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A young man, confused and suffering from amnesia, searches for his girlfriend in a post-apocalyptic land populated by tree zombies.

I was drawn in by the cast, which I figured would make this at least watchable. It wasn't until I started watching the movie that I saw it was by Lowell Dean. This raised my expectations quite a bit higher, and I'm happy to say that I quite enjoyed it! I think this is probably my favorite movie of his so far.

This is a lot more serious than WolfCop. Our protagonist, Ethan, is a bit shell-shocked. He stumbles around in a daze, and his memories are a bit jumbled. All he really knows for sure is that his girlfriend is missing. It's kind of a video game plot, one that gives the protagonist a clear goal. Of course, like video game characters, he gets constantly distracted from that simple goal.

The worldbuilding was pretty cool. It's a world in which nature has taken its revenge on humanity, and there's a bit of a misanthropic "humanity deserves it" feel from some of the characters. The most interesting part is that a virus seems to be turning people into monstrous tree zombies. This was pretty creatively done, with both hungry shamblers and comparatively harmless late-stage victims who seem rooted to the spot.

Some of the themes are a bit reminiscent of other movies. I thought Lowell Dean did a good job of making them his own, though. I would have preferred something a bit less cliched than zombies, but these are technically victims of a rage virus that slowly seems to turn people into plants. If you're going to use zombies, this is the way to do it.

If you're here for Carrie-Anne Moss, you're in luck. She's a fairly constant presence, and she's as cool as ever. She'll always be Trinity to me, but she's had some other kickass roles, and I'd also include them one in those ranks now. Frank Grillo makes an appearance later in the movie. I hope that some day I can see a post-apocalyptic movie starring Grillo, preferably without zombies.

Douglas Smith necessarily had to play a bit of a blank slate, but I liked him. I think he made Ethan likeable in a goofy way and a bit mysterious. I sometimes avoid movies where the protagonist is suffering from amnesia because it's been so overdone, especially after Memento already did it so well. It got worked into the plot fairly well here, though, I thought. That said, if you're tired of amnesia movies and their inevitable plot twists, this probably isn't going to change your mind on them.

There's not a whole lot of gore, so gorehounds will likely be a bit bored. I thought the special effects were usually pretty good, though, and I liked how the infected people had sprouts growing from their bodies. It made them look a bit unnatural and wrong. When the gore does come around, it's usually pretty fleeting. Die Alone, despite the rather ominous title, isn't the kind of movie that requires a strong stomach.

It's not the most original thing ever, but it brings together some pretty cool influences and twists them into something new. I liked it, and I'm excited to see what Lowell Dean does next.

Demons feeding on human misery in a dead-end slum are stunned and worried when all the humans suddenly become full of hope.

The demons send out our protagonist, Vine, to investigate what's going on. Their oracle believes it to be a disease, but Vine is certain that it's another demon. The mystery is actually kind of interesting, and I was more invested in learning what was causing this hope epidemic than a lot of other on-screen mysteries lately.

I guess I'm a sucker for a paranormal detective, too, because I loved Vine. He's just the right amount of jerk, anti-hero, and cynical gumshoe who's secretly got a soft spot for the downtrodden. I can't really imagine anyone else playing Vine now, and it makes me a bit sad that we'll apparently never see a sequel.

The rest of the characters aren't as great, but they're still fun. The best part is the makeup effects on the various demons. It gives them character, and, with few exceptions, doesn't look low budget. Fire City has an interesting stylistic touch, too, where the demons look like humans when they're around humans but demonic otherwise.

The worldbuilding around the demons is interesting. I would have liked more details, but I think the plan might have been to explore them further in sequels. They exist in our world and obviously feed on misery, lust, rage, etc. In the end, they're played a bit like psychic vampires who follow the World of Darkness's masquerade.

Watching the humans play the worst versions of themselves and then the best version versions was pretty cool, too. I was surprised that they pulled it off so well and even delved a little bit into the psychological changes. Don't worry, though, it's doesn't spend too much time on anything intellectual -- there's a nude striptease in the middle of the this part of the movie.

Scenes like that just make Fire City seem even more of a cult movie. It's the sort of movie that most people would dislike or not understand. But for a select few, it'd send them excitedly looking through stacks of direct-to-video movies at a video rental store.

If you like quirky, low budget dark fantasy, definitely give this a chance.

The crew of a remote mining colony goes berserk and attempts to destroy Earth. A special forces team is sent to stop the deadly payload and rescue the sole survivor.

Infini has an interesting premise. It's got everything you need a scifi thriller, really: ticking time bombs, badass space marines, a parasite that drives people violently insane, remote space stations where no reinforcements are possible, dangerous teleportation technology, etc. In fact, it's probably a little too packed with scifi tropes.

At first, I wasn't really sure why everyone was calling it a ripoff of various movies. By the midpoint, I was thinking, "Oh. Right, I get it now." It's definitely borrowing a lot of ideas from a lot of scifi movies. With the convoluted premise (which takes several paragraphs of text to explain in the movie's opening), it's not too surprising that some people got a bit lost. Or annoyed at all the pastiche.

I didn't think they'd be able to make all this work -- and it looks like more than a few people think it didn't -- but I liked how it came together in the end. I guess it won me over despite the director's best efforts to make the ending as annoying as possible. The climax plays twice in a row so we can soak it all in, I guess.

The actors had to go bonkers as they became infected, and I thought some of them were quite entertaining in their bonkers state. If you dislike cheesiness in your scifi movies, this may be the wrong choice. However, the scenes where the special forces guys tried to fight off space madness were some of my favorites.

There's definitely a retrofuturistic, Alien-era Ridley Scott influence on the production design. Having 1970s monochrome monitors on a 23rd century space station doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but I enjoyed the aesthetic anyway. It's style at the cost of coherence, I suppose, but I appreciated the director made an effort to have a style.

Some of the negative reviews I've seen make good points, but I ended up liking Infini despite it's issues. It takes a boatload of scifi tropes and influences, mashes them together into a surprisingly coherent movie, and has some fun with them. It's not very original, but I definitely found it watchable.