Intersect

Yeah, this 2020 movie titled "Intersect" was a swing and a miss, especially for a Lovecraftian movie. Well, I am getting ahead of myself here.

I was lured in by the movie's rather interesting cover/poster, and the fact that this was allegedly a Lovecraftian movie. And yes, the cover/poster definitely also sold the movie as being Lovecraftian, and the fact that the synopsis included the Miskatonic University just cemented that fact. So of course I found myself sitting down to watch writer and director Gus Holwerda's 2020 movie "Intersect".

This 2020 movie was slow paced, incredibly slow paced. And it just prolonged the agony and boredom that there was so very little of any interest taking place throughout the almost 2 hours that the movie ran for. I stuck with it though, given its supposedly Lovecraftian roots. But that was just a stretch. Sure, there were some cosmic influences, but it just never really reached a level where I personally would deem this worthy of being labeled Lovecraftian.

The storyline told in "Intersect" was boring. Let's just be bluntly honest. Yeah, it most certainly was boring. Sure, the movie's script and plot did have some interesting aspects to it, but writer and director Gus Holwerda just never really brought them to a noteworthy fruition.

While the movie was dreadfully slow, uneventful and just downright boring, then it should be said the the casted actors and actresses put on good performances, and they made the ordeal bearable to sit through. But entertainment-wise then "Intersect" was just a shallow experience.

The special effects in "Intersect" were for the most part actually adequate. I liked the portal effects. However, the Watchers - or Lurkers - creatures in the movie were just atrocious to look at. They moved like something taken straight out of a 1990s computer game and also looked that way. It was just an eyesore to look at.

I am a big fan of Lovecraft's works and Lovecraftian work in general, "Intersect", however, doesn't really tickle me in the right places. Nor would I deem it worthy to be branded as being actually Lovecraftian. Sure, it may be Lovecraftian inspired, but that is about it.

My rating of "Intersect" lands on a mere three out of ten stars. I had hopes for the movie when I sat down to watch it, but those hopes vanished like morning dew before the rising sun pretty early on in the movie. In fact, the last 8 minutes of the movie is essentially what you need to watch to get the concept of the movie. Not worth the time or effort really.

From the first scene it's clear that you are looking at something weird. Then, as the story progresses (or, to be honest, it doesn't) things get more and more confusing and incomprehensible. You hope that going forward with the vision things will start to make sense but no, they doesn't. And the ending is just too stupid to be true. The CGI effects are pretty good for a low budget movie, and the actors are pretty good too. But the plot is so convuluted and absurd that everything fall apart. Basically, i've wasted two hours .

This film has a lot of interesting themes, which will and clearly is, lost on most viewers. I don't watch modern TV shows, so I have not seen "Stranger Things", I think those who have are misjudging this film. This is indeed a Lovecraftian film, go read up on Lovecraft, but like most Lovecraftian films, it is a mixed bag. I get the feeling, when you are dealing with the bizarre themes of Lovecraft, it must be hard to make things work well, it can be done, but I can only think of a few examples, such as "In the Mouth of Madness", one of the most Lovecraftian films not based on a specific Lovecraft story, and that movie is also incredibly confusing and in the end you may ask, "Did any of this even matter"? I bring this up, because I get the exact same feeling while watching "Intersect".

Intersect has a lot of confusing time jumps and narrative jumps, convoluted is an understatement. At the same time, it does mostly gel together by the end. I found myself very frustrated in the first half, I had no idea what was going on, it was extremely confusing. The bad thing about it being sequentially in reverse is that it is very hard to get what is going on until late in the movie. I am not going to say they shouldn't have done this though, I think it was a good choice, and while clearly the confusion is irritating, I know this was by design. It actually makes sense why they chose to do it this way by the end if you pay attention.

People complaining about the color correction are confused, it is obvious they used a washed out look on purpose. People are really grasping at straws here. Also the comment about "Dubbing shouldn't be used in 2020".... Uhhhhh, dubbing over dialog is EXTREMELY common in all movies for various reasons... Yikes! Is the acting that bad? Nope! Yes, the actor who plays Nate is a tad over the top, he did annoy me, but he really wasn't awful, and everyone else was just fine other than Ryan's mom, she was also slightly over the top. Most the complaints here are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I get the complaints about the convoluted and confusing narrative, that is a valid complaint, was really confused myself, but I get it now. Be patient, I don't think it is "up to the viewer to decide" what is going on as some else said, but rather, the answers are all there, but it requires patience to find them.

This is not a movie for everyone as it will be a VERY frustrating experience for most people. For those who have a little bit of patience and like science fiction and ideally Lovecraft, you will find much to enjoy. It just isn't an easy watch.

Ok, first of all, all the positive reviews with a high score are made from bot accounts, since all of those fake users have only one review (of the film) and those are mostly overwhelmingly positive. I'm not judging anyone, but this is not a good practice to promote a film.

Second, the production quality is way under the level of a 2020 production. I understand the budgetary limitations, but it seems like they spent their budget on the wrong things. It doesn't look good, the color correction is messy, dubbing is also not a good thing for a film in 2020. The CGI is fine, but the film could've done without it. It wasn't a good idea to boost your film's look by spending money on that. Especially since they re-use those a couple of times (using the same CGI sequences backwards).

This is followed by the third and the most important point, which is - inexperience of the creators. It shows in every aspect, the writing, the structure of the film, all the basic aspects of filmmaking.

The inspirations were very clear and the ideas of Stephen King (homages to characters from IT and more), classic time travel sci-fi elements (Time Machine), Lovecraftian unspeakable horror are all present, but all of these are undermined by point #3.

Instead of being a 2hr slow film with lots of tearjerking and not particularly interesting dialogue, this could've been a mini-series (yes, I understand the budgetary limits). There was no need to reverse the story, especially in a confusing way they did it (again, stemming from point #3). If you want your audience to understand what is going on, you have to give basic locations, dates, establishing shots.

The acting was also very uneven, kid actors were surprisingly fine, but some of the more mature performances were horrendous. The overacting of the actor who played Nate Beaumont was a mental pain. His overexaggerated facial expressions were a real pain to watch.

Again, if the story would move from the start to finish the evolution of the characters would be easier to understand, again, the film that also inspired this - Contact (1997) managed that. There are many good films that handle jumps in time much better, like Starship Troopers. It would've been interesting to see what these kids will grow into, and how everything will fall into place. But in this film, they made a mess of it, and due to low production quality (they didn't even have the ability to apply old-age make-up) it doesn't work.

The story is rushed through even though this is a 2hr film, they give lots of unnecessary details, it feels very cheap (but again, because they just didn't have enough experience to cut corners where possible and save money for the more important parts).

It clearly wasn't the worst film I have ever seen, and the ideas are there, but the ideas they had were obviously beyond their grasp in many aspects, not only due to limited resources. So low budget is not an excuse, I've seen better acted and more immersive Russian detective series, with a budget of 10 grand.

Many renowned directors started with cheap films and they only became big because they were able to make good films with only their enthusiasm and creativity.

So I would like to wish the creators to get back to these ideas a couple of years from now, re-think, re-write and try to make a bigger and better film out of this. James Cameron would never be able to create a big-budget masterpiece of Terminator 2 if he would not demonstrate his creative genius while making a lesser in scale but still good Terminator.

And please, drop these practices of botting your scores, it diminishes the credibility of your work.

The audio is off.

The plot is basic yet convoluted for no reason.

The cinematography is suspect, especially with all the unfortunate closeups.

The acting is dumpster fire trash.

The pace drags.

This story could have been told in less time with less confusion and character development.