Kolobos - Trappola infernale

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 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.

Kolobos is the kind of movie that tries to be smarter than it is, and just doesn't come together well. The movie revolves around a group of people hired to do a reality show that's basically The Real World. However once there they are picked off one by one by a killer who has trapped the house.

The movies concept was solid enough, but the execution came off pretty weak. The kills were fine, but the characters were pretty much unlikable, and the twist was pretty obvious. Despite that it's entertaining enough for a lazy afternoon or a late night time waster.

When I began to watch this movie I thought I was in front of another "Friday the thirteenth" rip-off and well,it follows the formula but at the same time it introduces some quite interesting elements that makes it superior to other similar movies released at the cinemas such as "Cut"or "Urban legend 2" and I liked the end because it´s a change with reference to some irritating topics from this kind of movies, I know there´s someone here telling it has no sense but I don´t think so.Although I have to say I´m quite used to strange movies with strange endings, check out the Spanish "School Killer", it´s fantastic.I give "Kolobos" 6 out of 10.