Artifacts (2007) User Reviews

It could've been good, if they had a real ending for it

[FieCrier · 3/10 · 12 September 2008]

The movie's only an hour and fifteen minutes long, and a portion of that's taken up by the end credits, so it's very short. The end credits mention something about a Belgian Tax Shelter, which may explain this movie's existence.

The DVD cover, incidentally, has nothing to do with the film.

It did actually hold my interest up to the "ending." People are being killed by their doppelgangers, who appear accompanied by odd static. The police find metal "artifacts" in their bodies. There's an amusing web search at one point where the heroine searches for "artefact in bodies" or something like that. That would bring up a lot more results than she gets, and she actually finds more or less what she was looking for.

But anyway, in the end the artefacts and the doppelgangers are not explained. Nor is the non-explanation satisfactory in any way. I might have given the movie a 6/10 or 7/10 if it sustained the interest with the ending, but the failure to have a resolution really damaged it for me.

The special feature indicates this was shot in 12 days for $100,000 with a cast of 10 and 20 locations. It sounded like they originally wanted the actors to work off the synopsis rather than use a script. For a movie on a limited budget with a limited shooting schedule, that's a real mistake. The dialogue and acting in the film is actually fine, it's the plot where the film falls flat at the end, with no wrapup. I'm not really sure where the $100,000 went. Maybe just towards paying the cast and crew? They do blow up a car....

The special feature does offer a very little additional information about two of the characters that one could not possibly get from the film. However, the director either really did not have an explanation, or plays coy. Supposedly, budgetary restrictions kept them from offering a real ending. They're open to the possibility of a sequel or a remake. I'm doubtful whether they'll get that opportunity.

Overlong short movie in disguise

[Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi · 4/10 · 27 March 2022]

ARTEFACTS tells the story of a woman who realizes that her circle of friends are killed off one by one by their evil doppelgangers.

ARTEFACTS feels very much like a short movie stretched out to barely make it a full-length feature. The production values are low, there is not much of an explanation given why things happen, which is particularly frustrating because the doppelgangers behave inconsistently. Consequently, there is not even a point in trying to guess what is going on. Finally, the concluding speech by the Doctor is just baffling in that it seems totally out of place, almost as if it was lifted from some unrelated romantic drama.

It is much easier to get away with lack of explanation in a short film, because the economy of time only permits audience to be drawn to other possible aspects, like the ambience, emotional appeal, aesthetics etc. Without getting disengaged or bored. A longer film can pull this off, but it is much harder, because the parts that make up for absence of sense have to be especially strong. This film has nothing to make up for the absence of the plot explanation, so basically we get a cat and mouse game without rhyme and reason.

The one aspect of this movie which stood out positively was the noise that doppelgangers make as they approach; it is genuinely unsettling, and, given how simple the sound effect is, I am surprised that I had not seen (heard) this in other movies.

Overall, this is not really a worthwhile film unless one is a evil doppelganger movie completist.

Some movies which make much better use of the concept:

1. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

2. THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975)

2. THE BROKEN (2008)

good up to the ending soured me off the film

[movieman_kev · 4/10 · 30 September 2008]

Kate, a business woman in her mid-twenties, is having nightmares of her closest friends winding up dead that seem to become reality in this tense, slightly unnerving little film dealing with dopplegangers. Made on a shoe-string budget over a couple of mere months this sci-fi tinged thriller is pretty damn good (for the most part, the ending is atrocious and 'end's nothing). It was a breath of fresh air to see a film that doesn't automatically (and wrongly) equate mindless gore with big scares. Kudos to the film makers for not going that route. And at merely 75 minutes (including credit rolls), this film is lean in a good way & rarely drags. But, I must say again, the ending pretty much soured the movie for me.

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: A 52 minute Making-of (that's almost as long as the film itself); a trailer for this film; and Trailers for "Bangkok Dangerous" (the US remake), "the Spirit", "Restraint", "Kitchen Privileges", "Raising Jeffrey Dahmer", & "Bram Stroker's Dracula's Guest"

Nice try, but not at all scary.

[johannes2000-1 · 3/10 · 12 March 2009]

The premise of this movie was okay en kept me curious for like 10 minutes. After that the many shortcomings of this production took over until the end. I watched a piece of the DVD's extras, where the makers of the movie told that they did it in 12 days for 100.000 dollar. They sounded sympathetic enough, but this movie is definitely not a Blairwich Project-kind of surprise, because as a supposed horror-flick it fails on the most crucial part: it's never ever in any way even a tiny bit scary!

It's about a girl finding out that she, her (ex-) lover and a bunch of close friends all have been implanted with some metal artefact in their bodies, which all of a sudden attracts their exact Doppelgangers who are out to kill them. There's hardly an explanation, not even in the end, just some mystifying innuendo's like: "high people from 'up there' (meaning aliens from outer space??) are playing a game with you". The whole movie we see a lot of running around through ugly streets and houses, while the Doppelgangers conveniently announce themselves by way of a strange rattling sound. No graphic violence whatsoever, hardly any blood, and one car exploding (probably costing the most of the films budget). That's about it.

Then there were a lot of annoying things, like the strange accent of the actors (were they originally Belgian?), the bad acting of the rather scruffy looking male main character, and the uninventive and amateurish special effects. The script rattled. How and when were these metal artefacts implanted? Were they born with it? What were all these evil Doppelgangers supposed to do after they killed the original persons? Take over the world? And why this complex scheme of planting an artefact to attract the Doppelgangers - if these "people from up there" were so technical advanced, couldn't they just have sent the Doppelgangers to the earth without the need of such a clumsy mechanical beacon??

All in all I was not impressed.

However you spell it: Artifacts or Artefacts, it still stinks.

[bigdarvick · 11 September 2008]

There is nothing good or enjoyable about this film. Shot somewhere in Belgium with American actors or Europeans trying to put on American accents (I heard slips here and there)this flick initially looked like it may have some potential. I'd say within the first 2 minutes I realized that I may have had a better time just taking my rental dollars and flushing them down the toilet. This movie was dumb, dumb dumb! Again, the actors (lol) took this script so seriously and try so hard to deliver academy award performances. Awkward dialog (of what little was said), terrible music sound track which was primarily made up of loud drum beats and electronically processed noise, all mixed together to bring you one of the worst and disappointing films made in years. Lots of running in between buildings and no horror scares at all. The ending of this film was probably one of the most self serving and poorly written I've seen in a while. Amateur film making at it's worst. I wonder if anyone at RedBox actually watched this movie. My advice to RedBox is too pick better movies!! Watch them first before you place it for rental in your vending machines. We can forgive BlockBuster since they have a huge selection and there's bound to be a bomb here and there but RedBox has a miniscule selection and should be more careful.

Looks like a Student Film -- No Production Values, Bad Camera Work, Bad Acting

[PDragon616 · 1/10 · 30 August 2008]

Dear filmmakers: please do me a favor--don't put your student films on the shelves of my video store as if they are actual movies made by professionals. If you can't afford to build a set, you have to actually use LIGHTS to shoot. And on the subject of shooting, please use a real camera, and not a $200 hi-8 video camcorder to shoot your picture so it won't look like a grainy mess.

Dear potential viewers: save your money. Better yet go rent a movie that's actually worth watching. The doppleganger idea has been done before and there are a slew of movies that have done it better. Invasion of the body snatchers springs to mind.

More Like A Filmschool Project

[bacardicazz · 5/10 · 15 November 2012]

I bought this DVD out of the blue, I wanted to be surprised. The movie focuses on a young woman named Kate who finds out all of her friends and co-workers are murdered by their doubles. At no point this is a mystery for her because the doubles make no effort of concealing themselves for prying security cams. While the police seemingly makes no effort of solving the case (?) Kate runs for her life and tries to save as many friends as she can. The style of photography is guerilla at best, which gives the movie a documentary-like feeling, especially in the rare action scenes. Unfortunately, because of the underground touch, it never accomplishes to be scary or intensive. Also, the writers have forgotten to include any and all explanations as to where the doubles are coming from, who made/grew them, who are controlling them and why, what are the artefacts for, etc? I like my fair share of mystery and mysticism, but there is a difference between letting the viewer decide what to make of it him/herself, and just leaving everything open. I have to say that I am impressed with the time schedule, because the documentary points out that three guys did all the work in a little over a month for only 100,000 dollars. I also have to say that the acting felt a little staged. Kate appears to express total anxiety as her neutral emotional state and you basically care little whether she lives or dies. Overall, it feels more like you are watching a filmschool project rather than an actual movie.

My Review

[joemamaohio · 4/10 · 26 September 2008]

Young entrepreneur Kate (Mary Stockley) is experiencing the deaths of all her friends in very odd circumstances. Soon she discovers that they're being killed by their dopplegangers, and it all has something to do with an artifact that was implanted in each of them.

"Artifacts" had the power of being something better than what it was. With a total running time of 1 hr and 14 minutes (including the opening and closing credits), it seemed that the directors didn't really care about making a great story. The artifacts aren't explained, nor is anything else really, and the ending was so abrupt that it didn't warrant any closure. It could've been great, but instead it was crappy.

Avoid like the plague.

[jean-paul-kneip · 1/10 · 16 March 2011]

Some movies are bad because of the acting, the budget, the camera-work or other such things. Those movies, you detect easily and either don't pick them up at all or at least stop watching them and wasting your time. "Artifacts" is much, much worse than that.

Clearly, it's a low-budget movie, but it's actually well made. The acting is decent too, as is the soundtrack. So it lures you into thinking it might, actually, be a decent movie. Don't be fooled.

Because, you see, "Artifacts" didn't run out of budget at the end, it simply ran out of plot. You never find out anything about the doppelgangers, the artifacts, the foreshadowed "Carl Francken"... it all just goes completely unexplained. None of it makes any sense. At all. And they can't even play the "it's about the characters, not the plot" card, because it's blatantly a plot-driven movie... without a plot.

Frankly, I find this kind of movie an insult to the viewers.

I guess it's a Belgian thing...

[johnslegers · 8/10 · 24 May 2009]

Maybe it's because I'm Belgian, but I actually really liked this film.

So the film doesn't have a well-developed storyline, but those who really bother about that don't seem to get the point of this film. All this film attempts to do, is to create a totally paranoid atmosphere for an hour and fifteen minutes... It attempts to do so mostly by focusing on the emotions of pretty regular young people, creative camera angles and a creepy soundtrack. In my opinion they most definitely succeeded. It might have helped that I smoked a joint on forehand, but I really felt on the edge throughout the film.

After coming to the realisation that the film was shot on a very limited budget and in a very limited time frame, I was really impressed.

Not a bad film at all

[qbeing99 · 7/10 · 11 September 2008]

I rented this from Blockbuster through the mail, since my local store does not carry it. I rented it despite the low ratings here on IMDb, mainly after seeing the trailer for the movie.

This was not a bad film at all! In fact, I rather liked it. The story was interesting. There was plenty of suspense, and just enough gore. Sure, they might not have ended it so abruptly, but all the questions this movie leaves me with gives me something to think about. There is a lot left to the viewer's interpretation.

I enjoyed it, and recommend the movie to you. It won't win any awards, perhaps, but it is worth watching.

Fascinating, tight little thriller ... why are so many viewers confused by this film?

[hippiedj · 9/10 · 24 July 2009]

There are so many people confused by Artefacts ... frankly, I'm confused why everyone is so confused! If you just pay attention, and give the attention this film requires, you'll understand plenty. Just because it has an open ending, that doesn't mean answers weren't given.

Kate is a career gal that seems to have things going for her, except for a failed relationship. All of a sudden her employee and friends start turning up dead, killed by doppelgangers. Even the news reports mention a strange metallic artifact (spelled artefact in the film, due to its Belgian production I assume) that has been found inside each victim. Kate finds that her own doppelganger is hunting her down, and the implant is possibly a tracking device for the doppelgangers to find each victim. The arrival of each doppelganger is preceded by a clicking, ticking sound as well. Through investigation on the internet she finds a big clue to what is going on around the world, and she is just another pawn in the whole thing.

She then meets up with a man named Carl Francken who reveals just enough for us to know some of the "why" of the situation but only just a tidbit to keep us in the dark and still trying to figure things out. In a way this would have made a great X-Files episode, much of the atmosphere and story fit that well. I'm also very much reminded of the wonderful 2008 feature "The Broken" with Lena Headey (which equally baffled many U.S. viewers but, if paid close attention to, gave more answers to its mystery than Artefacts does). There is also an "experiment/game" element that reminded me of the 2005 film "Experiment." However, Artefacts is a story and film of its own, and I feel holds up well.

These days, particularly in U.S. audiences, people want easy answers and wrapped up solutions in their movies. If they have to think while watching a film or try to think some more after the credits roll, they get angry. I've read some very severely hateful things in comments online about Artefacts, The Broken, Session 9, and a good example -- the 2001 film The Wind, where people just didn't get it. They were upset that they had to think, figure things out, and put the puzzle together. They weren't easily handed blood and boobs on a platter; just angry that they had to do a little work as well as sit back and watch.

Artefacts, to me as well as some open-minded friends, turned out to be a tense well-made, well-acted thriller, and smartly made on a low budget (only $100,000) with an intriguing premise and execution. I love to view it with friends as a double-feature with The Broken, as each has its own strange world to absorb and mess with your head. Some folks may say it's a European thing, but I sure welcome a viewing challenge and for me it paid off quite well. Oh, it's just plain creepy too...

Artifice

[intuitx · 7/10 · 18 September 2021]

I liked the story but it leaves a lot of loose ends. That bothers me. It hints at a sequel or a series but I'm totally unaware that anything came of it. The story is fairly new to me which gave it at least 5 stars. I didn't give it 10 because I get irritated if it's just part of another untold story.

Interesting Movie

[brooksland · 8/10 · 31 December 2008]

I was very surprised with this movie, for I expected the worst out of a B horror flick. However, the acting was quite good (particularly Mary Stockley..the main character). It was also thrilling and deep. In addition, the soundtrack was not weak, as it usually is in these types of cheap movies. I would recommend seeing it; it is entertaining and existential. If nothing else, you may find the leading lady a sight for sore eyes. That's about all I am going to say without giving away anything. If you like to watch people get chased, then you'll more than likely dig this movie. I gave it an 8 out of 10 for its originality and depth.

Another unique horror thriller that is not like any other.

[jordondave-28085 · 6/10 · 18 September 2023]

(2007) Artifacts HORROR/ SUPERNATURAL THRILLER

Produced, written and directed by Giles Daoust and Emmanuel Jespers, that has average teen, Kate (Mary Stockley) starting to have the ability to see horrifying mirror images of death, occurring to people she knows before she herself becomes targeted.

Another fascinating very mature low budget horror film with some unusual twists. Perhaps inspired from the likes of "Invasion of the Body Snatcher", "The Matrix", "The Cemetary Man", "The 13th Floor" to name a few. The movie is more interesting than it is scary, and with a much bigger budget, who knows how much accolades it would have had.

Its a Slow Boiler

[kelvin-d-walker · 2 October 2011]

I do have to say that I am instantly intrigued by and endeared to movies whose endings get people angry. I don't know why. So when I hear of one I try to seek it out and see for myself. A great example is the zombie movie Automaton Transfusion, another very low rated film/movie/trash morsel on IMDb. (possible spoiler) The ending there was hilariously on a dime(End possible spoiler).

This movie I liked. The opening left me a bit dubious, low budget and all, but it has some fun ideas ripped of from higher budget movies. If I were an investor in this movie, and it broke even, I would definitely invest in their next project.