Island Escape

A research facility on a northern Canadian island had an accident. The company CEO is searching for his missing daughter. A group of mercenaries gets recruited for the rescue mission. They find a place under strange influence and they battle monster versions of themselves.

There is a good idea here somewhere. It just needs a bit more work. More than anything, this needs better action and better effects. They could use more zombie monsters in an epic final battle. I get the attempt of doing the boat, but it looks too weak for the finale. The actors are nobody special indie amateurs. In the end, this is nothing more than a poor B-movie.

Although some reviewers on here are complaining about the "convoluted" time warp story line, I really didn't have any trouble following it.

Sure at the beginning you're wondering what exactly is going on, however that's part of the intrigue of the movie. It pretty quickly becomes apparent how the time warp system works and what the perils are.

The acting is good overall, the characters are well written and sympathetic, and the practical effects are really good. The monsters in particular are quite scary and there were a couple good jump scares as well.

If you're a fan of mid budget horror movies, I would highly recommend it.

The storyline in this time warp story is so convoluted that it doubles and triples back on itself leading to an ending that is completely nonsense!

The characters are pretty good and flushed out to a good degree, so that you get comfortable with them and by mid movies your are sympathizing with their plight and rooting for them, but even the relationships get so intertwined with the storyline that a good deal of even that aspect becomes fuzzy.

The subplot of the romantic aspect of the story is really bad and since the female lead bears a striking resemblance to "Mr. Bean" the few romantic scenes are hilarious. The female lead is a disaster - too scrawny to be the rough and ready mercenary type and too boyish and homely to add to a romantic subplot!

The ending makes you scratch your head and say "what the hell" to yourself as the credits roll!!!

I love this cast, so even though the story line was kinda confusing, it was good. It's basically the same cast that I've seen in a couple other movies from this same guy. It's supposed to be just a fun movie that you're not supposed to think too much into. I like that this guy makes monster movies, I wish he'd do something with dogman next time. That's one that no one really has touched on yet, dogman are different from werewolves. Anyway I'm getting off track. This was fun to watch, if you are a monster movie fan. Def could've been way better with a few tweaks, it's frustrating when movies that start off good and then the story line just... kinda goes off the rails.

A 60 pound woman is hired to lead a team of five mercenaries with unknown skills to rescue the daughter of some dude. The team lands on the island by helicopter and proceeds to wander around, finding corpses on the way to the two tents that constitute the "DNA research lab" doing cutting edge science without the benefit of electricity or heat or protection from the elements.

It soon becomes clear the corpses are themselves, which is hinted at when they find duplicates of their own personal items on the bodies. Eventually the entire plot is read to us by an actor reading from a journal. So much for show not tell. The plot is a unique mixture of zombie and sci fi. It's a clever idea and in more competent hands could have formed the basis of a blockbuster movie.

This isn't a blockbuster.

There is no one who is relatable as character or actor. This is partially because of the low standard of the acting, but most of the blame goes to the writer. The actors simply aren't given anything meaningful to say or do. Backstory and interesting questions are shut down by someone saying, in essence, "the writer can't think of an answer so shut up". The camera work does the lack of emoting by the actors no favors by being up close all the time. The background music constantly implies something important is happening when nothing could be further from the truth.

Five stars for the interesting plot.