Yesterday there was a new movie premiered in the largest cinema chain in Indonesia. I did not know anything about the movie as I never saw the trailer previously. So I tried to find out a little bit more by looking at the trailer in the cinema website and reading its brief synopsis. When I found out it was a combination of science fiction and horror, I was immediately intrigued. But my wife was not really enthusiastic about it, hence I watched this by myself. OK, let's move on to the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1914, a young man who would later on be referred to as Friend (David Oakes - Victoria TV series) was assigned to a remote island located in south Alantic to work as a meteorologist. There was no other people stayed there except for the lighthouse guard named Gruner (Ray Stevenson - The Transporter: Refueled, The Three Musketeers etc) who was living like a hermit. Friend noticed something odd as there were lots of sharp pointed woods surrounding the lighthouse and also the house Friend would stay in.
In his first night, Friend finally realized that the island was not as peaceful as he thought it would be. Some kind of creatures were trying to attack him and he barely survived. Friend had no choice but to seek the help from Gruner who was very reluctant to assist him. Later on Friend would also find a female creature (Aura Garrido) who was staying in the island.
So could Friend and Gruner survive the multiple attacks from the creatures night after night? Find them all in this rather intense sci fi horror-ish movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This movie was actually quite surprised me. At first I was a little bit skeptical as the first 10 minutes seemed to be unclear on the direction of the movie. But once the creature started to appear, the movie pace immediately started to pick up. There were occasional slower pace scenes when the night turned into day, but most of the time, the movie was pretty intense.
As the movie progressed, I do not know why but I sensed this was like something that came from a book. And apparently my feeling was correct, as I found out that the movie was based on a novel written by Albert Sánchez Piñol originally titled La Pell Freda in Spanish. From what I read in the internet, the movie seemed to be quite loyal to the novel which made me appreciative of the film maker (it was directed by Xavier Gens who directed the 2007 Hitman movie starring Timothy Olyphant). The language used by Friend felt very Shakespeare liked and I actually quite enjoyed it.
This movie's main attraction at first was the intensity of the creatures attacks, but it later on evolved to something more of a mystery surrounding the female creature referred to as Aneris (played quite convincingly by Aura Garrido). And there was also the odd relationship between Friend and Gruner, and Aneris who came between these 2 main characters which were interesting to see. I personally felt that Ray Stevenson was brilliant in playing Gruner. Btw, this was not a brand new movie. It was actually a 2017 production and not a major blockbuster movie usually shown during this month.
Another thing that I liked about the movie was the beautiful scenery of the island, especially the very blue colored sea. There was not a lot of visual effects aside from the creatures effects which were pretty decent. But as a sci fi movie with a bit of horrific creature attacks scenes, I think this movie was not too bad. It was in fact better than I expected. I can say that I had quite nice moment watching this film. And I think people who loves this kind of movie where the main cast were like "trapped" in a remote place & must fight for their survival, should be able to enjoy the movie. I also felt there was a little similarity with the movie I am Legend starring Will Smith. For a rather small budget film, it should not be expected to deliver tons of action scenes with great special effects. So if you are OK with this kind of movie, then this can be an option. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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