I am not sure why I have this movie on my thin DVD collection. I suspect I bought it because it was a Carpenter movie and I also suspect that is the main reason why most people bothered to watch it, in the first place.
It is hard to comment this movie. Overall, I would say it is flawed, on many levels. The characters mean precious little and only half way through the action do they seem to care much about the evil green container. ***spoiler*** As a result, caring for any of them is nigh impossible, which completely spoils all the effect the final "sacrifice" might have had. ***end spoiler***
As for the green liquid...it is there, as a medium through which the ultimate evil is transmitted from person to person. Which may seem like an original idea but cannot be efficiently translated in terms of imagery.
Reading the plot, this seems to be a killer, it contains all the ingredients of an amazing horror movie: the suspense, the fear of the unknown, the desperate struggle to survive and the looming presence of evil coming ever closer.
Sadly, all this falls flat on its face as soon as it hits the screen. There is no suspense. Characters go from room to room, half bored, then scared, but hardly ever driven by any tension. They eventually round up to ward off the zombie like creatures but by the time they do so, we can no longer care. The impression that evil is biding its time is never achieved and surely not handled with any degree of pathos.
The endings tries to scramble all the data we already had, which is supposed to make us re-think what we just saw, yet it fails to be interesting or even convincing.
A few scenes were very good, though. ***spoiler*** such as the strange pregnancy-like state of comatose semi death which affects one of the characters and the subsequent make-up effects that reveal a rotten zombie-ish countenance worthy of Mr. Savini; the cockroach scene, in which a man completely dissolves into a mass of scampering roaches; the mirror scene, with Catherine eerily floating through the darkness, almost like a modern Ophelia; pretty much all Alice Copper scenes ****end spoiler***
And one thing must be said about this movie, the premise is extremely original and it is a very odd piece of cinema. I honestly wish I had liked it more, but, alas, I did not.
It is hard to comment this movie. Overall, I would say it is flawed, on many levels. The characters mean precious little and only half way through the action do they seem to care much about the evil green container. ***spoiler*** As a result, caring for any of them is nigh impossible, which completely spoils all the effect the final "sacrifice" might have had. ***end spoiler***
As for the green liquid...it is there, as a medium through which the ultimate evil is transmitted from person to person. Which may seem like an original idea but cannot be efficiently translated in terms of imagery.
Reading the plot, this seems to be a killer, it contains all the ingredients of an amazing horror movie: the suspense, the fear of the unknown, the desperate struggle to survive and the looming presence of evil coming ever closer.
Sadly, all this falls flat on its face as soon as it hits the screen. There is no suspense. Characters go from room to room, half bored, then scared, but hardly ever driven by any tension. They eventually round up to ward off the zombie like creatures but by the time they do so, we can no longer care. The impression that evil is biding its time is never achieved and surely not handled with any degree of pathos.
The endings tries to scramble all the data we already had, which is supposed to make us re-think what we just saw, yet it fails to be interesting or even convincing.
A few scenes were very good, though. ***spoiler*** such as the strange pregnancy-like state of comatose semi death which affects one of the characters and the subsequent make-up effects that reveal a rotten zombie-ish countenance worthy of Mr. Savini; the cockroach scene, in which a man completely dissolves into a mass of scampering roaches; the mirror scene, with Catherine eerily floating through the darkness, almost like a modern Ophelia; pretty much all Alice Copper scenes ****end spoiler***
And one thing must be said about this movie, the premise is extremely original and it is a very odd piece of cinema. I honestly wish I had liked it more, but, alas, I did not.