The Hive

I will admit upfront, this film left a really horrible taste in my mouth.

So much so that it even soured my feelings towards Nerdist and Chris Hardwick.

I know his M.O. is to be very positive about everything, and upbeat. But this movie just wasn't good.

If you are giving it a HUGE pass because it is low-budget, maybe you could forgive it some of its mistakes.

I was ready to walk out after 10 minutes because of a sound design element that was quite literally painful. From Bravest Warriors: "It's like making Oatmeal cry..." Catbug:"Why would you do that?" Why would you hurt your audience? That is lazy filmmaking.

All of the characters were unlikeable bullies. I rooted for no one and wanted them all to die.

The visual design was for stylistic purposes and actually violated filmic grammar in ways I just could not forgive.

Blacklight? Why? Totally non-diegetic, which is fine, but could not forgive it especially compared to other issues.

Oh, let me do First Person POV shots as Over-The-Shoulder shots, SOMETIMES. Why? I'm confused.

Let me have blinking lights/strobe effect FOR NO REASON, other than to make the shot painful to look at. Thanks.

The love story didn't really work for me either. There was ONE SCENE where it was almost poignant (the one with the strobe lights), but I didn't even want to watch it because the cinematography was so annoying.

Nor did I find the gore effects particularly interesting either.

I didn't like the movie. I didn't enjoy watching it. I didn't like the score (which was also a major selling point of the film).

It was all over the place. And there there was weird unnecessarily sexualized slut-shaming/emasculation dialogue that I also did not like at all.

The whole big social networking allegory was also not very strong or sold well in the movie itself. You get that more from reading critique on it than what you can actually see in the film text itself.

Maybe I am too old.

I love genre movies. I love the surprise little indies.

But I was sitting in my seat fuming, just waiting for it to end. I felt lied to by the Nerdist stamp of approval.

To me it is totally skippable. Unless you are OK with starting a movie that it is OK to shut off before you finish.

Deserves recognition for bringing a different angle to the vampire/zombie/horror genre's well-worn formula, although on reflection very little really happens and a lot is left unexplained. The young leads do well.

The Hive Directed by David Yarovesky. Written by David Yarovesky and Will Honley

Sometimes Fathom events will have a one night only screening of some independent movie usually of the horror variety. These movies have fascinated me every time I see them. I wonder how they get picked. What makes Primal Rage, The Hive and The Final Wish eligible for inclusion? Fathom events are usually special events and therefore cost more than an average movie. Very few people would take a chance like that. So naturally my curiosity is piqued.

So what makes The Hive, a little low budget movie about a virus that turns people into mindless black tar spewing monsters infecting a summer camp, eligible for inclusion for the Fathom events? I think it being produced by Nerdist might have something to do with it. They haven't produced a movie before or haven't produced a movie since. It is an interesting idea for a horror movie. A virus that forces people in the grisly way possible to be connected all at once. They can see what the others see, they can feel what they feel and you find out exactly how they use that and you can recall memories from the others infected. Visually this movie is like a Jackson Pollock painting riddled with caffeine pills on an empty stomach. It uses black light to a good effect. It uses the black blood and the gnarly veins to good effect. The color scheme to the movie makes it stand out among other low budget horror movies. It looks visually stunning. It doesn't look cheap. That's the big difference between something like this and Scream Park. Scream Park was not able to utlitize what it had to make things more cinematic. The Hive is able to do that.

The effects as mentioned are terrific. It's gruesome but unappealing. The color scheme works well with making things stand out and capture your attention. I was on board with the hive mind lunacy. The thing I felt lacked and brought this movie down some was the relationship between the protagonist and his best friend and love interest. I'm sure they have names but I can't remember them. The hero is a womanizing douchebag bedding down as many of the girls in camp as he possibly can. He tries these very same tricks with Jessie(I think that is her name but honestly I have no clue). She shuts him down because she knows all about the way he operates. He tries to profess his love. She is having none of this. We now have our character arc. Of course his best friend has feelings for a girl who his friend beds. He takes this personally. We have this soap opera bit going on amongst the disease and grue. It doesn't work. The music is telling me that it should work but it simply doesn't.

This is not a bad film. It is enjoyable and I dug what it was trying to do. It is not scary. It tries to be with its jump scares. It is visually insane and it makes up for its low budget with its camera work and great make up work. I give this movie a B.

I will say that I enjoyed this movie. Now I know there were some things in the movie I didn't believe completely meshed well and some scenes weren't explained well enough for me but overall I think they did a really good job.

Went in this movie thinking that it could be a host of many clichéd themes and I should be prepared to drop it at the half way mark in the movie. After the 30 minute mark I can say that the movie had me at a point where I needed to watch it till the end. Now the ending was not as exciting as I hoped for but at least it gave me some type of finality.

Now I know my review wasn't very descriptive on the storyline or the characters but I will say this, try to avoid any reviews that give anything away. The movie is much better when you have no clue on what's going on from the very beginning.

Not much of horror as I had hoped. It is heavy on drama but it was quite interesting how the story was developed. There was a sort of filter on the film too, giving it a video game feel.