The Divide

After the first 20 minutes I would have given The Divide a 1/10. The characters are cliché and the dialogue is so cringeworthy that any self-respecting horror lover would quickly roll their eyes.

So I stopped the movie. I could've sworn I'd seen very good comments about the fil here on IMDb. I flipped open my laptop, re-read some of the reviews and sure enough, they were mostly positive.

Weird. Rarely a mention of the laughable acting and joke of a script. I decided to watch on.

It suddenly got better. The acting remained appalling but they introduced a sci-fi element that was kind of cool. The intensity ramped up and I became locked into the film. I watched it through to the end. All the way 'til the end of the credits. I was left with this very bad feeling. Very bad indeed. I guess it reminded me of being a scared kid. I'm not talking about my-brother-freaked-me-out-on-Halloween scared, I'm talking about I-saw-my-neighbour-drown-a-bunch-of-puppies-in-a-barrel scared.

Remember when you were seven years old? Did you ever see something you were much too young to see? Remember that feeling? Scared and a bit ashamed? Seeing something you're just not emotionally mature enough to handle? Remember how your heart raced?

Did you ever want to un-see something? I want to un-see The Divide.

One part of me wants to rate it a zero. But I'm a horror fan and it scared me, riveted me. How can I rate it less than a six? I would prefer I never saw the movie. So perhaps that makes it 'good', I'm not sure. It depends. I mean horror is supposed to freak you out. And it really has some original story elements. I suppose I respect it. Bottom line, it gave me nightmares. How can give a horror film that gave me nightmares less than a six?

Having said all that, every copy of this film should be incinerated and the ashes buried somewhere in the arctic tundra, away from people.

Some films require you to commit. Some demand a hefty price. For The Divide, it's a price that must be paid in advance and there are no refunds.

Be warned. This is not an easy movie to watch. It's the story of a group of people who have survived a nuclear attack and are sealed up in an underground bunker. Essentially that's the story, with one minor (as it turns out) addition that presents a problem with the movie as I'll note later. It's not pleasant to watch. Basically, the group, suffering from radiation poisoning and closed off from everything except each other, starts to go mad; more and more deranged with the passage of time - turning on each other without mercy, in at least one particularly disturbing subplot, a couple of men using one of the female survivors as a sexual toy. I say again - it is not a pleasant movie to watch. Disturbing and at times quite gory. Not for those easily offended.

However, if you can get over the uneasy squeamishness that the story brings forth - it's not bad. There's even a sort of uneasy reality to it. After all, how would any of us survive or even hold it together in the same circumstances. Nothing that happens here seems beyond the capacity of normal human beings as time passes in this situation. That's probably the most disturbing thing about this. It's not impossible to read yourself into this situation and wonder whether you could handle it any better.

The performances from the cast were decent. I was familiar with Lauren German as paramedic Leslie Shay on the TV show "Chicago Fire" - but in all honesty I didn't recognize her as Eva, who's probably the main character in this movie. But she, along with everyone else in the cast, did a fine job in their roles - perhaps a bit over the top at times, but that seemed in keeping with the basic story and dilemma that characters were facing. The ending of the movie was kind of unexpected and incredibly sobering as well in the last scene, looking out at the nuclear-devastated skyline of the city.

The one part of the movie that confused me and in the end that seemed unnecessary was the "lab" up above and the "soldiers" (if that's what they were) that raided the bunker and carried off young Wendy. I didn't think it added anything to the story aside from a few minutes of suspense that weren't really necessary to add, and, in the end, it was left hanging. What was the purpose of the lab? Who was running the lab? I've seen speculation in some of the other reviews on here, but I don't believe anything definitive was ever stated in the movie. As far as I know it was just left hanging - open to speculation, I suppose, but with nothing definitive to base the speculation on.

Again - it's unpleasant, disturbing, gory. It's a very dark exploration of human psychology. And yet I found it quite riveting. (7/10)

This film follows in that genre of French horror, most fans of horror appreciate. In your face horror which often deals with unpleasant issues, while being graphical and nasty.

As with any good horror film it should shock and make you cringe, then making you question. This horror film is no different, definitely not for the fainthearted or those who will take offence from its themes. Hell is other people and when forced to survive how low will they sink into depravity, while festering in their own stink.

6.5 out of 10 worth the watch just don't go complaining afterwards because it made you question your integrity

This has to be one of best physiological thriller movie I have ever watched and I have a watched a lot.. a lot of thriller movies.

I don't know why people hate this movie so much. Don't go for negative comments, you would miss a great GREAT film. This movie has so many negative comments because this movie has very strong elements of violence, graphic and sexuality which can't be digested by many people.

This movie is definitely not for children and even teens. This movie may have a strong physiological effect. Me and friends discussed this movie for months. You need to have a strong stomach to watch this movie.

I found this film by chance, without having heard anything about it, so I went in with no expectations. But I love me a good apocalyptic flick, even though most are very predictable. This one is not predictable. And even though the setting is after the apocalypse, the story is really about human nature, a la Lord of the Flies.

The peoples reactions to the events, and to each other, are extreme, yet believable. The acting is very good, among the best i've seen lately in a sci-fi picture. Yet it was the writing that truly took me in. The story is paced very evenly, and proceeds towards it's inevitable conclusion without pause or remorse.

I have to say that this movie is not for children or even most adults. There are strong elements of violence and sexuality that are far beyond what most people can stomach. With this in mind, however, I found the psychological elements to be far more disturbing than the graphic scenes. We don't like to think that people are capable of certain things, but in extreme conditions people can be pushed to do the unimaginable.

This is the the important point of the film, rather than the storyline, or "how the world ends". It's about how we can self destruct, as individuals.

While I will be disturbed by the imagery for a few days, I really still loved this movie, and recommend it to anyone with a strong stomach.