Plus One

"I just saw another me downstairs...everything is gonna happen again." When three college friends decide to go to a party they are not prepared for what they experience. David (Wakefield) meets up with is ex-girlfriend who he is still in love with. Teddy (Miller) hooks up with the girl of his dreams and Allison is once again maid fun of. Just when they can't think it can't get any worse it all happens again and again and again. I really had no idea what this movie was about because I don't watch previews before I see the movie. I don't know if that was the reason I liked it so much or not but I really thought this was a neat movie. What started off as just another college party movie became something that isn't really seen in movies anymore...originality. I don't want to give anything away so I can only describe this as the first "let's get drunk and have sex with other college students/sci-fi" movie I have ever seen. I realize how that sounds but give it a chance, you may be surprised like I was. Overall, original and fun, it kept me interested and entertained the entire time. I surprisingly give this a B+.

This movie should've been an easy slam dunk for me. It has all the right ingredients. However, it's somehow a walking cliché which serves as an ironic and off-putting contrast to its unique plot. In addition to that, it suffers from a serious lack of character development lead by an actor whose narrow emotional range spans from smug to sociopath, Rhys Wakefield.

The director clearly wants me to root for Wakefield's scummy P. O. S. Character. Yet every time he opens his mouth I become more and more convinced that he deserves none of the rewards reaped from this film's unique plot. Couple that with an entire cast that becomes more and more 1-dimensional as the movie progresses, and you're left with a recipe for an unfulfilling experience that delivers no payoff in the end beyond having seen something a little different.

This easily could've been a 9 outta 10 experience for me. But unfortunately the writer/director's skillset both starts and ends at thinking up interesting plots.

Because of the seemingly decline of cinema creativity, i am nowadays tempted to highly rate any movie that shows up with a different concept, plot, history or whatever.

I am so fed up with the repeating and predictable tons of films out each year that i was indeed very pleased with this one.

The plot is brilliant and something new and exciting. I know that many will say that there are several huge problems with it. Acting is average at best and directing extremely poor if we take in account what could have been.

Anyway, if you want something fresh this is it. This script could and should have been picked by a larger company with an higher budget. It could have been easily a box office scifi movie but, instead, became an almost obscure mix between an good base story and a bad teenage college movie.

Boobs included.

It might be a bit difficult to live up to the hype if you compare your movie to a cult classic like Donnie Darko. Then again since Project X is mentioned too - maybe that is a hint what is to be expected. And yes there is nudity and drinking and "romance" and quite a lot of teenage stuff going on. But there is also a lot violence too (quite explicit contrary to Donnie to be fair).

So while the comparison probably did not help, this is a wicked little movie that deserves better than to be just shrugged off. The acting is more than decent too and the twists are quite nice. I watched it under a different title, which may have been the one they used in Germany, which I reckon works better for the movie anyway: Shadow Walkers

'Shadow Walkers' (or '+1' as it's also known) is an odd little number at the best of times. It never really seems to know what it is. I guess the one thing everyone can agree on is that it's a 'B-movie.' Therefore, most likely everyone concerned with making it knew that it was never going to be a massively commercial box office smash. At best it might achieve 'cult status' on DVD.

Therefore, it doesn't have a budget and no 'known' actors to speak of. It's about a meteor that crashes into a small town in America, creating weird phenomenon amidst a local college party. Soon the guests find things are going a little crazy and they might not make it to morning alive. It starts off like some sort of adult-humour piece like American Pie, then it progresses into a looping version of Groundhog Day. There's also a fair bit of 'gratuitous' nudity which (judging from what I've read online) seems to have put a lot of people off from taking the plot seriously.

When I read that synopsis I thought it was going to have something to do with aliens. Yet, what you get is time travel. It could work. And it almost does. Without giving too much away about the plot, it tries to be a little bit different (and succeed), but then it strays into that area where it starts to become too clever for its own good. Any film concerning time travel is going to have some major plot holes. Some of them are just so good (I'm thinking the Terminator series and Back to the Future) that you can forgive the odd lapse in plausibility and just enjoy the ride. However, in Shadow Walkers the questions just keep mounting up. It's like the writers had one idea then changed their minds half way through. And then again about twenty minutes later.

You'll find yourself asking quite a few questions as to why people do things and what happens to someone which hasn't really been properly explained. I checked online as to find out the meaning behind much of the film. There are some good theories explaining most of it, but no one seems to be able to explain everything.

If you were left with questions after watching Prometheus, then you'll be able to write an encyclopaedia as to what wasn't clear in Shadow Walkers. I didn't hate the film. It tries to be different, which, in a marketplace of B-movies filled with 'found footage' and cheap zombie movies, made a change. I just wish it had been a little more focused. I don't mind not having every little detail about a story explained to me. Sometimes it's fun to interpret it your own way. It's just here they took that concept a little too far.

For fans of sci-fi B-movies only.

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