WTF is this? It was billed as a horror movie, and 13 minutes into it, we’ve had he-men with huge biceps and crewcuts running around shooting guns, getting into a barfight, drinking shots of whiskey, and having a sex scene with a woman who looks like a bleached, hyperinflated, airbrushed playboy centerfold, and some of the all-around worst USA-Up-All-Night-quality acting I’ve ever seen. In the first 13 minutes. I give this flick about 2 more minutes and then I’m done. (Ok, right after typing that some sort of apocalyptic alarms started going off and a monster appeared outside his door and now he’s freaking out. Ok, I’ll give it a little while.)
Ok, very shortly I’m glad I stayed with it. Thi smight be one of those rare “so bad it’s good” movies that really is so bad it’s good. He spends the rest of the time trapped in his apartment while outside his neighbors turn into creatures, who you can tell are evil because they crabwalk instead of walking upright and talk through an octave divider, and does a very hammy job of trying to act like he’s losing his mind. This thing has about half the depth of a video game. I wonder sometimes if lighting design must be easy, because a lot of these crappy movies have noticeably competent lighting, lots of good use of shadow. Also I can’t figure out if we’re supposed to notice that the paintings on his walls keep turning slanted or even 90 degrees sideways from how they were, or if it was just an accident. At one point he’s wearing a sombrero for no clear reason, and attempts to board up his windows with duct tape. Plus, there’s awesome violations of the 180 degree rule, as the door to his apartment is always to the left, but the creatures out in the hall banging on it (in between stopping to writhe and crabwalk around for no stated reason) are banging on a door on the left side of the hall. It took me about 7 times to figure out why it was so confusing. Also, I wonder how many apartment building hallways actually have huge, blade-runneresque an slow-turning exhaust fan leading to the outdoors, with a golden shaft of afternoon light shining cinematically through it. Must be a Los Angeles thing. Bonus: the dumbest, most cliche’d ending of any movie ever.
