Discovering themselves in a strange version of purgatory, a small group of people work to extrapolate and unlock the meaning of their surroundings in this spiritually themed soul-searching drama which begins with admittedly an interesting presentation, but soon ultimately becomes a rather boring affair.
This is kind of a survival horror except no one ever survived and it’s not a survival horror. Instead, the show is about souls – lost ones, that didn’t really make it anywhere in life, and seemingly couldn’t cut the mustard to actually make something of themselves in the afterlife either.
There’s a lot about this intriguing idea which is potentially appealing and sadly all the elements it discusses are only touched upon in a very superficial way. The mystical and supernatural realms explored are mostly boil down to special effects or theatrical showdowns. It’s hardly a unique or groundbreaking concept either – not too dissimilar from an atrocious flick called Collapse reviewed in the beginnings of this project.
Though the graphics are doable, what grinds the whole view down is the terrible relationship between the camera and the characters. The amateurish performances are bad enough (and not helped by such an overblown script), and then comes along the sloppy editing and consistently shaky camera. Did the company really have to choose an active earthquake fault to film the production?
Another difficult pill to swallow is the dull and drab lighting which permeates every scene. There’s something here which is missing – to a non-professional as myself, all it can be described is an incompetence of establishing meaningful contrast. This setup would have been good for perhaps a relatively brief flashback maybe, being used against a foreground of excitable acting and rapid-pace cutting was most curious.
Finally, the insistence of having stupid twists at the end has to stop. C’mon, they’re so goddamn obvious! Again, there’s some surprisingly exploitable science fiction ideas here which could certainly be expanded and built upon to build for a more worthwhile watch instead of the use of these pretentious overdramatics.
3/10
Possession Media 