The Johnsons 1999 Horror Movie Review

Being Dutch myself, I am very curious how a horror movie from the motherland is “seen” in America. Not that Holland produces much horror flicks, but hey, we Dutch people are too sober for that, most of the time.


“The Johnsons” is directed by Rudolf van den Berg who has made some wel-crafted drama’s like “De Avonden” and “Zoeken naar Eileen”. Have these two been released in The States? I really don’t know.

I know that “The Johnsons” is and I have a feeling that it won’t please too much people, because in America, it has been done all before, and much better.


“The Johnsons” is about a murdering embryo who will bring darkness over the world, through the hands of seven psychopatic brothers. Only a university teacher and a teenage girl seem to know more and as the movie progresses, their paths intertwine.

The ending is as proposterous as bombastic, but because it is pulp, it’s in its essence all about that specific law of “suspension of disbelieve”.


That “The Johnsons” asks a lot of this suspension shows that it is a whole lotta pulp and crap. But there is something appealing about pulp-movies and their accumulation of disbelieves. The wacko-wacky plottwists, the far fetched stories about dark entities and omnipresent evil lurking in the dark, always some outcast people who know more than the ignorant mass, the final obligatory battle against good and evil.. if it is taken not all that seriously, it might actually be fun.


And hey, even if the movie makers took themselves and the movie very seriously, even then it can be fun - even more so sometimes, as in this case, I might say, in the case of “The Johnsons”.

Loose all perseptive on reallity, loose all sense of logic, loose all longing for reason and punctuallity.


Just put in the dvd and loose it all good…