Diabolic (2025) Review – Don’t Believe the (Bot-Generated) Hype

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are taking a look at Diabolic (2025).

It’s Pretty standard Horror Fare, With a But…

Every now and then a movie comes along that leaves you with a prevailing sense of “meh”. It isn’t good, it isn’t particularly bad – it’s just “meh”. I know, my millennial is showing. Diabolic is one of those movies but there is an interesting caveat to my opinion on this film.

“At least 90% of the user reviews for this movie are fake and legitimate readers are pissed about it. The unweighted mean score is 7.5/10 while the actual user score is 5.6/10. That shows huge manipulation.”

The story follows Elise (Elizabeth Cullen), a young woman suffering from blackouts, occasionally odd behaviour, and a complete lack of desire to bump uglies with her knob of a boyfriend Adam (John Kim).

Determined to get to the bottom of it, she digs deep into her past to uncover a tangled web of supernatural folklore and religious indoctrination.

It’s standard stuff, right? It reads exactly like 10 different horror movies that will be released this year and another ten that you can find on Tubi right now.

As I said earlier, it’s extremely rote and unlikely to inspire much in the way of enthusiasm in any horror fan. Fine to fill in 90 minutes of your time but you probably won’t remember it a year down the line. That’s when that “but” comes in.

Don’t believe the hype

Now that statement isn’t just a song by classic rap group Public Enemy, it’s also a mantra that can be accurately applied to this movie. If you were to head on over to IMDb and take a look at the user reviews for Diabolic, you would be preparing yourself for a masterpiece of horror ingenuity.

I’ve never seen so many 10/10 scores. The phrase “best horror movie of 2026” is thrown around repeatedly (suspiciously by a couple of identical reviews left by people with different usernames). This is a textbook example of user score manipulation.

At least 90% of the user reviews for this movie are fake and legitimate readers are pissed about it. The unweighted mean score is 7.5/10 while the actual user score is 5.6/10. That shows huge manipulation and I expect that score to drop even further when IMDb realises the scale of the abuse.

So what’s the reality?

Strangely enough, the reality is that this movie didn’t really need to purchase reviews and ratings packages from black-hat sellers. It’s not a great film by any means but it’s certainly not terrible. It’s just extremely average.

The happy medium for relatively low budget horror is to bag a score in the 5.0-5.6/10 range and develop a niche audience that appreciates the potential. Real horror fans recognise that a lot of good titles exist in that range and they will temper their expectations.

Instead, Diabolic promises something it can never live up to and lots of people despise it for the lies. The truth of the matter is that this is a serviceable, yet very trope-heavy horror flick.

It’s rather mundane…

The story plays out in something of a non-linear fashion. We flit back and forth in time between the modern day and a time period that looks altogether more archaic.

“The slightly more compelling modern day investigation into Elise’s struggles are interrupted by meaningless lore dumping and trips to a past that would be best left where it is.”

This is where you might find yourself a little confused as it’s actually still the modern day, just as depicted through the eyes of someone living in a FLDS-based cult.

Elise’s attempts to confront a past she had buried and the insidious situation she grew up in sound pretty interesting. In reality, this is Diabolic’s biggest weak point. These sequences are beyond dull.

Nothing all that interesting happens and each minor plot development is padded with scenes that feel rather mundane and, ultimately, a bit pointless. Think The Village but without the more interesting monster aspect and you are half way there.

The slightly more compelling modern day investigation into Elise’s struggles are interrupted by meaningless lore dumping and trips to a past that would be best left where it is.

And extremely trope-heavy

The horror aspect only really comes on in the last 20 minutes, or so, and it’s pretty standard fare. This is a very trope-heavy movie that relies on characters making dumb decisions purely to further the story.

Naturally, this is going to disappoint a lot of viewers. It might just have you screaming at your screen a little, too. It’s a shame because when it works, it’s quite an atmospheric film with some actual promise.

So much time is spent decompressing the world’s lore, as well as our main character’s backstory, that it serves to actually sanitise some of the horror. When the possession stuff gets going, we know far too much for it to actually effectively feel scary.

There’s a few positives

On the plus side, some of the cinematography is quite nice and this is a decent looking film, for the most part. Naturally, it’s an Australian production about the FLDS so it had to be set in the USA. This leads to some baffling moments of accent slipping.

Acting, on the whole, is a bit mixed. Elizabeth Cullen is fine in the lead role, everyone else fades into the background somewhat. The script is abysmal, in parts, which really doesn’t help matters.

“So much time is spent decompressing the world’s lore, as well as our main character’s backstory, that it serves to actually sanitise some of the horror. “

Certain scenes between Elise and her boyfriend come across almost comically thanks to the terrible writing. One moment later on when Adam believes he has found the root cause of Elise’s lack of passion had me laughing my arse off for the terrible dialogue. It’s all pretty woeful.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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