably only two of about four that are physically capable to possibly stand up to the monster. Hmmmm.
The Jabberwock lives in a cave. Which is a CGI-d hole at the top of a quarry, which the men climb the face of without ropes. Hmm again. And when nasty old Jabberwock swoops and carries off his prey, we have no idea what he does with them. We presume it eats them, but you'd never know.
Most of the actors look quite bored. The only one that is worth keeping an eye on is the 'damsel', previously mentioned. She, Annabel (a medieval sounding Kacey Barnfield!?) looks quite regal and beautiful and worth saving from most things, I'd say.
The CGI creature itself could be worse. But not in 2011. 1990, maybe.
The final slaying of the beast has a climax that's about as tepid as is possible.
However, one almost redeeming feature was the music which was always suitably rousing, melancholic and soulful. That alone cannot make up for a pretty lame film all round, but if you like your creature flicks, it's up there with the rest of them.
I didn't care for it not one bit... however..
w-n-strauss12 January 2019
Tim-764-291856: The monk, Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky" does not say the word "Jabberwocky" anywhere in the poem. The young man is warned by his elder to: "
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
Carroll was only making a silly, meaningless poem, most likely to amuse his young friend,( whom "Alice Through the Looking Glass" was based upon) thus, the title "Jabberwocky" which has no meaning.
Based solely on your review Tim, I chased this movie down and watched it. Now I wish I could unsee what I saw. I always loved Jabberwocky, it being one of my favorite poems of all time. It is now somewhat ruined by this very lame attempt to create a Jabberwock and slay it on film.
Carroll was only making a silly, meaningless poem, most likely to amuse his young friend,( whom "Alice Through the Looking Glass" was based upon) thus, the title "Jabberwocky" which has no meaning.
Based solely on your review Tim, I chased this movie down and watched it. Now I wish I could unsee what I saw. I always loved Jabberwocky, it being one of my favorite poems of all time. It is now somewhat ruined by this very lame attempt to create a Jabberwock and slay it on film.
Cid, an all time hero. NOT A COWARD
leneerlang9 December 2023
Warning: Spoilers
"Jabberwock (2011)" unfortunately falls short of expectations, struggling with weak storytelling and unconvincing visuals.
Cid's character, surprisingly, emerges as a beacon of strength amidst the film's shortcomings, showcasing potential that the plot fails to fully capitalize on.
Because of them knowing the poem "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll, the attempt to frame the narrative in a post-apocalyptic future adds an interesting layer, but the execution leaves much to be desired.
While Cid shines, the overall film stumbles, leaving viewers with a sense of unfulfilled promise.
Overall a very bad movie.
Cid's character, surprisingly, emerges as a beacon of strength amidst the film's shortcomings, showcasing potential that the plot fails to fully capitalize on.
Because of them knowing the poem "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll, the attempt to frame the narrative in a post-apocalyptic future adds an interesting layer, but the execution leaves much to be desired.
While Cid shines, the overall film stumbles, leaving viewers with a sense of unfulfilled promise.
Overall a very bad movie.
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