Watch Descendant For Free

Let's be realistic.

Excellent but underrated film

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

1st watched 11/1/2014 – 2 out of 10(Dir-Kermit Christman & Del Tenney): Confusing, amateurish production revolves around a late descendant of Edgar Allen Poe, played by Katherine Heigl, meeting another supposed descendant who is also a writer, played by Jeremy London. These two folk get involved with each other then all goes haywire. The plot actually is a lot more complicated than this so I'll try to break it down. This writer sees visions of "Edgar Allen" as he tries to write a novel and break away from his roots. His agent has the last name of "Usher", which is the family that had it against the Poe's as shown in the first scene where an Usher kills a Poe. If you are confused now it gets worse as the movie goes forward. Some murders start happening in the local area as we are introduced to a variety of characters who either have the "hots" for Heigl's character or there is some other reason that they could possibly be the murderer. And then, of course, we have the writer – Ethan Poe – who is also a suspect because of his past and his eccentricity. So – do we care about the Poe vs. distant cousin romance or the murder mystery or neither – I take neither. I don't know if the fault of the movie is the original story or the adaptation or the director's, but it doesn't come across like anyone really had a handle on what they wanted to do with the material. London, unfortunately is handed a role that is inconsistent from scene to scene and he hams it up pretty good. Heigl seems extremely unsure of herself early in the movie, but gets better as it progresses. The story starts as a mystery/romance but changes to a psycho horror movie before the end. It would be interesting to know the progression and history of this film's production because it has two directors, two actors that are involved in the writing of the movie, and comes across like a TV movie at times with fadeouts like it's going to a commercial. The bottom line is the confusion turns the viewer away from the film pretty early on so pass this one up unless you just have to see Heigl in an early film.

I don't usually comment, but there are things that need to be said. Where to start...The acting, on Jeremy London's part was horrible! I didn't think he could be so bad. The plot could have been good, had it been well directed, along with a good solid performance from the lead actor. Unfortunately, this is one of those movies you read about and think it has great potential to be entertaining, but get disappointed from the start. Well, at least I got good laughs. I wouldn't waste my time if I were you.

Descendant starts in the 19th Century as Frederick Usher (Jeremy London) snaps, he beats his girlfriend Emily Hedgerow (Katherine Heigl), ties her to the bedposts & then proceeds to cut out her heart... Jump forward to the present where Ethan Poe (Jeremy London again) writes horror novels for a living & it helps that he happens to be a descendant of legendary horror author Edgar Allan Poe. Ethan is currently in the small town of Tennison attending a seminar about his illustrious ancestor whom he doesn't have particularly high opinion of, it's here that Ethan is introduced to Ann Hedgerow (Katherine Heigl again) by their mutual friend Lisa (Whitney Dylan), Ann has recently lost her Mother & has her Brother Keifer (Matt Farnsworth) stalking her so she is feeling a little vulnerable. Both Ann & Ethan are attracted to each other, a romance begins to blossom & Ann invites Ethan to stay at her house to finish off his latest novel. However the town is stunned by the discovery of a murdered prostitute named Camille Lane (Cheryl Dent), police officer Deputy John Burns (Nick Stabile), who just happens to be a personal friend of Ann's, is investigating & becomes suspicious of Ann's new house guest...Co-written, co-produced & co-directed by Kermit Christman along with Del Tenney who also executive produced I have to give Descendant some credit for trying something a bit different but in the end it doesn't quite work. The script by Christman & William Katt, who appears in the film, starts off with a bang as Emily has her heart cut out but as soon as you realise that Heigl reappears as Ann & London as Ethan you know exactly where the film is going to end up & if you don't I have no idea why because you should. Then there's the murders, for a start the killer is totally obvious & the film makes no attempt to try & fool the viewer with red-herrings or other suspects despite the fact that they aren't revealed until the end. Then there's the fact they aren't very good at killing people, out of their three victims two don't die straight away. Then there's the terrible climax where, amongst other things, the killer stops Ann from escaping in her car by blocking the road, OK fine. So Ann jumps out of her car & runs off into the nearby wood to try & escape, again not a problem. But then Ann stumbles across her Mother's dead body, for a start it wouldn't be perfectly preserved & secondly out of all the directions & places she could have run too she had to go straight to the point where her Mother was lying within an entire wood or forest or whatever it was, the chances of that happening are almost statistically impossible! There's a supernatural element that's never clarified although I just like to think Ethan was seeing things. On a positive note it's certainly different & kept me watching until it's end, the character's are decent but some of them felt very forced like Keifer who is there merely to be an aggressor, cause trouble & nothing else.Director's Tenny & Christman drop a few Poe references in throughout for eagle eyed viewers to spot like shots of a raven, someone being buried alive along with various mentions of his work. There's not much violence, the opening scene is quite strong but after that it's pretty tame with just a dead body & someone being impaled on a wooden pole.Technically Descendant is pretty good despite it's obvious low budget of about $650,000, it's well made & has some nice cinematography. The acting was OK & Heigl is a bit of a babe which makes it a bit easier to watch...Descendant has an interesting central idea that gets lost & ultimately goes nowhere. The murder mystery elements are severely lacking & the ending is so signposted & predictable it disappoints that the filmmakers didn't put a bit more effort & thought into it. I think it's worth a watch as it's different & I really wanted to like it because of that but in the end Descendant just doesn't come together in a satisfying manner.

an imaginative tale of the modern day Poe's and Ushers, with some very good acting and a well done script all add up to a flick that was far better than it's straight to video fate. Katherine Heigl is gorgeous as well as talented, and the superb Jeremy London (Party of Five's Griffin) puts in a great performance as the haunted writer who may or not be all there. Interesting that they wove in bits of pieces of Hitchcock's Suspicion as well, come to think of it, if they were going to do a remake of that classic flick, Heigl and London's chemistry would serve them well. Sadly, 99% of the folks renting flicks these days have no idea who Poe was, and will not get most of this flick's storyline....too bad for them. 7 out of 10 stars, good job all around, the major subtraction being that York Video used the same house where this takes place in their laugher/slasher/thriller Scream Bloody Murder, weirdly enough, I rented both of them on the same trip!!!