“…It’s almost painstakingly obvious that some form
of ‘inspiration’ was either drawn or copied from other sources and crudely
mashed together to form what can only be described as a Resident Evil: Extinction and Pitch
Black mashup that goes absolutely nowhere…”
It's evident that a horror film has failed its objective if you leave the viewing without shutting all the curtains once
darkness falls or feeling terrified of your own shadow. In the case of
Vanishing on 7th Street, this is very literally the case. The ideas behind it had tremendous
potential, but were stifled by the poor direction, nonsensical and
contradictory plot, and the horrific acting of our good friend
Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), whose character is Luke (irony!), a surviving news reporter.
The fear of
darkness – this is the basis of Vanishing on 7th Street – strange occurrences begin to
ensue in the city of Detroit, Michigan, as screams through a blackout is the
last sound before a stream of bodiless clothes hits the floor. Some strange
supernatural darkness and shadows, characterised by silly, generic sound
effects of screeching spirits, is taking the bodies of people. The ones lucky
enough to stand in natural sources of light survive. These survivors are our
protagonists and the focus of the film, as they battle to stay within light, as
night becomes longer and longer each day. The electricity of the entire town
has gone after an electromagnetic pulse surges through the city, presumably
caused by this supernatural darkness. Sounds interesting, right? As I said, it
had real potential, but major flaws restricted this film from ever reaching it.
This plot is
shoddily conveyed with its subtitle ‘stay in the light’, which
without explanation seems to contradict itself within the film numerous times – the
camera work and, I say loosely, ‘special effects’, suggest so many times that
it is all over, as the characters stumble over and somehow carelessly switch
off their flashlights while falling, every single time. The darkness closes in,
and as the scene changes, a bird’s eye view shows the shadows closing in. While
one of the other characters desperately toss them a light or they scramble for
their own (in what can only be described as a shoddy attempt to create
suspense), the time off-screen suggests that the darkness would have taken
them. This was not a one-off occurrence, and bothered me more than the moments
of sudden shrieking or enclosing darkness ever did. May I also mention that
this film was on a $10 million budget, and there is no excuse for missing such
crucial factors? Half that budget most likely went on getting Anakin on board.
Guess he really likes… the dark side!
(Oh that was super funny!)
It’s almost
painstakingly obvious that some form of ‘inspiration’ was either drawn or
copied from other sources and crudely mashed together to form what can only be
described as a Resident Evil: Extinction
and Pitch Black mashup that goes
absolutely nowhere. This portrayal of their desperation to flee the city
circulates around Luke, the main protagonist played by Hayden Christensen, as
he discovers (in a very unclear flashback) that Chicago may have other
‘survivors’…sounds like another apocalypse-based
film we know…
The
explanation for the strange occurrences never comes, and that’s okay, assuming you’re willing to accept that it’s a
supernatural occurrence (therein lies the potential). But what is so
frustrating is how an hour passess and all we see is Hayden Christensen perform
his trademark whining and yelling that he’s so well known for in Star Wars, which
leaves us with no strong, leading man to root for. The supporting cast plays a
mother who has lost her baby to the darkness, a boy who has lost his mother and
a man with concussion, slowly dying; they are all relatively talented actors and express
their emotions believably, but they are not our protagonists. Instead, they are
led by this bafoon who threatens to leave them all behind. This compares to our
beloved Riddick from Pitch Black, who not only threatens, but
tries to leave the weak behind. But
in his case, however, he is supposed
to be a douche-bag, who redeems himself with intelligence and his ‘badass’
qualities. Our protagonist Luke has no likeable assets that balance him out to
be a three-dimensional protagonist and is instead a whiny, unlikeable
brat.
The ending is either incredibly contradictory to physics, or attempted to pursue the supernatural theme, but failed on epic proportions (without
spoiling too much in case you are somewhat curious and want to watch this film). The boy whose mother
has been lost enters a church, after abandoning Luke in search of her. With no
hope left, he sits amongst candles as they extinguish one by one, and insists
that ‘he exists’ to repel the darkness from taking him. The scene changes;
morning has come, and he is still alive. It suggests the candle burnt the
entire night, which perhaps is referencing the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, which
celebrates the miracle of candles burning for seven nights rather than one. If
this is in fact the case, why is it set in a Catholic church with statues of
the Crucifix of Jesus and the Virgin Mary?
Perhaps it was attempting to create a metaphor for the fear of
darkness, however it’s entirely implausible that such a massive amount of people would
vanish, as surely some measure of bravery would rest in such a large population – it
seems far more based around the luck of those who managed to have light when
the surge occurred, and is maybe instead suggesting that the candle
burning for the whole night was lucky. This is highly unlikely, as the entrance
to the church (without spoiling too much) has a huge opening, and a draft of
wind would undoubtedly enter and blow the candle out. Hence the contradiction to the laws of physics.
There is a
vast range of other concerning elements that irk me, but having addressed the main issues this leads to the end of the
review. I sincerely hope that Vanishing
on 7th Street vanishes from our local film stores and
supermarkets before anyone else is engulfed by the crude darkness that is this
film's shittiness. Go and have a watch if you are truly curious; I personally
am not one for horror films, but on the occasion when I do watch them, I am very
rarely scared and so perhaps it’s my desensitised brain that is so critical of this
film; you may like it, or you may not. You've been warned.
Liz Burton (writer), Gareth Hughes (passive editor)
No comments:
Post a Comment