11-11-11 - Das Tor zur Hölle

Personally, being obsessed to the whole repetitive numbers made me very excited about this movie. I was really waiting for it to be released! And that's probably why it was a big disappointment for me. The idea of the repetitive numbers was a new unexplored theme and unfortunately it got spoiled with this movie. Very weak acting with obvious predictable flow of the story, combined with cheap visual effects and make up, all built for the failure of this movie. Not to mansion the off topic ending which was a hopeless trial to give a lasting final impression. Seriously the whole religion thing in those movies is a pathetic try from their writers to utilize people's passions towards their beliefs to make free advertisement for the movies! P.S. the only reason I gave the movie 2 stars out of 10 is for it's title nothing more nothing less.

the plot is just atrocious. the ending is ridiculous. the acting is terrible. the special effects are far from special. the theme is unoriginal. about the only enjoyable aspect of this "film" - i'd not call it that, but rather a "cinematic suppository" - would be the soundtrack. save yourself. save your money. save 2 hours of your life that you will never get back if you were to suffer through this travesty.

the saddest part about this movie is the fact that it will make more money than most of us make in our entire lifetimes.

oh and just to add perhaps some weight to my statements, i graduated film school. i spent months studying screenplays and the screen writing process. i went through years of work to attain my degree. you can take my opinion, or you can see for yourself.

i hope for the former. i'd rather you be spared the suffering that is this filth.

American writer and atheist, Joseph Crone, receives word from his estranged brother, that his father is dying. He travels to Spain to see his father on his death bed, where he discovers that his younger brother has followed his fathers calling and become a catholic Pastor. Together they have established their own chapel on the grounds of their family home. Joseph's life has been plagued with strange happenings and tragedies, which seem to be connected to the number 11. His intrigue soon uncovers deeper mythological and religious significance to the number and possibly his family.

11-11-11 is written and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who previously brought us Saw 2 – 4 and the superb 2010 remake of Mothers Day. Bousman has made skillful use of popular synchronicity around the number 11, where numerologists and string theorists believe that events linked to the time 11:11 appear more often than can be put down to mere chance or accident and has great symbolism in the universe.

The basic idea for the movie is engaging with lots of potential, unfortunately, this is where the films merits end. The plot becomes tedious and bland fast, holding this pace for the majority of the film. The scares consist of frightening faces appearing in the shadows or windows, but they fail to show any snap or shock value, becoming repetitive and tiresome early on. The special effects, especially the costumes and make up, feel amateurish and almost laughable a times. The acting and dialogue is decidedly mediocre, the characters are difficult to like or relate to in many ways. The twist ending of the movie was better than expected, however, it does not make up for its unexciting story and production short comings. Overall a great idea, wasted.

I had hope for director Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2-4), since Repo! The Genetic Opera was a flawed but interesting experiment and his Mother's Day remake was actually pretty much excellent IMHO. But alas…bad movie is bad. Bousman's directing skils aren't even the real problem here (the film is shot decently and is at times pretty atmospheric), but near everything else is... There is hardly enough story here to warrant a half hour Twilight Zone segment, let alone a feature film. For an hour, the same things happen over and over again, even going so far that 2 characters have the exact same conversation no less than 3 times. Acting is hammy at best, especially from the lead actor, who's film-noir detective like voice-over nearly takes the film into the realm of parody. The music is constanty omnious, even when nothing remotely creepy is happening. The finale is actually pretty OK and I actually liked the ending, but the makers damn near give us the resolution of the movie in a powerpoint presentation with the director shouting "See? See what we did there???" I actually had quite some fun watching this, giggling at how bad this all was. And I admit I jumped a few times. Just make sure you don't go out of your way to see this. It is a deeply silly film.

11:11 seems to be a real phenomenon, but this movie has no correlation to those beliefs or possibilities. In that sense, it was poorly researched. I Think the idea is good, but here it was almost thrown together and poorly thought-out. The movie seems jumpy and quite random, the characters have no depth,and scenes lack flow. With bad make-up/costume design, low budget special effects, and sometimes pointless dialogue, I was almost distracted from the story. There was enough monotone content, with a few attempts to startle the audience, to keep me until the fairly predictable end. I really wouldn't recommend this to anybody... maybe a study on "How we could have made this movie better" for film students.