The Divide

I don't know why this rating is so low. If you like the dark side of humanity you will love this. It's totally believable and a great take on humanity at its lowest as opposed to the happily every after commercial stuff.

This movie was on my radar for almost a decade. I have enjoyed the director's first feature film Frontier(s) n his second Hitman. Found his Crucifixion lame n havent yet seen Cold Skin. Man, this move is still enjoyabl after so many years of its release. Michael Biehn is terrific as the superintendent of a bldg. After a nuke bomb, residents of a building manage to rush into the building's bomb shelter before the superintendent seals the door. The group acclimatizes to the cramped surroundings while the superintendent asserts his dominance over the shelter and its inhabitants.

The concept of the bunker due to the fear of apocalypse, nuke or aliens is done similarly in the seg starring Lou Diamond Phillips in the movie Sanitarium n also in Cloverfield Lane.

"This ain't exactly the garden of Eden." After a nuclear bomb is dropped and earth is uninhabitable a group of tenants of an apartment are forced to live together in the basement of the building. What starts off as a tense situation quickly explodes into something much, much worse and everyone's views of each other change. This is not what I was expecting. I thought this would be more of a Sci-Fi type movie and what it was was a very disturbing look at what different people will do when pushed to the edge. For those that have seen the movie "Blindness" you will know what to expect. For those that haven't be warned, this is a very, very disturbing look at the human condition and makes you wonder what you would do in this situation. Overall, more disturbing then anything. Not bad, but you must be ready for what you will see. I give it a B-.

Im not sure why some people here have given The Divide one star. One person even called it torture porn (Im not sure how many movies this reviewer has seen but I reckon he certainly doesn't know what the torture porn genre looks like). I cant say it was an "art" movie either which has been indicated (by some) for some reason. The Divide is an apocalyptic tale based on the aftermath of the destruction of NYC by nuclear attack and how a few survivors, sheltering in a basement of a building, slowly fall apart as their grim situation becomes apparent. As already stated, the acting is quite good for the most part, and as the movie develops some scenes will be a little unsettling for some but its all in the vein of the story. I enjoyed it immensely, all the more so for not hearing of the movie anywhere in the media. At the beginning it seemed as if it would just be another load of emotional drama loosely attached to the apocalyptic situation above (something which plagues TV series like The Walking Dead (just not enough zombies for me, and far too much chitty chat) but it soon became apparent that this was not the case. The Divide descends into a dark hell of humanities worse attributes and two characters in particular cause the viewer to cringe as they play out their terrible roles. All in all, The Divide was excellent, and any mockers here really should stick to movies polished and shined by the big Hollywood multiplex puppetmasters. This ones recommended by me.

After the first 20 minutes I would have given The Divide a 1/10. The characters are cliché and the dialogue is so cringeworthy that any self-respecting horror lover would quickly roll their eyes.

So I stopped the movie. I could've sworn I'd seen very good comments about the fil here on IMDb. I flipped open my laptop, re-read some of the reviews and sure enough, they were mostly positive.

Weird. Rarely a mention of the laughable acting and joke of a script. I decided to watch on.

It suddenly got better. The acting remained appalling but they introduced a sci-fi element that was kind of cool. The intensity ramped up and I became locked into the film. I watched it through to the end. All the way 'til the end of the credits. I was left with this very bad feeling. Very bad indeed. I guess it reminded me of being a scared kid. I'm not talking about my-brother-freaked-me-out-on-Halloween scared, I'm talking about I-saw-my-neighbour-drown-a-bunch-of-puppies-in-a-barrel scared.

Remember when you were seven years old? Did you ever see something you were much too young to see? Remember that feeling? Scared and a bit ashamed? Seeing something you're just not emotionally mature enough to handle? Remember how your heart raced?

Did you ever want to un-see something? I want to un-see The Divide.

One part of me wants to rate it a zero. But I'm a horror fan and it scared me, riveted me. How can I rate it less than a six? I would prefer I never saw the movie. So perhaps that makes it 'good', I'm not sure. It depends. I mean horror is supposed to freak you out. And it really has some original story elements. I suppose I respect it. Bottom line, it gave me nightmares. How can give a horror film that gave me nightmares less than a six?

Having said all that, every copy of this film should be incinerated and the ashes buried somewhere in the arctic tundra, away from people.

Some films require you to commit. Some demand a hefty price. For The Divide, it's a price that must be paid in advance and there are no refunds.