Broken Darkness

Novice South African Director, writer, producer, editor, visuals and sound editor Christopher-Lee dos Santos did a fairly decent job with his directing and visuals, but was flawed in every other department, especially the writing. Maybe he wore too many hats in this film.

The highlights in this film was the outstanding underground set/locations (set in Johannesburg, South Africa) and the great cinematography. The directing and acting was also fairly decent for a B-grade low budget film

The film actually started off very good for the first 30 mins or so. The story held my interest, the score intensified the suspense, and I couldn't wait for what was going to happen next. Then after that, the score took a turn for the worse, the sound had serious issues (e.g. faint gunshots), and the scenes dragged on forever, that the overly long 2 hour length felt like 3 hours. It needed to be edited down to 70-90 max mins.

Then there were the serious plot issues that plagued this entire film. E.g. what was the point of his son? How and why does the film shift to a pointless journey above-ground? I'm thinking a 5th grader could have written this better.

Had it not been for the great cinematography, sets/location, decent directing and acting, I would have rated this a 1/10.

In the first few minutes of the film there are some short clips of people driving through a forest fire. At least one of the clips is from the Valley Fire in Lake County, California in 2015. If you look closely you can see a sign over the road that says "Anderson Springs". If you go look at Google maps and put in 19500 Hwy 175, Middletown, California, you can see the sign and how much of the area has not grown back yet. There is the possibility that those videos have become a part of the public domain, so there is nothing illegal about them using them, but I still don't like it. There is also the possibility that they used those videos illegally.

The movie has a decent concept and the cinematography is good enough. The acting is passable and the the crew used decent cameras and lenses,

The real issue here is the pacing. The movie suffers from a massive editing problem. You could easily pull about 20 minutes out of the movie, and with some creative editing make it a little bit better.

Like others have said in their reviews, the movie doesn't really know what it wants to be, and at times its trying to be too much all at once.

Overall, if you're like me and enjoy watching low budget films with unknown talent, you could do a whole lot worse.

I started watching this expecting the usual fare, just something to have on in the background while I did other things. But what I got was so much better. I actually put down my phone and watched.

The film is one of the few that doesn't start with the premise that all people are horrible and just awaiting the apocalypse to revert to their worst selves. Apart from a few writing choices at the start that didn't make a lot of sense, this movie did a good job of showing people just being people - flawed, hopeful, often both selfish and selfless, compassionate, desperate, trying to do their best for the people around them.

And while it has its share of tension and action, it's also got breathing room - long, quiet, weirdly beautiful scenes that don't say much but show a lot. They give you space to let your guard down and see the story that the movie is telling. This breathing room also makes the tense moments so much more affecting, and the action hit so much harder.

It's also a gorgeous new take on what's probably my favorite genre, and at the end I didn't want to just click on to the next thing. I wanted to sit with this a while. It's different kind of apocalypse movie and I found some of it genuinely breathtaking.

If you want another Day of the Dead (and don't get me wrong - George Romero is one is my forever favorites), this isn't what you're in the mood for. But if you're up for a movie that gives you room to feel it, give it a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

(2017) Broken Darkness SCIENCE-FICTION HORROR/ ACTION DRAMA

Credited to four or more different job labels from co-producer, executive producer, editor, writer and directed by Christopher-Lee dos Santos that opens with a group of survivors of a meteor shower that wiped out much of the planet earth. At the same token, created a barrage of ghouls/ zombies whatever one wants to call them, a group of them escaping to live underground. At this point I was not sure who were the main stars were until it became apparent that the ghouls were running amok underground as well, forcing survivors who were initially planned to make a future there to escaping toward the surface. As we see Sam (Sean Cameron Michael) and Rose (Suraya Rose Santos) building a rapport.