apparatchik
A rejoint le sept. 2003
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Avis4
Note de apparatchik
first of all, i don't normally bother with plot summaries in reviews, but the plot summary that is currently up for this film is woefully inadequate, so here's mine.
a systems analyst travels from canada to an african diamond mining camp in the middle of the desert for some field work. on his way to the camp he is supposed to be working at, he and the crew he is traveling with stop to look for missing diamond prospectors.
what they find is nothing but the bones of the men, picked clean of flesh in a matter of hours. it quickly becomes apparent that whatever killed the men is not human..
this is a good movie, the camerawork is great, the locations are beautiful and the acting is good. this is a UK/south africa/canada co-production, if it's one thing this movie has a lot of, it's accents.
my only real problems with the movie are with the plot, too much time is spent detailing points that are not essential in any way to the overall story, and elements that are important seem rushed at times. a lot of the scenes suffer from what seem to me to be afterthoughts added because perhaps the director felt that more atmosphere was needed. an example of this would be the witchdoctor character who is for some reason in a mining camp, he stops to perform a ceremony on one of the crew before they leave the camp, it seemed like a pointless addition to a scene that should have been far simpler.
less time should have been spent on the background (was the scene set in vancouver at the beginning really necessary?) and more time could have been spent on the time in the desert after the crew discover the creatures. at one point we discover that two members of the crew are in fact dead, with no real buildup to their deaths which almost seem incidental. the scene would have been a lot more powerful had there been some groundwork laid for it, the same scene ends bizarrely, cutting to morning in the middle of an attack at night.
the ending was predictable, but not painfully so.
if you are willing to deal with a slow start and serious lulls in action, in return for good cinematography, acting and beautiful desert locations, with a fair plot, then this movie is for you.
i find the lack of coverage that this movie has received compared to other, lesser movies that have come out this year surprising. i was hard-pressed to find a review of it anywhere, even with search engines, i think that can be explained by the fact that this is not a hollywood movie.
a systems analyst travels from canada to an african diamond mining camp in the middle of the desert for some field work. on his way to the camp he is supposed to be working at, he and the crew he is traveling with stop to look for missing diamond prospectors.
what they find is nothing but the bones of the men, picked clean of flesh in a matter of hours. it quickly becomes apparent that whatever killed the men is not human..
this is a good movie, the camerawork is great, the locations are beautiful and the acting is good. this is a UK/south africa/canada co-production, if it's one thing this movie has a lot of, it's accents.
my only real problems with the movie are with the plot, too much time is spent detailing points that are not essential in any way to the overall story, and elements that are important seem rushed at times. a lot of the scenes suffer from what seem to me to be afterthoughts added because perhaps the director felt that more atmosphere was needed. an example of this would be the witchdoctor character who is for some reason in a mining camp, he stops to perform a ceremony on one of the crew before they leave the camp, it seemed like a pointless addition to a scene that should have been far simpler.
less time should have been spent on the background (was the scene set in vancouver at the beginning really necessary?) and more time could have been spent on the time in the desert after the crew discover the creatures. at one point we discover that two members of the crew are in fact dead, with no real buildup to their deaths which almost seem incidental. the scene would have been a lot more powerful had there been some groundwork laid for it, the same scene ends bizarrely, cutting to morning in the middle of an attack at night.
the ending was predictable, but not painfully so.
if you are willing to deal with a slow start and serious lulls in action, in return for good cinematography, acting and beautiful desert locations, with a fair plot, then this movie is for you.
i find the lack of coverage that this movie has received compared to other, lesser movies that have come out this year surprising. i was hard-pressed to find a review of it anywhere, even with search engines, i think that can be explained by the fact that this is not a hollywood movie.
the start of this movie showed some promise, my first thought was that it might be along the lines of "blair witch" only with zombies, and i was curious to see how they would pull that off.
alas, after the first few minutes this settles into not one, but many horror movie cliches. too large a chunk of the first half of the movie is spent on characterisation, which was totally unnecessary. when you populate your movie with genre archetypes, is fleshing them out really going to help them be less one-dimensional?
the people behind the film seem to revel in little in jokes and parody of other movies, while at the same time being very self-conscious and unsure of it. some scenes where you don't expect any humour seem to be building up to a punchline, and then it doesn't come, other scenes are randomly punctuated by jokes that are totally out of place.
the ending is presumably some nod to "the beyond"/"evil dead 2", but it irritated and confused the hell out of me, and seems to be a total clean break from the rest of the plot, which was a patchwork of other movies to begin with.
if you can find this movie at your local video store (big "if" i think), and you like horror B-movies that follow the scream style of self-parody, then go for this.
alas, after the first few minutes this settles into not one, but many horror movie cliches. too large a chunk of the first half of the movie is spent on characterisation, which was totally unnecessary. when you populate your movie with genre archetypes, is fleshing them out really going to help them be less one-dimensional?
the people behind the film seem to revel in little in jokes and parody of other movies, while at the same time being very self-conscious and unsure of it. some scenes where you don't expect any humour seem to be building up to a punchline, and then it doesn't come, other scenes are randomly punctuated by jokes that are totally out of place.
the ending is presumably some nod to "the beyond"/"evil dead 2", but it irritated and confused the hell out of me, and seems to be a total clean break from the rest of the plot, which was a patchwork of other movies to begin with.
if you can find this movie at your local video store (big "if" i think), and you like horror B-movies that follow the scream style of self-parody, then go for this.
but then i like low budget horror.
when a movie opens with a scene that looks like it's set in a school's "fall festival" display (give us back halloween, geeze) you know you are in for a treat.
the plot is not very well explained, the monster looks like a cross between swamp thing and the toxic avenger and the acting is mediocre to poor but i still managed to not only stick with it, but enjoy it right up to the end.
what is it with movies these days and endings? is it a totally lost art?
oh, and another thing, the death loving "goth" girl who drips bile and morbid one-liners? she needs to be a horror standby returned to the props closet, it is so old.
when a movie opens with a scene that looks like it's set in a school's "fall festival" display (give us back halloween, geeze) you know you are in for a treat.
the plot is not very well explained, the monster looks like a cross between swamp thing and the toxic avenger and the acting is mediocre to poor but i still managed to not only stick with it, but enjoy it right up to the end.
what is it with movies these days and endings? is it a totally lost art?
oh, and another thing, the death loving "goth" girl who drips bile and morbid one-liners? she needs to be a horror standby returned to the props closet, it is so old.