Director: Xavier Gens
Year: 2018
Country: Spain/France
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Arriving at a remote island outpost, a lone seaman is sent to man a remote battery in the Antarctic wilderness with a rather cantankerous lighthouse keeper finds that the deformed creatures who live on the island are attacking the pair forcing them to defend their surroundings to survive.
Review:
Overall, this was an incredibly fun and enjoyable offering. One of the better elements featured within this one is the incredibly strong sense of isolation and abandonment felt throughout the film. The first half, where it gets to feature the whole reasoning for his stay there where all we see him accomplish is the seemingly endless round of fumbling with the equipment for his stay or reading old journals by himself really highlight the seeming abandonment of the locale. Coupled with the creepiness of the location, from the rocky beaches and never-ending sounds of the sea crashing onto the rocks around him, create such a fine suspenseful setting here that really sells the horror effectively.
Those horror scenes, which are brought up quite early on in the film, are rather fun and where the film scores it's best moments. From when he first encounters the strange creatures attempting to break into the shack soon after he arrives and spots the handiwork of their encounter as he spots the inhuman footprints in the sand afterward, that turns into the rather frantic and exciting shootout in the house where the creatures attempt to break in which causes a massive fire burning the house down during the night. The other big action scenes, featuring the creatures swarming in attack on the lighthouse which is shown to be a nightly occurrence as the series of montages showing them fortifying the location to battle swarms of creatures spilling out of the darkness and overrunning the structure only to be driven away by the morning light. The finale, with the final battle between them at the lighthouse filled with all sorts of traps and rather fun tactics they utilize to keep them at bay with their plan which has a lot to like about it and ends this on a nice high note.
As this is virtually a two-person show, the two leads are rather fun to watch. Ray Stevenson as the rough Gruner makes for quite a rather intriguing character. Obviously taking the solitude to heart and embracing the opportunities afforded him by the position and his relationship with the creatures, his world-weary and gruff yet humanistic sides are wrapped together solidly into a great character. This is a great role and the arc he goes on serves this well into making us care for him over time. David Oakes as the meek, unnamed Friend isn't as obvious about his character but stands out just the same. Initially every bit of the closed-off, out-of-his-element bookstore who's overwhelmed by the world around him, the changeover into a more hardened yet reasonable man-of-action over the course of the film comes off as cliche but works for a reason. The rest of the few characters we get here are fine enough but not enough to be worth mentioning like the others.
While these here are incredibly fun, there are a few problems here. The most egregious issue is the unbelievably jarring and disjointed pacing that creates rather weird placings for each of the setups in the film. The first encounter with the creatures occurs not twenty minutes into the film and results in nearly burning the house down which is before we know anything at all about the creatures or anything which is a surprising feature that should come at a point where it heightens the tension of the creatures' attacks. There's no real rational sense for tat since it's way too early in the film to know what's going on and that type of attack would've been more useful had it been to emphasize a point more than anything. As well, we don't really learn much about them anyway, leaving the entire sense of organization or anything about what they're like so they're a complete mystery. Otherwise, there's not much else to dislike here.
Overview: ****/5
While this has a lot to really like, it does contain a few small features that end up holding it back in the end which do make a small dent but not nearly enough to overcome those more prominent aspects. Give this a shot if you're into these adventurous horror features or love discovering gem low-budget hidden indie gems while those who can't overcome their positives should heed caution with this one.
This ran as part of our coverage of the Fantasia Festival 2018 series of reviews.
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