Reviews

The makers of this film had difficulties during its production. David Carradine's death from "accidental asphyxiation" in Thailand, during the making of this movie, and money difficulties, meant that this movie could have been better than it was. So when I discovered this, I feel a bit sorry for it! But I still found it absorbing viewing - much better than a lot of movies.

This movie is very convoluted, and yet, for all of the flashbacks and flash-forwards, it wasn't very COMPLEX. I was reminded, somewhat, of "National Velvet" - if a weirder, homespun, hometown struggling rural family-values version than the early sixties B&W TV series, but still "National Velvet"!

I couldn't be sure whether to give it a 4/10 or a 5/10 - and when I checked the IMDb ratings stats, what do you know!: I found it had a "weighted average" of 4.5! So there you are - I suppose that's how a lot of other people feel about it, too!

What really irritated me, much, much, more than the constant flash-forwards, and flash-backs - the movie is set in the town of "Perseverence" in three different time periods and alternates between three time-periods throughout - was the failure of the protagonists to do something that I could clearly see was a LOGICAL thing to do - to kill "The Saw Man", the demon with the sharp teeth, or destroy "The Hat": At one point there was, for example, the perfect opportunity to run the Hat over with a car, and then an even BETTER opportunity to run down the demon AND to flatten The Hat - at the same time. But I suppose the girl at the wheel of the car took pity on the demon, and just couldn't find it in her heart to do it! i.e. "National Velvet Time"!!!

There were so many missed opportunities - and isn't that what we REALLY hate in a horror movie, those dumb people who don't think of doing something like jumping up and down on a hat and FLATTENING the curs'ed thing, for example??? (I think, maybe so!?) ... At least to TRY to do it, and see what happens?!!!

I thought the special effects at the end were very good - and I liked the ending! And the ending, at least, is logical!

In consideration of a possible deeper meaning to the film, I did think the way in which The Hat was carried reverentially, at heart-height, as a symbol of community-authority, was a serious commentary upon the way in which social "authority" is seen as divorced from human beings, and a powerful metaphor for the way in which people will commit any manner of evil whatsoever when a so-called "AUTHORITY" of some kind to commit those acts of evil removes, in THEIR eyes, their own responsibility for those act of evil that THEY - without ANY ambiguity ARE committing! And in this film, these people all KNOW they are doing harm to others; and, as in this movie, they club together in Churches and behave, as though they are the victims, self-righteously in doing so; and, as in this movie they invoke God and will sacrifice anything, including their own children, "for the survival of this family" - for God, the family, and the community! After a little way into the movie, I just kept wondering, why don't they just put a gun to their heads? Wouldn't it be easier than having the perennial fear of dying in horror and torment and agony, and rather than, apparently, having to kill their children in horrifying ways? And aren't there more HUMANE ways to kill them?! These are all HOLES in the story, from what I could see, and these numerous unexplored, seemingly logical inconsistencies, irritated me greatly.

But still, somewhat profoundly, this movie is about patriarchal society, people owning their children and abusing them, and it is about small communities that hide and cover-up their crimes, which they commit in the sight of their God. It's American Gothic - and this movie, if nothing else, wants to indict these people, to hold them responsible for all the evil they have done, and all the evil they do, and, in the end, to PUNISH them! And that is what happens to them in this movie - not in real life, but at least in this movie!

I enjoyed this movie and I feel compelled to counter what I feel are exaggerated and unfair criticisms of this movie.

I just do not understand how some people can say this movie deserves a 1/10 or even zero - this is utterly ridiculous! And even low scores like a 4/10! Have these people EVER seen a bad movie before?! What kind of grading system, in some people's minds, puts this movie at, or near the bottom of, and WORST of, all movies!

1. ADMITTING THE BAD:

Due to the lack of complexity and depth to the story, this film, ultimately, by the end of the movie, DOES FAIL to uplift intellectually, and to open one's mind to new and original ideas. It also FAILS to challenge deeply held sterile social beliefs, or to provide any new insights into the nature of reality, or to entertain the imagination with never-before thought of possibilities, or to take the viewer deep down into the depths of mystery! ... The story, unfortunately, is fairly hum-drum by science-fiction standards, and I was irritated by the employment of the central plot-device, in a science-fiction movie, no less, of yet ANOTHER testosterone-driven, bullying, ego-maniacal, dangerous, power-and-greed driven, unreflective male protagonist who screws things up for everyone around him.

Surely, between the stars, there is more happening than what is happening here on Earth, and what can be seen in any mundane drama set in any dysfunctional, patriarchal, family-values household! And, also, I have to agree with so many other reviewers, who couldn't stand all the sex and nudity in space. Sex, nudity, dumb male-violence, testosterone - this is not what I want to see in a science fiction (or any other movie) - I want to be mentally-challenged and to see that which I have never imagined, and to be AMAZED! Unfortunately, story-wise and plot-wise, this movie did not do that for me!

2. THE GOOD:

SPECIAL EFFECTS: - This movie has EXCELLENT special effects, and the feel of the movie - the decor, the ship, the moon, the blue dwarf star (from which the title "Supernova" is derived) are beautiful, astral-coloured, far out, and evoke a highly desirable escape-to-the-stars-and-to-freedom visual and psychic experience, that no mundane drama would even attempt - and that is the beauty, and soul's delights, that science fiction offers! So from the very first scenes, based upon the atmosphere of the film, my strong inclination was to give this movie 10 stars!

One thing that DID move me beyond anything I have ever seen before in any movie, that was, indeed, complex in terms of plot, imaginative, original, and beautifully enacted by both the actress and actor involved, was the so, soo sad and tragic scene in which the computer, "Sweetie" (played by Vanessa Marshall) which has been given human characteristics by Benj (played by Wilson Cruz), refuses to break her programming, and as a consequence sees her programmer, who has, in reality, become her friend, die violently, whenupon, now just-become self-aware, she is now only too acutely aware that she has lost her only friend whom she has come to love, forever. That interaction was sublimely beautiful! And for that reason, by reason of that so well-developed, and complex yet innocent relationship; a poetic-interplay of exceptionally well-performed theatre that explores EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM and LOVE LOST, and despite all of the movie's failures to deliver much depth of meaning, I still had to give this movie 8/10 ...(sob!).

I also liked the mystery of the "nine-dimensional matter" device, and I think the mystery and unpredictability of such beyond-imagination, and yet still-scientific language, and such simple "magical" devices, is a good idea, since it means so much has to take place in the imagination - and the imagination is a whole nest of inter-dimensional portals in itself! Though such devices may resemble each other superficially, there is no way to know what their properties are - and that is why they are always so mysterious, so long as their secrets are not fully known or defined, nor properly understood. Likewise, the device of inter-dimensional travel - which was shown from the very beginning to be unpredictable, mysterious and dangerous!

*****MAY CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS****

A boy and his father have a difficult relationship and they live together in a small flat in a big high-rise block of ugly, apartments for unliked people, that is alienating and depersonalising. Wasn't there a movement to get rid of these high-rises about forty or fifty years ago? Has society regressed in THIS way ALSO, since Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" came out in 1971?!

So, anyway, it is all so sad and depressing. The unlikable teenage boy's younger brother has disappeared while playing in one of the concrete playgrounds attached to these apartments, and there is so much unresolved grief accompanied by unexplained and suspicious circumstances that it is depressing to everyone around them, as well as to themselves, and is associated with anger and violent emotional responses everywhere. And on top of the inhuman architectural depravity there is an overbearing atmosphere of threats of being further degraded by the mental health system, which seems to have goody-goody government and church-employed community-vampires preying on these people - who are being kept like sardines in a human warehouse 24 hours a day - popping in to see if "everything's alright?"; "Are you alright?" being the constantly repeated question in this environment - people nervously checking on each other all the time.

Throughout this movie there is a prevailing and constant fear - or paranoia - being expressed, of experiences that are outside of "normal" human experience, so when the boy begins hearing and seeing things that aren't there (from other people's perspectives), he is just one step away from being turned-in, abducted, and kept kidnapped indefinitely, by the local mental hospital. To add to this tension, which gets so bad that his best friend calls him a "psycho" and kicks him out of his flat in paranoid-terror when he turns to him to talk about his psychic experiences, unable to communicate with his father, there is also a widespread adoption of a culture of patriarchal suppression of selfhood, so that everywhere there are people releasing and expressing their personal hangups in violent and difficult emotional outbursts.

***POSSIBLE, BUT VERY CRYPTIC SPOILER IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH****

I do think this film has something important to say about society's ills being obviously and intentionally inflicted from above due to unadmitted-to pressures and society's self-censorship. There is also a parallel Christian patriarchal religious dimension - you will see if you watch this movie - in which Christianity (like the mental-health system employees) pretends to be the saviour of the soul, while, in reality, being the disease that it claims to cure and the imprisoner of the soul ... I think the symbolism in this film is talking about evil, per se, and the preying Anglican Church counsellor's use of the fiery inversion of the Christian cross as a symbol of pure evil in the film is an IRONIC inversion, just as is the mental health system claiming to be the saviour of the people that THEY prey upon and whom THEY mentally torture - as human-cargo in THEIR concrete prisons.

Into this dismal and claustrophobic setting comes the need for resolution and understanding of what is happening around and to the protagonist; a psychic need for truth and meaning, and a search for a reason, perhaps the identity of a killer or killers; and a need to know the fate of a missing sibling.

As social-commentary I do applaud the making of this movie, for its EDUCATIVE value. But it is painful to witness the constant false-angst, this pot, boiling with emotional pain, and the personal hangups that these people maintain through lack of honesty with their own inner-thoughts and their true-identities - the protagonist, himself, is no more than a crippled cardboard cut-out, not a true human being at all! The music in this movie only makes it worse - oh, pull the heartstrings! Why use this awful, crappy and oh, so patronising music?! What are you inflicting it upon us for?! Two other examples I can easily and convincingly suggest, from Britain, are the movie "Flood"(2008) and the new "Doctor Who" (from 2005), and just about every drama, especially made for Australian television (Federal Government-required ocker-brainwashing) made in Australia, such as the recent movie "Sanctum"(2011), which appears to be struggling in torment and agony with issues of paedophilia.

But social-commentary alone does not make good entertaining horror-movies, I am sorry. And to make it worse, this movie is blatantly copying the brilliantly original "The Sixth Sense" (1999) - but in a deprived, violent setting, where boys are committed to the pointless, banal, stupid, destructive, malicious and unreasonable obsession and self-deception of proving their manhood, to the mutually assured mental and psychic destruction of every human being in the neighbourhood. So it is both visually and conceptually unappealing, AND repelling, AND, to top it off, derivative. And I found that to be a bad flaw with the ending, which seems to compete with "The Sixth Sense", but, unlike "The Sixth Sense" does not leave you, the audience, with a chilling realization - the ending is more like a one-line twist, a throw-away line that is only MILDLY surprising, and no shock, as it is presumably intended to be, at all.

This is a film about The End of The World.

But the end of the world happens on more than one level of reality!

This movie has been described as "science fiction", which was all that was needed to attract my attention.

But this has to be one of the most low-tech "science-fiction" films I have ever seen in my life!

Is it possible that people in Italy still don't have colour televisions? I don't think, so, somehow! So what is this movie REALLY about?

This movie is loaded with symbolism!

From my viewpoint the symbolism in this movie focused upon the Papal Coronation or High Mass on Black & White television sets, white paint, a white cat, and a cement factory (cement is also WHITE!) ...get it?!

This is a movie about demons (literally, the character "Soro", a paedophile/child-murderer "does she have a boyfriend?", he asks of a 15 year old girl, and he winks at the children, trying to gain access to their house at the front door. He has already killed 7 children, would have killed Alé, making it 8, if could have, and, coincidentally, he's out of prison after 20 years, and now he's out to get "revenge"!

This is a movie about confronting a demon at the End of the World! It is a metaphor for the pointlessness of existence and the impossibility of individual freedom under the yoke and tyranny of Roman Catholicism: Even at the end of the world, when you would think all that mattered would be pursuing the smallest possibility of survival or else reconciling oneself to one's fate - "certain" death via collision with the Earth with a meteor "FIVE times the size" of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs ("Pentagrama Films", by the way - if you don't believe this is a movie that exposes the Catholic Church!) , the human and sincere protagonist, Alé, is bogged down, in Kafkaesque fashion, unable to act freely, as though being set into concrete against his will by a demon who approaches him, will not leave, attracts his attention, occupies his field of view, threatens him so that he must be on his guard against him, makes him appear to be disturbed and unfriendly, and then, finally, besets him, kills and kidnaps children he is impelled to protect from Soros, and struggles with him in a pointless, meaningless, conflict in which only one of them can survive and so live, (EITHER good OR evil) until the end.

Then, finally, his victory over the demon is a Pyrrhic victory - at the end he has only reconciliation with himself, only the return of what he had lost: He has gained absolutely nothing ... and then it is all over (again)!

The white cat = The Pope ... (and the 'Cat-alike' Church!) - a demon focused upon the male principle, and dressed in the colour of it: White ... and the light, above, and from that focus upon white and light come conceptual-'concrete' from the "concrete factory" - "it traps you!" - sterility, order, perversion, control, law, censorship, prevention of freedom or desire to act, bureaucratic stifling of free-volition, legal restriction upon freedom to even exist, mania and madness - all assented to in the hope of gaining protection from, and power over, demons - the demons that ARE the Pope and Roman Catholicism, the demons that claim to be paternal protectors! The Vatican is the Devil and his demons in fancy dress - and this movie is a morality play about them, about good vs. evil, and how demons have made evil appear, in masquerade and with film-flam propaganda, to be good! "Why did you tell them a pack of lies?" demands Alé, the protagonist, of his mother ("mother church"?) when she lies and completely deceives all the children: Censorship and lies!

The TRUTH, revealed in this film, is that natural and supernatural reality are the REVERSE of what the status quo proclaims they are: "No crucifixes!" says Alé at his mother's newly prepared grave, after she has died in fright after seeing a vision of Alé, as a child, hanging from the tree above, and so in shock, or fear of the demon, Soros. And then Alé and the children bury her in the open field: "No prayers!", he says!

I hope I have convinced you, that this film is beyond its physical-plane science-fiction theme, in that it involves almost-surreal imagery and existential meaningfulness, and is in addition to, and interwoven with, it's enigmatic, powerful and macrocosmic science-fiction theme, a metaphysical film about the final supernatural struggle betwixt good and evil ... at The End of The World! And the demon, Soros is, I think, logically, in this film - and beyond it - the Pope, The Devil!

I could easily review this film if I were to include spoilers - but in avoiding giving anything away there is so little I can say that I would like to say - this movie is shrouded in MYSTERY!

"Beneath The Dark" takes place at a desert motel ... a young man (Paul) and a young woman (Adrienne) who must rest, and so cannot continue their journey. So they stop at a motel that seems to welcome them. But there is something very strange about this place - watch closely, at the beginning of the film and you will see the Motel concierge, Frank, slipping a typed-note on an A4 sheet of paper into a "Gideon's Bible" and replacing it in the top drawer of a bedside chest of drawers in the room in which Paul and Adrienne are doomed to stay - "The Orchid Room". Now surely, that could not possibly be construed as a spoiler - yet I have to be so careful not to give anything away!

This is the mysterious rest-stop between two worlds that you have seen in so many episodes of "The Twilight Zone" ... but where in "The Twilight Zone" the story must be told in a brief introduction, two 11-minute acts, and s final short climax or dénouement, this story takes place over one and a half hours without ads. Apart from that, it is pretty much what you have been seeing on "The Twilight Zone" since 1959, and that is a compliment! (When television was influenced and employed theatre, when television was respectable and cared about the human condition!)

Without giving anything away, literally, I can say I would have given this movie more, but the concept that "law" is "truth" is a devilish lie, so I can only give it a 6 ... and if IMDb's rules would allow it, I would have given it a 6.66! What about the unparalleled intervention and interference in human affairs that is going on according to so-called "rules" and "laws" by those who put themselves in positions of so-called "authority" over us, make rules to force us to bend and submit to, and who corruptly judge us accordingly? What of the unimaginable enormity of the harm THEY do?! Perhaps that note in "The Gideon's Bible" should not have been inserted at "LEVITICUS", but at the place where it says: "Judge not and you shall not be judged!" Even wisdom turns to evil and maggots, when it is made into law as a subterfuge to rule over us from ABOVE and to deprive us of our universal, inalienable, un-God-given FREEDOM (which comes from BELOW)!!!

Turn down the lights, relax, and enjoy this film, but remember to temper the message at the end of this movie with a slice of raspberry pie! For ... you about to enter ... THE TWILIGHT ZONE!!!

An improvement on "Zombi 3" despite puzzling defects, "Zombi 4: After Death" is a good yarn. It has a labyrinth, fog, zombies, a voodoo priest, mad scientists, a doorway to hell, a woman transformed into a creature from hell, mercenaries and incantations - all in one movie! Now, that's not too bad!

After seeing "Zombi 3" I was actually very impressed with "Zombi 4: After Death". (You can read my review of "Zombi 3".) I regard "Zombi 3" as painfully bad - despite my being a fan of zombie movies. It, too, was set in the Philippines - but in what unintentionally seemed to be a jungle war movie.

On the other hand "Zombi 4: After Death" lacked the realism of "Zombi 2", which was also set on an island where medical research into a virus that resurrected the dead was conducted. While there were only two scientists in "Zombi 2", the medical building in "Zombi 4" appeared to be very similar to the "hospital" in Lucio Fulci's "Zombi 2". The voodoo priest in this movie also resembled the superstitious islanders in "Zombi 2". These plot similarities were confusing factors to someone who had seen the earlier movies. It seemed that the director had not decided whether this was to be a sequel or not ... but that it didn't really matter to him anyway ... a surprisingly half-baked approach. (As someone who would find directing zombie movies to be the best job in the world, and who would aspire to make art of them, I find that attitude incomprehensible! What a waste!)

The dead are catching us up! "Zombi 2" had traditional slow-moving,non-speaking zombies. "Zombi 3" had the first talking zombie, and both athletic and lethargic zombies. But this movie has Olympic-standard running zombies, conversational, philosophical, argumentative, and even tricky, vindictive ("told you to look out for me", "told you to shoot me")zombies and even zombies who know how to use AK-47 automatic rifles. (Where will it end up?)

So, although most of the zombies are just basic black-ninja zombies, there are quite a number of more versatile and personable zombies. And their acting is pretty good too - it wasn't at all ridiculous.

Apart from the perplexing similarity to "Zombi 2" there were other serious inconsistencies and continuity problems.

SPOILERS->>>SPOILERS->>>>SPOILERS->>>>

One serious inconsistency was when Jenny and the last surviving male are fighting off hordes of zombies by hand, having no weapons left and being the last two people alive. How did they survive? One moment it was night-time and I was empathetically fighting off the zombie hordes with them in the darkness, sure that they were finished, and the next moment we had been teleported onto a peaceful sunny beach with coconut trees. That had to be one of the greatest cliffhanger escapes of all time!

Another was: How did Jenny as a very young child on a cursed zombie-infested island escape the curse and the zombies and leave the island? She did not remember - but that device does not explain the fact that she succeeded. Another reviewer suggested her travel agent! That has to be the most mysterious escape in movie history! No wonder the zombies and all hell were out to get her when she returned twenty years later! ... They must have been agonizing for many years at how a helpless little girl eluded the curse and escaped from the hell-creature and zombie-infested island when everyone else, including her parents, were torn to shreds!

And what about the guy who blew himself and the zombies up with a hand grenade that he retrieved from their arsenal of weapons? If I had happened to have hand grenades handy when the survivors were facing the zombies outside the house in the dark I would have been using them then. So when he managed to drag himself over to their weapons cache and grasp the hand grenade that was sitting right on top of it, and which he seemed to know was there, and then used it to blow up himself and the house - that surprised me!

But the worst problem was at the ending, because I had to keep re-playing that scene and it doesn't make sense. What is the point of sacrificing one's soul to close the gate to hell? It didn't stop the zombies anyway. And they were only after Jenny, supposedly, because she had eluded the curse before. And wouldn't death have been a preferable fate to sacrificing her soul? It didn't seem to be an advantage - if she was spewing up green stuff in the last moments of the movie then she wasn't of this world anymore. So what was the point? Just some nice gore and horror at the end? Surely the ending should mean something!? That was a let-down... like the director had suddenly and inexplicably turned into a mindless idiot? What caused THAT transformation?

But despite the flaws it was an appealing movie. There were lots of frights and there was horror. Apart from the pathetic acting in the beginning, the more naturalistic characters were easier to identify with than in the preceding two "Zombi" movies. I also enjoyed the corny horror with the lurid colours and the horrifying hell-creature make-up and acting.

The corny cheesy beginning of the picture was enjoyable and straight away I knew what kind of movie this was going to be: A serious, lush and vibrant horror movie which showed a willingness to experiment - even at the risk of possibly appearing foolish. (If you are a director who is not prepared to put your name to a horror movie then you can afford to take such risks.) ... And the old fashioned (yet funky) tale of misadventure in the forests of horror-island: These are the things that I enjoyed about this movie.