Montrak

Right off the bat the film narration has some sort of echo chamber that just does not work. It just got worse with the English voice over. I would rather just read the caption. Most films I have seen do a terrible job with the dubbing. To be hones I was done after the first 10 minutes.

Ugh! I was not expecting much from this cheapie vampire horror flick, but considering my expectations were low, they were exceeded in this poorly made German horror movie. The film itself looks like crap, the story seems to have potential, but the execution of it here fails to deliver. I have a version that seems to be made by an American company and the option to watch it in it's original German language is not available. The English overdubbing is horrible and combined with the poor direction, camera work and editing made this a hard movie to get through. A movie about warring Vampire factions could be interesting, but this D level dud fails to deliver the goods. The film is quite gory, but fails to maintain my interest in anything cohesive. The box compares this to Near Dark and I fail to see any similarities. I am reminded more of Subspecies, but this cinematic turd is not even in the same league as that B movie classic.

The German independent film is alive. Still. Fortunately. If we didn't have Stefan Schwenk and his friends, we would only have stupid comedies and pompous dramas for mentally meaningless entertainment. However, "Montrak" isn't a really new, senseless movie, because it already exists as a little finger exercise from the year 2002. Now, however, with more effort, modern technology, familiar faces, a homely score and great pictures, it is packaged as a remake and widely circulated. Even officially on DVD and Blu-ray in stores, without indexing or confiscation as with other Gore colleagues. One reason for this is that Stefan cares more about his story and its dramaturgy, which sometimes makes abstruse changes, but in the end becomes clearer and clearer for the viewer. Schwenk doesn't jump on rough home made splatter sequences and embarrassing acting, which is quite correct and good. No, his work also works without bloodbaths with grunts, intestines, screams and "Sick Pigs". However, the story, despite constant picture and camera changes, shows small lengths and mistakes, sometimes it gets a bit dozy (mainly in the middle part). It fits quite well, a wink of the eye is allowed and you are quickly in control of the (beer) situation. Even if the movie doesn't have any real horror moments that provoke or shock, the effects are great, the photography excellent, the actors and extras super selected, you are entertained splendidly. Ergo: Tasty, quite original genre food, which is varied, could be tighter, but entertains well with its quotes and references

I honestly can't fathom how this movie has such a high rating. Long story short: This is another "re-imagining" of the Dracula origin story told through multiple time periods. While the production values are better than most TV fare, the story is boring, the cast are forgettable -- with a truly bland male protagonist and an unbelivelable "love story" -- and it's bad enough that you'd want the power to fast-forward through it like Adams Sandler in "Click".

Do yourself a favor and watch "Blade: Trinity" instead of this SyFy-channel wannabe (you'll thank yourself later), or watch something like "Guardians" if you want a fun low-budget foreign sci-fi film. A Russian werebear toting a backpack chain gun is way more entertaining than bad actors wearing cheap vampire cosmetics.

A very ambitious film, if perhaps a bit too over-ambitious. But the film is really fun and has very good effects. The English dubbing is so poor. Watch the film in the Original with subtitles.