The Blackout

I would love to write an eloquent, cohesive review on this film, but after watching it, I think my IQ dropped about 50 points. The movie takes place in Los Angeles, but the buildings look more like Chicago or Kansas City. The sub terrestrial monsters could have been rented at a local costume store, and the acting is completely laughable. The premise is that monsters from underground are coming up to wreak havoc on the city in general and an apartment complex in particular. My time could have been spent better picking lint off the floor of my house by hand. The only way I would recommend this movie is if you are considering having a lobotomy, watch this film instead, it would be cheaper.

Well, i laughed, not bad for an 80's movie,,as for horror,,,, Porky's was scarier!!!! the monster was interesting, but scary no way,,, there was no reasoning as to what the " cones" where all about, and the ending,, still waiting. The girls where cute, and i thought the blonde died the most interesting. Overall, if i was really drunk and had some friends over,, this would be on the tube. Could never really understand how the little girl ended up in the elevator, last time we saw her was she not in the basement? How did the monsters get from the basement upstairs? What was the brother looking at across the ways? Wife and i had a lot of fun at the editing mistakes, that part we really enjoyed.

Where to begin with this waste of time? The premise is generic - strange and hostile creatures emerge from underground to wreak havoc on a major city. The inhabitants of an apartment building are trapped and fall one by one to these creatures. The ending does not resolve the story in any way (I guess the producers are hoping for a sequel).

Camera work was average. Plot was generic. Characters were forgettable, some were annoyingly hysterical and made the same mistakes you see in every generic horror film. Antagonists (creatures) looked fake, cgi for them was horrible.

Basically a below-average film which adds nothing new. Watch if you want to waste 79 minutes of your life.

The Blackout was actually a nice surprise!!!

A bunch of residents of an L. A building end up having to work together to survive an "Event" that has blacked out the whole city & deadly creatures have risen from underground & are hunting the residents of the Ravenwood apartment block. That's the basic fun B-movie plot & i dug it. This is set on Christmas eve, which i thought was weird as the Christmas setting served no purpose really except i suppose to gather the residents for a xmas eve party? It doesn't look very Christmassy & with the constant hot & sunny weather Los Angeles is a strange place for Christmas in my opinion. Anyway, there's tremors happening throughout the city, all power cuts off & the ground outside is splitting open due to a weird event. All this chaos unleashes humanoid blood-thirsty creatures from deep underground to feast of humans. A really cool pure B-movie idea.

One of the really strong points of this Low-budget flick is that the big bunch of characters is simply just that, a big bunch of characters & there's no one main character here & that was a decent part as i could not work out who was going to survive & that never happens in the Horror genre!!! I was surprised by the end. Also considering everyone here in the cast is unknown & pretty much everyone who helped make this film never done anything else (as of 2022) makes the film feel even more like a little rough gem. Even the director only made this one movie!!! Although Blackout isn't Amazing it's still a lot of fun & with creatures that are created very retro with just a hint of CGI with their scorpion like tails.

Another strong point is the Awesome looking Creatures, these are rubber suits & only a touch of c.g.i for the clawed whip-tale & i just loved their look & it was old school. These black & extremely violent creatures are some of the best I've ever seen in a low-budget Horror flick!!! In fact these things are so Cool they deserve a bigger movie to be in or a bigger budget sequel maybe? But i wouldn't love to see those well designed creatures again.

Also the score is decent.

I liked the big darkened building that are panicked bunch have to work their way through to find a way out & away from the creatures that are stalking them in the darkness & the kills are really gory & Cool.

The weak parts are the bunch of actors they got here as the only pretty decent one was the mum of the group who is trying to find her kids in all this chaos.

But to be honest it doesn't ruin anything because, hey this is a fun low-budget Creature Feature so i expect cheesiness & bad dialogue & weak actors. With that being said, i think the film is still a very fun late-night flick. The Blackout is all B-movie but at least its taken seriously by the characters in the situation. I found this pretty good for a small scale survival horror thriller, it's a a decently made movie & tried for bigger epic madness in it's ending & done what they could on a small budget. I applaud this little film for trying.

Also the actual End is abit of a letdown after everything that happens but atleast it wasn't an obvious one.

All in all The Blackout is a decent enough survival Horror with some Awesome creatures picking off people & an old school feel.

I don't know why but I love this movie. The monster was "whack" but if I could find it I would watch it again. I guess to each his own. I just like the feel of it.