Broken Darkness

(2017) Broken Darkness SCIENCE-FICTION HORROR/ ACTION DRAMA

Credited to four or more different job labels from co-producer, executive producer, editor, writer and directed by Christopher-Lee dos Santos that opens with a group of survivors of a meteor shower that wiped out much of the planet earth. At the same token, created a barrage of ghouls/ zombies whatever one wants to call them, a group of them escaping to live underground. At this point I was not sure who were the main stars were until it became apparent that the ghouls were running amok underground as well, forcing survivors who were initially planned to make a future there to escaping toward the surface. As we see Sam (Sean Cameron Michael) and Rose (Suraya Rose Santos) building a rapport.

In the first few minutes of the film there are some short clips of people driving through a forest fire. At least one of the clips is from the Valley Fire in Lake County, California in 2015. If you look closely you can see a sign over the road that says "Anderson Springs". If you go look at Google maps and put in 19500 Hwy 175, Middletown, California, you can see the sign and how much of the area has not grown back yet. There is the possibility that those videos have become a part of the public domain, so there is nothing illegal about them using them, but I still don't like it. There is also the possibility that they used those videos illegally.

The obligatory bad copy elements from The Last Of Us video game is unnerving. And the purpose of the Rose character was lost when Santos didn't follow up with some deeper connection with the Sam character. Sam's story arc needs dynamic conflict with Rose which was almost nowhere to be seen as Rose became an ornament, as if she was a background character. Technically, the weapons display was too much hip shooting with little aiming down sites. Something which is going to annoy some viewers.

Santos has some direction style which leads to a moody apocalypse film. There is a visual style with the soundtrack. If he got a writing team and didn't cast what seems like his girlfriend or sister he might air on the side of a better piece. Most of the other actors were pulling their weight. But Brendan Sean Murray was on screen for just 60 seconds before I noticed he exuded a high caliber of acting.

I dare Santos to try again. But to take notes from a scriptwriters guild pool of mentors and film makers to put Quality Assurance to the script and storyboards before expensing the budget forward. And to find out what the difference is between a bad copy and an actual film homage is like with his own spin on a directorial signature.

I never expect much from movies I never ever heard of yet I decided to watch this after watching the trailer and I was delighted.

The acting is good, the story is cool the environment is nice. They manage to make a disaster movie like this with suprises, twists and a nice story.

Of course they could haver made things better, but thats not about the movie its about quality. I guess they didnt have the right budget but still manage to make a movie better than most hollywood blockbusters, cause this is good.

They used a bad camera for filming in the dark so much, the audio was bad too probably because they used a bad microphone and not Pro PRO stuff. Yet its nice to watch. The characters are acting really well, sometimes the dialogue can be somewhat slow in responses but still feels real and the emotions are really good.

I recommend this movie, well worth it. Hope they continue making solid sci fi flicks like this, kind of miss it and im glad I found this one, cause when you ahve a small budget you tend to make the best out of it with less CGI and more real stuff.

Novice South African Director, writer, producer, editor, visuals and sound editor Christopher-Lee dos Santos did a fairly decent job with his directing and visuals, but was flawed in every other department, especially the writing. Maybe he wore too many hats in this film.

The highlights in this film was the outstanding underground set/locations (set in Johannesburg, South Africa) and the great cinematography. The directing and acting was also fairly decent for a B-grade low budget film

The film actually started off very good for the first 30 mins or so. The story held my interest, the score intensified the suspense, and I couldn't wait for what was going to happen next. Then after that, the score took a turn for the worse, the sound had serious issues (e.g. faint gunshots), and the scenes dragged on forever, that the overly long 2 hour length felt like 3 hours. It needed to be edited down to 70-90 max mins.

Then there were the serious plot issues that plagued this entire film. E.g. what was the point of his son? How and why does the film shift to a pointless journey above-ground? I'm thinking a 5th grader could have written this better.

Had it not been for the great cinematography, sets/location, decent directing and acting, I would have rated this a 1/10.