I had a lot of fun watching this movie. I watch a lot of tv and movies, and this was the most enjoyable and quite funny things that I've seen in quite a long time. I really like Andrew Bowser, but I was a bit concerned that his schtick would grow old in a feature length movie. Boy was I wrong! I could watch a whole series of movies based on this character, as long as the quality of the writing stayed the same. Like the old times movies based on the same characters put in different situations, like Abbott and Costello. Anyway, as I said, I had a lot of fun watching this movie and haven't laughed so hard in quite a while! Thanks Andrew!

You may have seen Andrew Bowser play Onyx before in viral videos. As Onyx the Fortuitous, he's also been listed as "Weird Satanic Guy" and his distinct speech pattern will definitely stick with you.

Now, Onyx is part of his own film, Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, directed, written and edited by Bowser. Yet Onyx does not live the dream life. He makes burgers for a living at Marty's Meat Hut and gets abused at every turn. He's barely tolerated by his parents (Barbara Crampton is his mom!). Yet he has one thing that he loves. Or a person, really. Bartok the Great (Jeffrey Combs) is an occultist who has created several learn-at-home programs - Letting a Little Devil In - that Onyx has studied in his pursuit of Satanism and now, he has a chance to be the magician's assistant as he raises a demon from Hell. He's one of the many followers lured into this ritual by Bartok's assistant Farrah (Olivia Taylor Dudley, Paranormal Acivity: The Ghost Dimension), along with Bartok's wife in a past life Jesminder (Melanie Chandra), magical scholar Mr. Duke (TC Carson, the voice of Mace Windu and Kratos in God of War), the tough, understanding and non-binary Mack (Rivkah Reyes, who was once Katie in School of Rock) and the prim and proper former church lady Marsha (Donna Pieroni).

However, Bartok has no interest in teaching any of these would-be dark lords. Instead, he is stealing their souls and transforming them into zombies, all to increase his power. However, the Fortuitous One is among them and it just might be Onyx.

Your enjoyment will be determined by how much you like the strange-voiced, virginal cartoon-loving loser at the heart of it. I thought Onyx was relatively funny and I didn't have any issues, but some reviewers seem to in no way be able to get past him. But when a movie has gigantic puppet demons and an entire sequence that's taken from the Meat Loaf video for "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)," I think that feels like people who have no idea how to have fun.

I mean, more movies should have demon puppets in them. That's a sword that I will definitely fall on.

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

"Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls" is a story about fledgling occultist Onyx and a group of worshipers attend a once-in-a-lifetime ritual at their idol BARTOK THE GREAT'S mansion. Based on Andrew Bowser's character named "Onyx the Fortuitous", the film is meant to be a throwback of cheesy 80s horror film and fun non-serious halloween film. I haven't seen much of Bowser's work besides his work in "The Mother of Invention" which I thought was pretty good. However, this film was painfully awful and annoying to watch.

It's clear the film is trying to be non-serious but the problem is that the film's humor and writing feels extremely forced as if it was trying too hard to be funny which ultimately ends up being pretty cringy. The story feels like something from Scooby-Doo but instead of being clever, it's filled with unfunny humor, extremely annoying characters and an all over the place scenario.

Most of the humor feels like humor you will find in terrible modern comedies about toilet humor that is annoying. None of the performances were good and were all pretty bad. I can not stand the character of Onyx the Fortuitous and every other character feels like flat out rejects from a terrible Nickelodeon show. It almost feels like I am watching something from terrible YouTuber films like "Space Cop, Smosh: The Movie, Airplane Mode, and Not Cool". The production designs feel cheap, the dialogue is purely awful, and it never was boring but I felt more annoyed rather than bored.

The only good aspect about this film were the special effects especially the uses of puppets and costumes were good. Overall, it was painful and highly unfunny. But better than most Youtuber films I guess.

Rating: D.