Alive (I) (2018) User Reviews

Well done

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 20 October 2020]

Renamed «Saw: The Beginning» in Russia while having nothing to do with that series of movies, this is the tale of two severely injured people - played by Thomas Cocquerel (Table 19) and Camille Stopps - who wake up to being tied down to an operating table in an abandoned sanitarium with only a deranged caretaker (Angus Macfadyen, who really was in the Saw series) to keep them alive and give them keys to their past.

There was also an alternate soundtrack to this movie made for Slipknot's Knotfest by band member M Shawn Crahan.

It's directed by Rob Grant, who made Mon Ami and the documentary Fake Blood that explores him investigating a disturbing movie sent to him after a fan watched that movie.

This is a pretty interesting film that has a twist that I did not see coming at all. It also has a really good look and isn't strictly torture porn, despite what the Saw connection would lead you to believe.

Saw Style Horror With A Twist

[omendata · 6/10 · 3 September 2020]

I went into this after reading the other 2 reviews and of course making sure they were not the usual 1 review shills and I was not disappointed as it is not a bad little low budget horror.

It does actually feature one of the actors from the original Saw series as the main character and it was his acting that puts this a rung above your average horror film. The two leads are quite effective too and coupled with an amazing location it keeps you guessing all the way to the gruesome denouement similar to Saw so it accomplishes what many other in the genre fail to do with larger budgets.

Its not on the level of Saw but it will satisfy any true horror fan as the script, acting, setting, photography are all top notch so give it a go; it gets an above average 6 hatchets out of 10 from me on this one!

Irony At It's Absolute Finest!

[nickmarcantonio · 6/10 · 2 July 2023]

While I don't completely understand some things at the end, like how the caretaker got his hands on all these dead bodies and how he was doing all this at some abandoned, filthy hospital......I'm more intrigued by what happened to me.

I made an account on Tubi and decided to make it a double feature. I selected two movies, not knowing anything about each. The second one was this movie, Alive, and the first one was, I kid you not: Frankenstein's Theory.

Two movies of the same subject matter. What a crazy coincidence.

I'd like to know more about how this movie was put together, pardon the pun but I think it's intriguing and I'm curious to read another reviewers post about an ending explanation.

When will this tired trope die?

[phantasmda · 3/10 · 29 June 2020]

This film is like a cheap version of Hostel but with really thick central characters.

It wouldn't have been half bad had the main protagonists have had an ounce of common sense. It's one of those films where the movies villain does bad things to the movies protagonists and they in turn get several chances to kill said villain, completely have him at thier mercy and....They...(yawns) run away and leave him to get up and come after them.

Seriously, they're so dumb it leaves you smacking your forehead every few minutes. There are weapons, knives and blades, hammers, axes and yet they just run past them and leave them lying around. They just do the stupidest things that are completely unbelievable and it ruins any chance the film has of being enjoyable.

There's a bit of blood and gore here and there and it's well enough made for what is obviously a low budget production and there is a pretty cool twist at the end if you manage to get that far into it.

But this tired trope of having horror movie characters presented with the movies villain lying motionless on the floor, with plenty of weapons around, only to run away and let him get back up again, needs to die. Just finish him off already, is it too much to ask?

Wrong doctor, wrong hospital

[moviefansme · 7/10 · 9 March 2019]

Creepy as all hell. A+ for set decoration and medical paraphernalia. Three main characters, one very extensive location, the claustrophobia is suffocating. The ending shows it's all even worse than you thought!

Yet another horrible horror movie on Prime!

[greg-29535 · 1/10 · 4 March 2021]

Did Amazon literally buy up every student "horror" film ever made? If this is a student made film it gets a D. If this is supposed to be real movie it gets F- what a dumb story with an even dumber "twist" laughably bad.

Twist

[wendolphred · 7/10 · 10 January 2023]

I really enjoyed this film. The acting and production is good. It's not a horror (although that does depend on what you call a horror) in my opinion, maybe a psychological thriller, not much action.

Two patients and a doctor in a dirty hospital. They have no memory and the doctor isn't the kindest.

Not many clues to help you, so trying to figure things out as you watch is interesting. It gets creepier as it goes along and the ending is great in my opinion with a bit of a twist, which i didn't see coming.

I only came across this by scrolling. It deserves more recognition and a higher rating.

Who gave this a decent review?

[gladys64 · 1/10 · 10 January 2021]

Truly awful. Boring. Gorey but no explanation. Just terrible

Pain means you're alive

[okpilak · 6/10 · 9 May 2023]

If one is seeking a movie with atmosphere and plenty of gore, buckets of blood and many sinister scenes, this checks off all the boxes. In the opening scene, a bloody and heavily bandaged man, manages to get off the table, crawl down the hall, is discovered, and later wakes up across from a woman who is also bandaged, and there is a man (doctor?) supposedly trying to make them better. But it seems to be in a very dilapidated hospital, with lots of blood on the walls and floor, and instruments which seem more for torture than healing. The two are not given names, but try to form an alliance to escape. The man helping them seems sincere, but there is also an element that puts his role in more of a malevolent form. As they try to escape, they find things that are more and more disturbing. So if this is your type of movie, you will find it quite passable. And you will probably not expect the ending.

Great Story

[gab-67599 · 4/10 · 31 May 2021]

Poor delivery. I found myself wishing something, anything would happen. Although there were some good parts, this movie could not have gone any slower. I would love to see this movie redone with believable characters, because it was a shocking ending. I do not recommend seeing, if you do just fast forward through the dull moments and get to the end.

Saw, Misery and The Human Centipede plus much more

[dinsdalepiranha-49501 · 8/10 · 21 April 2022]

Very 'Saw' as other reviewers have said, plus a bit of Misery (an innocent person, or in this case two innocent people, kept captive by a crazed medic). A bit of Human Centipede First Sequence (a madman carrying out extreme surgical experiments). Very good on tension and suspense and overall pretty good and much better than I expected at the start. And I really wasn't expecting the ending! Along with the ambiguity as to what happens to the two victims at the end.

As I say pretty good and if you like the body horror category well worth seeing.

intriguing plot, pretty well made

[LetsReviewThat26 · 6/10 · 12 April 2022]

This film was pretty well done. The actor playing the caretaker was crazy and sold it. The lady and man were both good also. It made you think it was just one of those people wake up and have been kidnapped type of scenarios. It was that well in a way but it felt it was so much more. You felt for these people and as it went it made you think of different outcomes and what the real intention could be. Altogether a well made horror film and with limited cast makes it easier to follow and enjoy.

Painfully annoying

[kpcisq · 4/10 · 29 August 2022]

Solid acting, great little premise, great protagonist ending, some head turning little bits in there too which do make you whince.

But... It was painfully drawn out, the protagonists continually chose the most ridiculous things to do purely to help the movie along when there were obvious things to do otherwise... Then the most worn out trope right at the end there could be.

If you do watch it you will hear yourself say, "oh just do (insert action)" , "Really?" "FFS" a fair bit, and none of this is in an excitement induced way because you are riveted to the screen. No. It is because you have had enough and just want to see how it climaxes.

That's my warning for you!

I Tried

[Allaboutfall · 2/10 · 22 October 2021]

I really tried to like this prolongated mess. Long story short, this movie needed less talk, a more cogent explanation as to why the flashbacks were even relevant, why was the protagonist driven to such sadistic measures, and what did the ending even mean for the two victims?

I hate sloppy endings, the writer/director/producers of Hollywood should stop trying to make people "think" beyond their lazy, loose ended attempts at genre bending final twists. The concept of leaving everyone with a different perception of what the ending could mean is overdone, lazy and predictable.

Alive (2018)

[turtleloverules · 6/10 · 3 July 2021]

This movie was good, but very slow developing with an interesting ending.

Barely watchable

[nilbog-45779 · 2/10 · 10 December 2021]

The positive reviews on IMDB lead me to watch this film. Please don't be mislead, as an avid fan of horror films I can say with conviction this is truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I made an account just to warn you. Do laundry or go to the dentist instead.

Home is where your heart is from

[Howling_at_the_Moon_Reviews · 6/10 · 3 May 2023]

I surprisingly quite liked this. There is most certainly a lot to forgive as far as shortcomings go... but for a solidly creepy, anxiety inducing little thriller/horror with a concept full of potential... not bad.

This wastes no time throwing you right into the thick of it which I quite liked. The pacing there after was up and down. Not perfect but not awful. I feel like one of the bigger missteps as far as plot goes was any sort of background or context on the doctor. They would give us a hint here and there with a room or an object... and then just leave us hanging. So much storytelling potential squandered.

The acting was a bit hit or miss as well, I don't think anyone was bad per se, but they weren't always hitting the mark for a horror/drama/thriller that I wanted to see, which was a little frustrating because if they were on point it really would have taken this to another place.

The thing I liked most about this movie and what drew me to it to begin with was the story. Although it had hints of being slightly derivative of the SAW franchise and little blips of feeling silly/amateurish, there was still something about it that retained an intriguing factor and felt different and enthralling.

Despite the vibe of the ending feeling a tad hokey, conceptually I was not mad at that either. I would loveee to see someone remake this with a solid budget and some reworking of the cast/plot in a Last Shift/Malum way because I think it has the potential to be a banger. Would recommend.

Very bad. Do not recommend.

[rumbupnez · 1/10 · 31 January 2022]

Wish I could get that hour and a half of my life back. I would have rather cleaned beneath the fridge. Or a poke in the eye. As a horrible fan, I have little choice but to wade through the bad movies on streaming in search of the occasional gem. Though 2022 is young, this is handily the worst film I've suffered thus far.

Saw+Hostel+Great Twist...

[ayannareese-64497 · 7/10 · 10 January 2021]

...Yesss! Excellent effort on all levels. No sequels though, plz!

A really bad horror movie, not even horror.

[Msbnitski · 1/10 · 9 January 2022]

Don't believe the positive ratings. This movie drags along with no explanation as to what the heck happened. There are plenty of times that these 2 people have a chance to get out but instead they lie there waiting for this guy to come back.

Her hands aren't even tied down most of the time and yet she lays there wondering how they can escape, get up for crying out loud.

I got maybe an hour into it and gave up. You all tell me how it ends because I lost interest a long time ago. Waste of time.

Great Movie

[lisasalazar-30980 · 9/10 · 12 April 2021]

I was on the edge of my seat. I can usually figure out whats about to happen but not this time. Very definently worth seeing the ending was great.

Interesting premise and execution fall a bit flat in the end - might please a few

[gabriel_sanchez · 6/10 · 18 February 2024]

Alive starts with an interesting premise, true to its mystery roots. Both a female and a male person wake up in a bizarre hospital without recollection of who they are and what are they doing there. To make matters worse, their doctor seems to have odd intentions about their staying at the hospital.

📋Need a quick executive summary of this review? Here you go: Alive builds good momentum as a creepy slasher mystery but does not deliver a satisfying conclusion to the arc it so neatly built. Keep reading for the detailed revision.

This premise is what drives the overall plot. Let's call both protagonists Female and Male; well, Female and Male wonder what the f has happened to them, how did they wind up in such a decrept place. As the movie progresses, we get possible hints to what could be the answers; and this crave for knowing what is going on and how will they get out of this mess is what keeps us hooked to the movie.

To add to the creepy scenario, Angus Macfadyen throws a good performance as a demented doctor. Throughout the movie, you love hating him and you want to see him suffer.

And this hate leads me to one flaw in this movie. After enduring so much, Female and Male do not take their chances in a plausible way. One scene presents a crazy-good opportunity to kill their delusional caretaker, but, for plot movement, they dismiss killing the doctor, adding to our frustration.

Female and Male grow to our liking, and we want to see them win, despite the curveball that the story keeps throwing at them, either by chance, or by their own inability to save themselves. By the middle of the movie, we get a plot twist: are they connected somehow?

This movie's cinematography and soundtrack are on par with average slasher horrors and body horror. Gore, a lot of blood, a lot of endured pain.

When we get to the final act, we are ready for some revelations, and some action. Will the movie pay off? Well, not quite, unfortunately. Through some odd twist, the final revelation is weird and out of tune with what the movie was so far. The last scene is so out of place with the movie, depicting some weird acting by Gerrick Winston and Chantal Perron, that I wonder if the same director was behind all this.

The final scene shows how Direction might either save or destroy the movie. Though the idea of the movie, once we get it, is quite interesting and could have been done right, the last moments of the movie, which shows weird tie-ins with satirical and parodical movies, do not deliver the closure we were expecting.

Alive might please genre-specific fans, but its ending did not complete the arcs of Female and Male in a pleasant way. An unfortunate conclusion to a quite interesting story.

Had me until the ending

[nathanmanson · 4/10 · 11 January 2023]

I was actually enjoying the film, it was very intriguing and honestly a really entertaining watch but the end has ruined it to be honest.

I enjoyed the fact it left you guessing until the very end on what actually happened to them. The caretaker played his role perfectly he was genuinely a really creepy guy which was obviously perfect. I also like the fact they actually escaped, it would've been an ever worse ending that they not escaped, the rating would've been even lower.

The reason I liked this film was because of the realism of it. I like horror film that could actually happen in real life. However they had to go make it all weird. It was such a realistic horror but the ending honestly killed that. I'd have also like to hes know what happens next at the end, what was they doing to them? Why can they not live? Not their fault they're like 20 different people combined.

It's a recurring themes with horrors, they make the film intriguing and entertaining then ruin it with a awful ending.

A tortuous journey

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 21 January 2023]

I'd thought, no hoped, that the torture porn genre was dead and buried by this point, but still they come, more sporadically than before thankfully. ALIVE is a particularly uninteresting cheapie from north of the border, with a slumming-it Angus Macfadyen playing a mad doctor who kidnaps a man and a woman and keeps them strapped to an operating table for the majority of the running time. It's a film chock full of pain, blood, moaning and choice dialogue, all building to an extended climax that has more twist endings than a crate of Budweiser. The very final moments add a fun, traditional genre spin to the proceedings, but the journey there is tortuous to say the least.

God awful

[hmrobertson-10619 · 3/10 · 8 January 2023]

This had so much promise. Started off good, had me intrigued.

But it had one too many "the good guys hit the bad guy and the bad guy goes down but somehow survive the unsurvivable attack"

And the end? I mean, come on, at least make it somewhat feasible. No explanation for the bad guys actions, no explanation for what happened to the 2 kidnapped ones.

I thought the end credits cut scenes would shed some light but no, just another unsurvivable fall that the bad guy walks away from.

If I rolled my eyes any harder I'd see my brain. It felt like a cop out ending. May as well have blamed it on aliens, would have made more sense.