The Void (2016)

 

Sometimes when I go in to a movie, particularly one I don't know much about I try to keep my expectations in check.  The Void was one such movie, I didn't read any reviews of the movie but I did look at some ratings and grades people gave with their reviews.  That didn't help much either because the ratings are all over the place.  I've seen one out of five.  There's some three and a half and even fours but what I saw a massive amount of was two and two and a half stars.  See, keep the expectations low and I won't be disappointed.  The Void is written and directed by Jeremy Gillespie (Father's Day and Chowboys) and Steven Kostanski (Psycho Gorman and Manborg).  Starring is Aaron Poole (The Conspiracy and The Empty Man) as police officer Daniel Carter whose normal night out on patrol is about to go to hell.  Kathleen Munroe (Survival of the Dead and Knuckleball) is Daniel's estranged wife Allison who works at the hospital Carter brings a man he found crawling along on the road to.  The hospital was mostly abandoned after a fire.  Soon after Carter gets there, he finds nurse Beverly killing a patient.  After she kills the patient she goes after Carter who has to shoot her to fend off her attack.  Carter notices that all of the skin on Beverly's face has been cut off.

 

There's creepy cult people in white robes with a mysterious black triangle on their head coverings.  Right after they show up Beverly's body starts changing into some weird creature with tentacles.  This immediately made me think of John Carpenter's The Thing.  Then we find out that Dr. Powell, who works at the hospital, is the leader of the cult and he tells Allison how he has found a way to defy death.  He also has cut all the skin off of his face.  Now it started to feel like Clive Barker's Hellraiser.  The writers say their inspiration comes from Lovecraft and I can see that in there as well.  Usually Gillespie and Kostanski make films in the horror comedy genre but they wanted this one to be straight horror.  Gillespie explains that much of the films symbolism, the triangle and pyramids that are shown, are left up to the individual watching the film to interpret for themselves.  This makes for an interesting collection of what people think the movie really is.  I'll leave that up to you as well just in case you haven't seen The Void and you ever decide to.  

 

 

 

The money for the creature effects was crowd funded on Indiegogo.  So I will give them some credit for going for practical effects instead of all the CGI we normally get these days.  My only complaint, well not the only one but the one I really want to mention, is the film is extremely dark.  It could use a boost in the lighting area but that also might be due to hiding the rough edges of the monsters shown in the movie.  We see them a lot but they are either in a darkened room or in odd lighting.  I'll be honest, half of the time I had no idea what was happening.  This isn't a bad thing because it kept my attention.  If it's too predictable why bother?  So much in this film feels familiar as it is a tribute to a few different films of the 1980's.  Now I loved 80's horror and while this is a nod to a few of those films it is also it's own film and feels fresh.  I was very entertained by The Void and if you want a little nostalgia with your horror, you could do worse.  I'll award The Void three and a half claw hammers out of five.