In un giorno la fine

Well-directed, well-acted and technically accomplished, but the film loses itself somewhat as a result of the screenplay, especially in the second half where the attacks begin to feel repetitive and the action fails to progress as swiftly as we'd like.

Synopsis: Mega-congested Roman roads, a broken-down elevator and an invasion of zombies. Three hellish situations are meted out in quick succession by new 33 years-young director Daniele Misischia, who was previously a cameraman and second-unit director for the Manetti brothers. And it is, in fact, Marco and Antonio Manetti, the golden brothers of Italian genre cinema (Love and Bullets [+] being their last success) who produced The End? [+], an apocalyptic horror film set almost entirely in a lift. It was presented for the first time at London's FrightFest in 2017, before travelling to the last Rome Film Fest, and it will soon be showing in Italian cinemas from 14 August onwards.

I read the bad reviews of this Italian zombie flick and decided to still give it a try because it sounded interesting. I'm glad I did. I am not easily impressed and I watch so many movies of all sorts of genres (in fact, that's all I do with my spare time) and I must say that this is one of the best films I have watched this year. I found that I was not tempted to hit the fast forward button and actually wanted to see what happened at the end, when I usually don't care and switch off out of boredom with most of the films I watch.

The End provided high tension, sure it was predictable but it is just a zombie movie, what else would you expect? It was not boring at all, I felt like the performances were good but most of the dialogue was unnecessary. One man trapped in all elevator arguing with people on his phone and through an intercom does not provide much dialogue, and it was just padded by constant use of foul language which I found rather annoying. I was reading English subtitles when I watched this and I thought, I could have still enjoyed the film even without the subs, since the dialogue is not really important. What makes the film good is the tension, the scary zombies, and for those who like gore, there is some very bloody scenes.

It is very hard to find a good horror movie these days. We are bombarded with so much trash that it makes me feel like giving up in searching for good ones, but finding The End? was worth the effort. It may not be one of the greatest zombie flicks of all time, but it certainly is not one of the worst either. I say, give it a go.

Main protagonist is trapped in an elevator and fights to survive zombie outbreak in Rome. Nothing special, but nothing bad either. It's a fun film to watch. It's nothing ground breaking, and certainly isn't scary, but it's well acted pure zombie fun, and you should treat it that way. Sure would like like to see more movies like this from Italy :)

I love the pacing in this movie. It wasn't too fast or too slow, yet still held me on my toes as to what would happen to the key protagonist of the film. On the other hand, it would have helped if there was another protagonist to the film, someone to help him keep his head on straight whenever he did panic or start yelling out of frustration.

But all in all the plot was basic but good, it helped that they threw in claustrophobia in there as well.

If you take the premise - a guy stuck in an elevator, right before a zombie apocalypse breaks out ... well you should know if this is something you would like to see. If that premise does not speak to you, the movie will not have some rabbit in a hat it pulls out or an ace of spade hidden somewhere. It is what it is and for that, it is pretty decent. The effects are good and the pace is nice too.

The main actor is doing his best to keep not just the tension high, but also the interest the viewer might have (or not). But again, having limited mobility and sight does kind of take away certain things. It does add claustrophobia into the mix though. So I guess for some people this may work even more than others. Enjoy the ride and the gore, if you are into them