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The Blackout (2009)
Plot
It’s Christmas Eve in Los Angeles and
a series of power outages and minor earthquakes have been causing some mild
concern for residents. But that’s not putting off the tenants of the
Ravenwood apartment block who are celebrating Christmas. But when a group of
revelers is attacked inside their apartment by a mysterious creature, the
night takes a turn for the worst. It turns out that these creatures live in
the dark and drain energy from lights when they’re nearby. The residents
group together in an attempt to find a way out of the building.
Review
The Blackout starts off with
good intentions and has a decent post-apocalyptic feel to it but it’s just
let down by generic execution. Following the standard template of ‘people
trapped in a confined space with monster(s) loose’ to a tee, The Blackout
isn’t going to win any awards for originality. Frankly, with films like this
it’s simply become a case of how badly someone can mess up the formula or
whether they try and do anything different with it. Still, a slender eighty
minutes, the film never really outstays it's welcome.
The Blackout has some glaring problems, not least by having too many
characters in the film. Granted the field does get thinned out quite
regularly but still, there are too many similar-looking people hanging
around waiting to die. It’s easy to set apart the Peter Jackson look-alike
and the children but the rest of the characters are too non-descript to
distinguish. The script doesn’t focus on one of the characters and turn them
into the hero or heroine, instead giving more people stuff to do. Too much
time is spent in the opening thirty minutes giving almost everyone a back
story. It shouldn’t make much difference to the film’s narrative but when
some of (who we believe will become) the main characters are killed off
early on, it begs the question of whether that time would have been better
spent on characters who would have survived until the end. It also doesn’t
help matters that the acting is lousy overall, with no standouts at all.
However, despite the best efforts of the script to create issues, the film
is not without merit. There are some effective sequences of the creatures
attacking people in apartments and stairwells and the final ascent up the
elevator shaft provides a high level of suspense, even if the effects are
sub-par. The fact that no one really knows what is going on either adds to
the intrigue. Not only have these creatures appeared but strange rock
structures are bursting out of the ground as well. Coupled with the power
cuts, there is a higher story arc playing out behind the mayhem in this
apartment block and it’s an arc which makes everything seem more futile.
Unfortunately, despite the power cuts in the film, it’s still bright enough
almost everywhere in the apartment block that you get to see the creatures
in all of their splendor. Whilst I’m all for the use of practical effects
and guys-in-suits or animatronics, it’s clear that there’s a fine line
between having decent enough creatures to show off to the audience and
keeping any weaknesses hidden from them. These creatures are on screen a lot
and not only do they lose any menace that they would have had being confined
to the darkness, they also look pretty rubbish the more you see of them. You
get a good look at them way too early in the film as well which leaves
nothing left to your imagination for the rest of the running time. As per
usual for low budget releases, the creature bears an uncanny resemblance to
HR Giger’s classic creation from Alien. But the mixture of
live-action and CGI effects doesn’t really mesh together well enough. The
film doesn’t go into much detail regarding the creatures – no explanations
of what they are, where they came from, what they want, etc. Much like the
similarly-presented Feast, the emphasis is not so much on the what or
the why but the fact that they’re here and they’re dangerous. And dangerous
they are, slicing and stabbing everyone with their scorpion-like tails in
showers of blood, both real and CGI whenever the situation dictates. The
final shots of the film will either infuriate you with the nerve of the
writers to include such a daring conclusion or stun you with their boldness.
For me, the latter is definitely the case and I liked the doomed tone of
that last scene which improved the film dramatically. The adventure has not
finished for the survivors!
Verdict
The Blackout is paint-by-numbers monster movie making at
its most predictable. A few decent ideas are dwarfed by the rehash of a lot
of plagiarised ideas. Ambition seems to have been held back by budget or
unwillingness to experiment with the formula and that’s a pity. Probably
worth a watch for hardcore monster movie enthusiasts but for anyone else,
there are far better examples out there. |
