Blackout

I always hunting for some horror all around the globe, now and then you find some trash sometimes you find some beauties. This movie was available for a few Euro's so I guessed I was buying some boring trash. Lucky me, it wasn't. First of all, it is a bit of a slow starter. You will learn to know three people. Nothing to do with each other only that they live in the same apartment. For no reason at all they wait for the elevator to bring them home. But the elevator brakes down with the three in it. Due a black out. What happens next is flashbacks of their live and the reason why they want to get out of the elevator as soon as possible. Why, watch the movie. You won't see coming what will happen. The performances are really well done especially the doctor. But is it a real horror flick. I don't think so, it's more suspense with a little horror twist in it. It never is gory but it contains blood and CGI. But the CGI never attracts the attention. There is also some nudity in it for you freaks out there. Overall the movie was a nice surprise to see, can't understand why some people say it was boring.

First of all this is not a horror movie! I've sat trough this entire movie waiting for the 'horror' but it never came. This movie is really, really bad. I don't mean that in a cool Michael Jackson-1987- music video type of way. This movie is more a thriller, with a lot of drama in it. The movie is one hour and ten minutes. To me it felt like it was over two hours. A terrible script made it impossible for me to like this movie.

The movie is about three people who are stuck in an elevator. As time goes by things get crazier and crazier. The plot itself is a big plothole. Without giving it away, in this day and age, it's simply not possible to get stuck in an elevator like that. The viewer will notice this along the way, and this certainly doesn't do the credibility of this movie any good.

For a movie that is straight to DVD I was pleasantly surprised with the visuals. Not once, did I get the feeling that this is a struggling movie. It's beautifully shot. The tone is dark. You could see the director put time and effort in the making of this movie.

The first minutes looked promising but then something changed. It began showing flashbacks. I was cool with this because it gave a little backstory on the characters. But the flashbacks kept going on and on in this movie. The problem with this is that it killed the pacing of this movie. It almost felt like I was watching drama. It wasn't what I expected of this movie and there was almost no real suspense till near the end.

The dialogue is cloggy a lot of the times and interesting some of the times. Acting was bad on some parts in the beginning and got better after I think 20 minutes. As a matter of fact, one character annoyed me endlessly .The movie tries to develop the characters but doesn't do a good job. Because it's so slow paced, I lost interest in the characters. The backstories just aren't interesting.

I didn't like the 'big revelation' near the end. You know the part of the movie where all the pieces of the puzzles fit together. I expected something bigger and intriguing. I was searching for some redemption, some reward for sitting trough this mess, but it was so predictable and rushed.

Bottom line: It's garbage. A big, smelly one. With a bunch of flies on it.

2/10

BLACKOUT is another low budget B-movie thriller with bags of potential but little thought process gone into the execution. Thus this is a film that looks cheap throughout, and which becomes boring not long after you start watching. This is because the whole movie is padded out with flashbacks to explore the characters of the three people trapped in the lift, flashbacks which add little except to increase the running time.

Cast-wise, the film is in firm hands with the presence of Aidan Gillen (GAME OF THRONES), but sadly the actors can't do a lot with what are relatively one dimensional characters. There's violence here but very little suspense, and the dark cinematography fails to make much of the setting or indeed to bring out the claustrophobia inherent in the situation. For a better trapped-in-a-lift movie, check out ELEVATOR.

'Blackout' is one of those obscure little multinational affairs that can either be jaw-droppingly bad or a rare unearthed gem - happily, it's the latter. Three characters are trapped overnight in a stalled elevator, bickering and bitching as they try and find a way out while thinking back to the sequence of events that led them there. These 'Lost'-style flashbacks eventually reveal that one of their number is a vicious sociopath.

It's clear that Mexican director Castaneda is influenced more by the character driven horror of the sixties and seventies than by vapid eighties slashers, but his interest in people shouldn't be mistaken for squeamishness when it comes to ugly sexual violence - it's been a long time since I wanted to see a bad guy get what he deserves as much as I did watching 'Blackout'. Castaneda uses more than a few moves from the David Fincher play-book, with the camera squeezing through keyholes and cracks and plummeting down elevator shafts, and the whole thing is beautifully photographed, belying what was in truth a meager budget of only $4 million. A great psychological thriller from a director who deserves success.

This was another movie that Neflix had listed under Horror films so I figured I would watch it. This is one of those movies that feels like it is longer than it actually is and is actually somewhat difficult to sit though. It isn't that it wasn't good at all it's that I didn't really care for the characters. As in I didn't care who died and who lived. Also this movie was quite predictable and I didn't really get shocked from anything in it which is never good in a Horror movie in my honest opinion. Although I didn't give this a high rating I still liked some parts. I give "Blackout" a 5 out of 10

~Joe