Edges of Darkness

And the DVD cover was so promising, but that illusion all shattered when I sat down and actually watched the movie. It was just abysmal, and I had to give up about 45 minutes into it, so I made it halfway through.

This is supposed to be an interlinking trilogy of short stories taking place during a zombie apocalypse, but it just didn't function properly. First of all, there was vampires in one of the segments. Yeah, vampires! Secondly, there was a guy was was madly obsessed with his computer, and paid no attention to his wife or the zombie apocalypse outside the window, yeah, that was just so believable. And to make matters worse, then he had ordered some hard drive for his computer, which was delivered by mail. Yep, by mail, apparently during the end of days and a zombie apocalypse, the US Mail is still up and running. That just was just downright stupid! But it doesn't stop there, no! The hard drive apparently was some kind of living organism, capable of sending out tendrils to leech energy from living beings. I wonder who actually thought that this would be a great idea.

I will say that the movie started out tremendously with lots of gore and mayhem, which was nice, and it looked promising, but wow it collapsed into a heap of rubbish so quickly. The stories are driven by laughable plots, bad dialogue and very little coherent connection between the three story lines. The acting, though, well at least that was bearable to behold. So at least the movie gets one point for having adequate actors and actresses on the cast.

For a zombie movie, then "Edges of Darkness" was a horrible disappointment. There was about 5 good minutes worth of gore and mutilation in the 45 minutes that I managed to sit through. The rest that I saw was just rubbish. "Edges of Darkness" is hardly worth the effort, and I know now that it will be bagged, tagged and put on my DVD shelves never to be taken out again.

As a zombie aficionado I was thoroughly bored and disappointed with this movie, and I wouldn't recommend that you pick it up, unless you are a fan of any of the people in the movie. It is an insult to the zombie genre.

As far as zombie flicks go, it can't get worse than this. Please save your money. Maybe just watch the Walking Dead which deals with the subject matter a lot better.

I saw this movie with the knowledge, that this was the worst movie ever. That shouldn't be a problem. A bad movie can be a movie that's so bad, it is good again. Or so bad, that it is just plain funny. This film was just painfully bad. The story doesn't make any sense. You have absolutely no idea who the people are and what they are doing. After a good start with destroyed zombies every where, there is no action at all. And when there's action it happens outside the camera. They're talking, and talking and talking and you have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I had the idea that they made a movie and after that they left the movie on the cutting room floor and put all the outtakes together. The movie looks bad, like they made every mistake in film-making on purpose. All above should-en't be a problem if the movie is at least fun to watch, because of all this mistakes, but it isn't. It's all heavy set drama. Every character has problems, are depressed and they're talking about it. Even the zombies are depressed and talking about there problems! The filmmakers took themselves way too serious. Like they really wanted to tell something and give a message to the world. Is there nothing good to tell about this movie? Some of the actors really can act. Especially the older actor. The old zombie and the oldest priest have a voice that is very pleasant to hear. They could use them for voice acting. But it doesn't feel right in this movie. Good acting was way misplaced in a bad movie. I felt sorry for the actors who maybe hoped to show their acting skills in a movie, but ended in one big boring nonsense I hope they had fun making this movie, because if you make a no budget movie, it should be fun to make with no expectations, that it's going to be a good movie. Than it is fun to watch.

The end credits says that this film was based on a stage play and it certainly seems that way with almost all the action happening indoors. The film consists of three intertwined stories against a backdrop of a zombie plague but actually the stories could easily have been three separate half-hour plays with no zombies at all. It is my belief that the zombies were mostly a marketing ploy.

The first story is about a couple whose marriage has hit a rough patch with the wife being neglected by the husband who is obsessed with writing a play (or book) and spends all his time on his computer. Unbeknownst to the couple, the computer is cleverer than they realise.

The second story features a vampire couple who take in a young woman who is not what she seems. The couple cannot believe how lucky they are when the young woman lets them drink her blood but there is a price to pay for this largesse.

The DVD cover which shows a Lara Croft look-a-like about to blow away a zombie was the reason I bought the DVD and is the main character in the final story. Our glamorous heroine has rescued a young boy from the zombies, (it did not have to be zombies - it could have been any plague) but two priests believe the boy to be the Antichrist and want to kill him. The question is, is he really the Antichrist or are the priests just religious zealots gone mad?

You see? There really was no need at all for the zombies. To give the film its credit, the zombies were well done and so was the chomping and chewing but perhaps the budget spent on the film could have been better spent in some other way.

Imagine something circling outside the rim of a black hole; it never falls in but circles it eternally. That is this movie: eternally circling outside the plot of what could have been a good movie. It tries to be an anthology but only with a laughable tenuous link to the other movies. It tries to be a plot driven horror film, with too few scares and not enough plot. Yet, strangely, it has grown on me. The "Overbite" story is the most lacking on plot but the couple's story intrigued me and they're believable as a couple. I wish it was a series. The "Up the Ante" story, I believe also could have been good, if it had been fully realized. However, the "Entanglement" story was utterly horrible. It's one bright spot, was the actress that played the wife. She is probably awesome with stronger material.

In the end, I believe this movie had the ability to be something more than it was. It had decent actors and plots that had potential (NOT including "Entanglement") but it failed. I gave it 5 stars because it was halfway there. Forever outside the powerful star of a good movie.