USA
87 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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Good lord I was waiting for this movie for a long time.
At first it threw me off a little because everything I'd heard told me it was going to be a non-stop wild ride full of exploding heads, etc. So when the movie did not immediately open with a lot of gore and action, I was thinking that maybe it would be something still very good, but different from what I had expected. Fortunately the second half proved me wrong.
I have no idea why it was so relatively subdued in the first half but the heads start flying when we hit the halfway point. It might not be a masterpiece, it might not hit every note it reaches for, and it might get a bit hammy here and there, but more than anything it's enjoyable. It doesn't clutter up the plot with anything unnecessary, it is 100%, start-to-finish conceptual purity: It puts its whole heart into being a movie about violent telekinesis and doesn't spare any expense on establishing a worldview where that fits in as not only a plausible concept but a widely-researched one.
I think the thing about this movie is that you have to be at least a little well-versed in 90s action/horror because the entire atmosphere basically relies on being set in the 90s to work. It's got this way of looking at things that you don't see in action or horror films today; this all-out battle where the villain is absolute evil seeking absolute power. You have to be accustomed to things being exaggerated, to villains making broad, cheesy, ridiculous "I'll conquer the world!" speeches in front of the hero. This actually does have a great villain- he eventually gets a deep, ominous voice and gross pulsating veins on his face to advertise to the viewer that oh yeah, this guy is Evil™.
Also, it's shameless about its attempts at a neon-soaked 90s aesthetic. I love it. Like, nobody's house actually looks like that at 1 in the morning. The strobe lights and heavy red/blue coloring were so super fake and unrealistic and I dug every minute of it.
Probably the biggest flaw I could see in this is that it's guilty of grossly mishandling Lauren Ashley Carter. I love everything she's in and I keep hoping that someday she's going to be in a movie where she gets a couple of big butt-kicking scenes to herself, but nobody seems willing to put her in that kind of a role. It's a little ridiculous in this movie in particular how the two guys get to duke it out and go around unleashing primal screams and ripping people in half with their minds while the lead woman is stuck in a hospital. Sure, she gets some action, but as soon as things start to really get out of hand she takes a bullet and is out of commission for a while.
Overall, if you're looking for something that feels genuinely enthusiastic about its own concept, this could be the movie for you. It's the kind of thing that makes me enthusiastic about this current era of indie horror because there's so many talented people on board who have been cranking out the hits left and right lately. The director's previous film, Almost Human, also comes highly recommended and may even be a little better than this one.
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