Throw John Carpenter, Clive Barker, and H.P. Lovecraft into
a blender, hit the button, leave the room for a while, and the resulting concoction
may well resemble The Void, the latest genre whoop-dee-doo
from Canadian filmmaking/maniac collective Astron-6. Don’t expect the camp of
Manborg, Astron-6 plays this relatively straight, but the same
deep love is there. More than most throwbacks, this legitimately feels like a
lost gem from 1983 someone dug out of the Salvation Army VHS bin thinking, “This
looks rad.”
Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. For every attempted
homage, there’s a dozen efforts that, while they ape the masters on a cursory
level, aren’t, you know, actually worth watching. But thankfully, writers/directors
Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski get what makes the movies they emulate so
awesome, and The Void is chock full bonkers genre mayhem.
We’ve got death cults, many-tentacled monsters, a confined
setting besieged by mysterious exterior forces, gore for days, kickass Rob
Bottin-inspired practical effects (so gooey), hazy motivations, a
barely-strung-together cosmic-influenced plot that only kind of makes sense,
and an ending that leaves viewers scratching their head, asking, “Huh,” but
also totally digging it.
If you watch a lot of horror movies, you know you never want
to set foot in any establishment that’s being shut down. Think of the near-abandoned
police station in Assault on Precinct 13. You’ve got a ton
of empty rooms, a skeleton crew, and no one to lean on for backup. Basically,
you’re on your own and completely screwed. This is the situation in which the
characters in The Void find themselves.
Small town sheriff Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole) picks up a
bloody man (Evan Stern) on the side of the road and takes him to the local
hospital, which is in the process of shuttering permanently. Staffed by his
estranged wife (Kathleen Munroe), a vapid nurse-in-training (Ellen Wong), and
grizzled town doctor (Kenneth Welsh), there’s also an old man (James
Millington), and his pregnant granddaughter (Grace Munro) in the waiting room.
Before long, Vincent (Daniel Fathers) and his mute sidekick, Simon (Mik
Byskov), show up with guns, trying to kill the drifter; an army of shadowy, silent,
sheet-clad cult weirdoes surround the building; and, oh yeah, monsters claw
their way out of corpses in the gooiest way possible. Then shit gets twisted.
Poole’s out-of-his-depth everyman is the perfect protagonist
for this scenario. He’s exacerbated, gets the holy hell kicked out of him, and
has no idea what’s going on. But with his harried, “Fuck it, I have to deal
with this” attitude, of course he has to go down the magically appearing mystery
stairway into who-knows-what level of subbasement hell. And every time he steps
into new drama, his “Oh god, what am I doing,” hesitation is palpable.
This is more for hardcore horror heads than general
audiences—fans of Turkish hell-dream Baskin take heed. Notes
of Hellraiser, The Thing, and Prince
of Darkness; ancient evils, crazy practical creature effects, flickering
lights, and exaggerated color palates; ominous clouds, claustrophobic
interiors, and dudes covered in white sheets lurking in the woods. Mixing it
all, The Void is tense and eerie, weird as all hell, and a
blast of schlocky 80s horror glee. The Void delivers
dramatic beats; manic, WTF monster madness; and enough gore to paint an entire
hospital red. [Grade: B+]
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