Radiant

If you suffer from insomnia then Radiant would be the best way to send you into a 7-year coma. The film is so preposterously overwrought and mundane that it's hard to imagine that director Steve Mahone could overlook such obvious dullness.

The story has an exiled Doctor (who we never get to see) move out into the desert to create a vaccine that will cure all diseases by filling the hosts full of antibodies that can combat any infection (yes, just like that episode of Futurama). The vaccines don't work and the human guinea pigs become infected with a virus that kills within 48 hours.

Not wanting to be caught by the Government guys in masks the group head into the desert for cover, hoping that the sunshine will kill the virus. All of this is narrated by Michael, the only one of the quartet immune to the infection. And it's the most boring narration ever. They could have cast someone with an interesting voice but instead we get someone with less vocal personality than Clive Owen.

On top of this the editor insists on fade-cutting more than half the movie, giving it a weird dream-like feel and increasing the audiences desire to go to sleep. It's no surprise that half of the audience walked out of this, I was not one of them for some reason. But I bloody well should have.

The ending is supposed to be shocking and clever and foreboding. But it's plain and simply not. A relief yes, but not dramatic in the slightest.

The utter cheapness of this production and muffled sound that renders a lot of the dialogue unintelligible cripples what could have been an interesting sci-fi story if it had better actors, cooler locations and a sense of urgency. As it is, Radiant is a snoozefest.

To truly appreciate this movie one needs to forget about the constraints put on it by the low budget. The visuals can be a little tough to handle sometimes, but they are more than made up for by the innovative story, editing, and soundtrack.

It seems that people want to degrade the movie for its low production value, but it is not a stretch when I say this movie reminds me a lot of early Cronenberg: enigmatic scientist makes a medical discovery which may or may not be effective and when it is tried on volunteer subjects (who soon become tortured patients) the outcomes are not what had been predicted. And all of done on a shoestring budget with laughable special effects (the parasites which resemble turds in SHIVERS).

There is too much good writing to call this movie trash and while the acting can seem forced in spots, some seems so natural that it is impossible not to feel the emotion of the characters. For example, the tears of Ed (James Cable) in the latter part of the film would be shared by anyone who spent a life afraid of interpersonal communication only to make friends with the same "test subjects" he was supposed to be monitoring. Ed remains the creep -the Igor figure of the film- for most of the plot, but the film ends with him as the character with whom we most identify.

The plot is slow to develop, but for good reason. This is not a sci-fi/horror film, this is straight science-fiction. The depth of relationships matters much more than the gore. All of these people -even the government agents- are pawns for more powerful agencies. It is meant to be cerebral. In the end Ed is able to break free from the system and begin to see the constraints of the structure he had believed in for so long.

The editing can be called into question, but with a larger budget it would not even be an issue. The soundtrack is seamless and adds the right amount of intensity and anxiousness to the film.

The nascent elements are there for some good, novel film-making. I look forward to future SILOmedia productions.

-El Profesor

The story here is a captivating one, four people three of which are accidentally infected by this man made virus which is suppose to kill off other viruses but hasn't been tested enough to be sure of what it really does. As they wonder and wait in fear to see what will happen they decide to flee into the desert rather than become guinea pigs in a lab somewhere and wait it out to see what happens without infecting other innocent people. I see some other reviews for Radiant that suggest that the film is boring, well I think one of the problems is the ways the film was promoted, this isn't your typical "Hollywood" zombie like film but it was never made to be that type of film. Instead this is a character driven sci-fi thriller that instead shows a much more realistic take on what could possibly happen in case something like this were to ever occur. In spots you can see where the film suffers a bit from it's low budget but over-all the settings and acting give the film a realistic feel, the cast did such a terrific job, I was taken in by their characters and really began to care for them. The story is slow but it is deliberate, you are not getting a horror film here but instead a science fiction film that is just that so don't go into this thinking you aer going to watch another "Resident Evil", and you are going to find it to be as thought-provoking as I did. I thought that the film-makers did a great job at creating a thinking man's sci-fi, the kind that are never made anymore. This is Writer/Director, Steve Mahone's debut film and if this is any indication of the kind of cinema we are going to see from this man then I certainly look forward to what he has to offer next. The bottom line is you need to know what you are getting here and I hope my take on it helps in doing so, if you get a chance to see the find do so and make your own mind up on how it is, I thought for the budget the story and characters did a terrific job at setting a mood that is certainly desperate.

After reading the other reviews on this site, I wonder if I saw the same movie as everyone else.

Radiant is about four people, three of which are accidentally infected with a man-made virus with the purpose of purging the body of all other viruses. However, all of the prototypes of the virus up to this point have behaved in unpredictable ways, so no one is exactly sure what it does. When the characters are suddenly forced to make a decision between spending the rest of their lives as government lab rats or fleeing they choose to escape into the desert and allow the disease to run its course without infecting others.

At this point I'd like to agree with everyone else who has posted on this film: Radiant is indeed slow, but not in a bad way. The film deliberately takes its time to breathe in order to extend to the viewer the unease and eeriness that the characters are experiencing (think Wim Wenders on digital video). As each of them are waiting in extreme tension to see what happens so is the audience.

But the film is more than merely waiting. As the story unfolds, we begin to know the characters on an extremely intimate level. For all that they know this disease is going to kill them and as they all prepare themselves for that possibility they bond with each other in an unique and powerful way which the audience experiences too. And when it comes down to it that is what Radiant is about--connection. It explores human relationships in an original and in depth manner that left me speechless.

Radiant is a patient, very cerebral, deeply human film that deserves to be watched with an open mind. Kudos to you Steve Mahone for a remarkable and moving first effort.

I was privileged to see this movie on two occasions, first being at the Dallas premiere. If you like to actually use your brain during a film, a film that has all of the elements that allow anyone to watch and associate instances in their life, dreams, or fears then this is the film you cannot miss. The acting and cinematography are phenomenal and quite literally pull your darkest psyche into the forefront while you try to keep up with the ever changing influences on the characters, while still trying to associate your own decisions and beliefs with the responses confronted by the characters throughout the carousel of what if's that are displayed throughout the storyline. Without giving anything away, this is one of the pinnacles of the independent scifi thrillers in recent memory that absolutely walks through the gray area of real life and fiction. An area that collectively, as a human race, we are are going to have to decipher more and more as we progress in medicine and technology. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys walking out of a theater or seeing the credits role on their TV at home and enjoys deciphering the film and it's parallel avenues in the life you see around you.