Kolobos - Trappola infernale

I have to say this is most definitely a horror gem. When my friend and I were choosing movies to watch on our movie night she decided to rent this one solely based on the description on the back of the cover. Man was this a good decision. For those of you that have already seen My Little Eye and later on watch this film, you will find that MLE is almost like a carbon copy (minus the ending...somewhat). 5 strangers are picked to spend (God knows how many) weeks/months in a house while being video taped 24/7. In MLE it was for a snuff website, in Kolobos it was for a "film". BOTH end up taking a turn for the worse. I really really REALLY enjoyed Kolobos because 1. They offered some fanTASTIC gore effects without all that CGI crap that so many horror films are using now, 2. The storyline is one giant mind fu*k that leaves you sitting there thinking "What the hell just happened? Woah..." (in a good way of course), and 3. The dialog between actors was hilarious. I really enjoyed the one scene where they're watching a cheesy slasher/horror that one of the girls chosen starred in, and one guy is going "This film is crap! How can you watch this bullsh*t." while another guy is sitting there with his eyes glued to the TV going off on some deep, intellectual view of the "crap" movie. . It was truly a funny scene. While I can't say the actual acting was good in this, everything else about it was. Highly recommended! *two thumbs up* 7.5/10

It was almost as if the people who made this movie were trying to make an American Horror film, in the Asian Horror style. I don't really think Kolobos qualifies as a Slasher Filck, it's more of a Psychological, Shock Film. It doesn't take too much thought, but it does have you questioning the whole situation. It's worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

"Kolobos" opens in someone else's point of view, someone who's obviously out of it, wandering the night-time streets aimlessly. The person is suddenly hit by a car, and when one of the vehicle's occupants gets out to check on the person, we find out that it's a female as she faintly utters the word "kolobos". The girl is taken to the hospital where she is operated on before being put in a room to recover. The patient next to her decides to read newspaper ads to her for the hell of it, and one of the ads triggers her to remember everything that has happened to her (we also find out that her name is Kyra, and she has spent time in a halfway house). It's an ad looking for five young people to participate in a groundbreaking new experimental film. They will be stuck in this big, fancy house with video cameras watching their every move. There's just one problem. Something is very awry in this house, and all hell is about to break loose. Could ex-loony Kyra be behind it all, or is there something much more sinister afoot?

"Kolobos" is a film which I passed by many times in the video store and never even thought about checking out, as the cover made it look like yet another DTV waste of space. Later, I saw some raves about the film on one of the boards I frequent, so I decided to finally check it out was promptly blown away. The film's cover art does not do it justice at all! It's easily one of the most atmospheric, downright creepy as hell independent horror films I've had the pleasure of viewing.

The characters are all well-portrayed, the actors making them feel like real people in search of their own 15 minutes of fame. It's somewhat ironic that Amy Weber, who plays Kyra, actually went on to be one of those flash in the pan types herself. Too bad, as she's actually quite solid here. The authenticity of the characters makes the brutal gore harder to take than it normally would be. The first death in the film, for instance, not only took me by total surprise, but it was disturbing to watch as the victim slowly succumbed. I didn't even like this particular person, but the brutality and realism, both in character and reaction, managed to get under my skin.

The house makes for a creepy setting, and it oozes a sense of the foreboding right from the start. The film's score also helps, and it should seeing how it sounds quite similar to the masterful music from "Suspiria" at times.

This film took me by surprise and turned out to be one hell of an intense gem in the often generic sea of direct to video horror. It is now a permanent fixture amidst my collection, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Kolobos might not be a title you hear thrown out in horror circles very often, because it was dumped into video stores without a theatrical release and given lousy artwork that had nothing to do with the film. This is definitely a small, low budget affair, but there's a lot of thought put into it and it looks absolutely beautiful.

The entire film is bathed in lighting that would make Argento and Bava proud and the death sequences are fairly imaginative and well done, especially for a low budget film like this. The final twist isn't handled very well and it comes across as a bad afterthought, but everything else is so captivating that I can't even fault it for that.

The opening music is very reminiscent of 'Suspiria' in Daniel Liatowitsch and David Todd Ocvirk's 'Kolobos' (1999), but unfortunately this film suffers from the common ailment of low budget horror films; the problem of weak dialogue and variable performances.

The filmmakers obviously appreciate the slasher genre and at the same time acknowledge its weaknesses. One of the characters is an actress who appears in the fictional movie franchise 'The Slaughterhouse Factor,' which when the characters in Kolobos sit down to watch the series in its entirety, either mercilessly mock it or simply fall asleep as they tick off the rudimentary clichés of the genre.

Kolobos goes into the potentially interesting area of reality TV, with Big Brother (which only started in 1999) type territory being delved into. The set up has the characters answering advertisements to appear in a project where they will come together in a house with hidden cameras and be filmed for five days, having no access to the outside world.

Dario Argento 'Giallo' black gloves are given a guernsey, as are anatomy drawings, POV stumble cam, a Deep Red style tooth smashing, and the colour scheme is straight out of Suspiria and Inferno. For the U.S audience who maybe isn't familiar with 'Giallo,' Kyra is from the get-go set up as the final girl… but is she?

After an interesting start, Kolobos becomes plodding, and with a meager running time of 1 hour and 24 minutes, I still found myself checking my watch.