Movies
[BD Review] The Collapsed
Reviewed by Mike Ferraro
It is the end of the world, yet again, and a family must escape their city life and break for the country. Clearly this is a storyline that will never stop in the world of cinema, so shall we not just embrace it as an audience? Unfortunately for us, this film does indeed tackle many themes and scenarios as many other stories have. Only it doesn’t accomplish the missions of being fresh or compelling as much as the filmmakers would have hoped.
The Collapsed follows the Weaver family as they try their best to survive an apocalypse of unknown origin. They do their best to avoid other survivors, who have since turned into thieves, rapists, and cannibals. After a run-in at an abandoned gas station, the four of them head to the forest for shelter, and it is about here when all is not as it seems.
Writer and director Justin McConnell seems to interesting on finally getting to the inevitable twist at the end, that he leaves out some key cathartic moments. As the family starts dwindling down in numbers, the surviving group is given not a moment to really care about their lost love ones.
It really takes you out of the picture when you become frustrated at the lack of emotion from anyone. When you come back from a journey, expected two of your family members to be waiting for you safe and sound, but you show up and their dead, you half expect to feel something. These characters just whisk it off like another day in the office. Could they simply be used to all this death? Probably, but it has to hit you when it is so close to home.
Could the acting work by the principle cast be to blame here? Some of these performances aren’t very convincing, and perhaps this is why there seems to be no emotional response to such a horrific event. But you never really get a sense that this was part of the screenplay in the first place.
Despite many of the film’s shortcomings, Anchor Bay spared no expense towards extra features. The DVD includes two commentary tracks (director and producer, and actor), a music video for Rob Kleiner’s Devil in Disguise, and some weblinks to unlock even more content (like a soundtrack download and a making-of feature).
It would be nice to have given such attention to a film worth sitting through again.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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