11-11-11

The successful American writer and atheist Joseph Crone (Timothy Gibbs) participates in a support group to accept the death of his beloved wife Sarah (Salomé Jiménez) and their son Diogo. Joe befriends Sadie (Wendy Glenn) in one of the meetings and she helps him when he has a car accident.

When Joe's estranged religious brother Samuel Crone (Michael Landes) tells him that their father is terminal, he travels to Barcelona to stay near the death bed of his father. Joe has visions of demons and with the number 11 and he finds that something evil will happen with Samuel and him on 11 November 2011.

"11-11-11" is a film with a promising premise, but with a messy and disappointing execution. The screenplay is boring and confused; the scary atmosphere with demons repeats several times along the film and becomes irritating; and the predicable plot point is hard to believe, disclosed in very fast pace and annoying. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "11-11-11"

The film has a great look, but the emphasis on numerology just wasn't substantial enough for my taste; it felt somewhat rushed, and the scares didn't get to me, but overall it was disturbing. I'd like to see his next film be a bit more focused and a slow-burn, as opposed to feeling jumbled at points. This movie could have easily been close to 2 hours, and could have really delved into the atmosphere. Again, I enjoyed the look and the acting was there, and I'm a big fan of his work, and the killer twist at the end makes up for other elements which were underwhelming in the film. Overall, it's a highly satisfying movie, and very different from any of Bousman's previous work.

Personally, being obsessed to the whole repetitive numbers made me very excited about this movie. I was really waiting for it to be released! And that's probably why it was a big disappointment for me. The idea of the repetitive numbers was a new unexplored theme and unfortunately it got spoiled with this movie. Very weak acting with obvious predictable flow of the story, combined with cheap visual effects and make up, all built for the failure of this movie. Not to mansion the off topic ending which was a hopeless trial to give a lasting final impression. Seriously the whole religion thing in those movies is a pathetic try from their writers to utilize people's passions towards their beliefs to make free advertisement for the movies! P.S. the only reason I gave the movie 2 stars out of 10 is for it's title nothing more nothing less.

I had hope for director Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2-4), since Repo! The Genetic Opera was a flawed but interesting experiment and his Mother's Day remake was actually pretty much excellent IMHO. But alas…bad movie is bad. Bousman's directing skils aren't even the real problem here (the film is shot decently and is at times pretty atmospheric), but near everything else is... There is hardly enough story here to warrant a half hour Twilight Zone segment, let alone a feature film. For an hour, the same things happen over and over again, even going so far that 2 characters have the exact same conversation no less than 3 times. Acting is hammy at best, especially from the lead actor, who's film-noir detective like voice-over nearly takes the film into the realm of parody. The music is constanty omnious, even when nothing remotely creepy is happening. The finale is actually pretty OK and I actually liked the ending, but the makers damn near give us the resolution of the movie in a powerpoint presentation with the director shouting "See? See what we did there???" I actually had quite some fun watching this, giggling at how bad this all was. And I admit I jumped a few times. Just make sure you don't go out of your way to see this. It is a deeply silly film.

You may or may not have bought into the false advertising campaign that is targeting young horror fans who think that they are going to see some apocalyptic event that occurs on the 11-11-11. If you are part of this target group, I am telling you now that you will most certainly be disappointed. This film is a slow-paced, methodical character-driven piece about the conflict between faith-based ideologies. Don't be tricked into thinking that this is going to be some exciting or thrilling popcorn adventure in the same vein as some of the other high budget apocalyptic films out there. Director Darren Lynn Bousman has himself said that he wanted to explore his own spiritual beliefs and conceptions about existence through this film.

We begin by following Joseph Crone (Timothy Gibbs), a popular novelist who is tormented by the death of his family through constant reoccurring nightmares and hallucinations. As seemingly random events begin to unfold in his life, Joseph struggles to cling onto any real purpose of his continuing existence. As he rapidly descends into a state of self-seclusion, he discovers a pattern in which all the events in his life are taking place. They appear to always happen at the set time of 11:11 am/pm. When his estranged pastor brother Samuel (Michael Landes) rings to tell him about his dying father, Joseph immediately travels to Barcelona. Here is where the story will perhaps turn south for most people. We spend a good 40 minutes of the film trying to decipher strange supernatural clues as we are subjected to long-winded seemingly pointless dialogue scenes. For some this may be incredibly boring, especially since the fact that apart from a few jump-scares and men in goblinesque costumes, the film is basically devoid of any horror or suspense. As the day of 11-11-11 approaches, events get weirder and weirder until the finale where a huge revealing twist is attempted but comes off looking incredibly schlocky.

Overall I'm pretty sure this film will flop badly. Due to its misleading nature, I feel that many people are going to rightfully flame this film in general. In my opinion it would have served better as a psychological drama about the descent of a rational man into madness. The twist would have been Joseph's self-realization that 11-11-11 has no meaning and it is just another number. Unfortunately the film favors a more unrealistic and perplexing ending that wasn't needed. There are however some redeemable qualities to the film such as the philosophical themes surrounding religion vs. society and also the talent of Timothy Gibbs to carry the film until the end despite many major flaws. I recommend that you watch this when it comes out on DVD so you can make up your own mind but I suggest that you consider the limitations of the budget (which couldn't have been more than $2 million).

2/5