This was the last film of day 2 for Nightmares Film Festival. There was buzz around this as it is marketed as the first, side-scroller horror film. Think like they do for video games. Plus, this new one from writer/director/star of the film, Jason Trost, who is a celebrity at the festival. I did get to see this for its World premiere as well.
Synopsis: a special agent is dispatched to investigate a distress call from a round-the-world-cruise, only to find the ship eerily abandoned and haunted by a malevolent force that twists sanity into terror.
We start this on the cruise ship before things go bad. A man walks along the deck as he orders his last drink for the night. He goes out to get fresh air and something weird happens with the stars. They glow brighter. An unknown entity then attacks the passengers.
This then shifts over to a boat where Agent Legrasse (Trost) is filled in on the mission. They have two plans here to figure out what happened. I believe he also needs to recover an item from the ship. It is on board that he meets Francis (Tallay Wickham), who looks oddly like someone from Legrasse's past. We also get what seem like flashbacks to him talking to a therapist, Dr. Birkin (Ryan Gibson). Not everything is as it seems though and what is on this ship is more terrifying beyond human belief.
Now that is where I'm going to leave my recap and introduction to the characters. There isn't much to the story than what I've given there. I didn't want to spoil things as this is visually something to see. This also runs 70 minutes and being that it is using elements from video games, there are intentional filler aspects like you'd get in that medium as well.
With that set up, I did have fun with this film. We had a good set up and then at the Q&A, that was something by design. If you are playing a video game like this, they go left to right. When Agent Legrasse gets on the ship, that is how it goes. For the set up though, we are going the opposite way. That is a good touch. I'll just then delve into filmmaking here. I'm not the biggest fan of green screen and that is how the filmmakers bring this to life. There is charm there since this doesn't have the biggest budget. This relies on CGI which does look better than what I've seen in other places. I still want to give credit for it. Something to also include, this was filmed in black and white. That does hide things and adds an interesting charm to it as well.
Since I'm not going to spoil it, I'll tread lightly here. What made this work for me is that this goes into a subgenre I'm a big fan of. I'll just say that this goes into the cosmic horror realms. Our filmmakers said they were influenced by things like Resident Evil and Silent Hill 2. There is also a cult here. Another element that I picked up on would be H. P. Lovecraft's stories, The Call of Cthulhu and maybe even Dagon.
I'll then go over to the acting. Since this is more about the visuals than the characters, I'm not going to harp. Trost has a good look to be our hero. I do like this is mostly told from his perspective so we only know what he does. He is a tortured hero, having lost the love of his life. He does see a woman who looks like her and I like Wickham as that co-star. Other than that, I thought Aina Dumlao, Nick Principe, Bru Muller and the rest of the cast were solid for what was needed. Also, credit to Gibson as the therapist who tried to help Legrasse.
There isn't more that I wanted to delve into so in conclusion, I'll say that this is a fun film. I give them credit for the novelty of turning a side scroller video game into a movie. That allows them to focus less on making too much story and more on the visuals. They were able to capture those with the help of green screen and CGI. The actors fit the roles that they needed. This isn't one to dissect, but more to catch the references and go along for the ride. If you're a fan of this director, then I think you'll enjoy this one as well. It isn't as fun as his FP films but made in a similar vein.
My Rating: 6 out of 10.
