Director: Jack Peter Mundy
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After a devastating earthquake, a woman and her children try to escape a series of strange animal attacks in the area brought about by creatures released from an alternate dimension, forcing them to gang together with several other survivors to get through the situation alive.
Review:
This was a pretty solid if slightly disjointed genre effort. Among the better factors with this one comes from the rather strong and intriguing opening that offers up a fantastic hook to get the film going. The central idea of the earthquake striking and throwing the community into a panic before it’s revealed that a slew of monstrous creatures that have been released and go on a rampage against those caught up in the earthquake devastation, offers a fun way to get this going, introducing the characters and setting the stakes for what’s to come. The idea of the group coming together by chance as a means of survival makes this come off really well, with the whole thing getting them to the house and trying to make sense of what’s going on, getting several intriguing encounters along the way as their stupidity puts them in danger on several occasions. From believing themselves to be right in leaving to trying a risky escape into the woods, the action here is rather fun, which holds it up over its minor issues.
There are a few minor issues here that bring this down. The main issue with the film is the dearth of action scenes present here, since far too much of the running time is spent on the group arguing around the house about what’s going on. The creatures are shown emerging from the earthquake debris and being set loose on the community that comes together as a few short interstitials that instead focus on the group just arguing with each other, trying to find reasons to leave the safety of the group for their own reasons, or just not doing anything around the house. It drags the pacing down to go for such long stretches without the different interactions from the creatures around them. While there are a lot of intriguing aspects in the group trying to navigate through these elements at the house, it’s reliant on characters behaving irrationally or unintelligently to keep things going, and with the low-budget limitations also being present, these are all enough to lower this one overall.
Overview: ***/5
A likable if somewhat problematic creature feature, there are some likable factors to be had with this one that are fun enough to keep this one going, even with some drawbacks present that hold it down. Those with an appreciation for this style of genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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