MOVIE REVIEW – Sometimes the movie world blesses us with a year or two where horror movies have a good quality to them. While Life was recently was a failure in my eyes to appease the horror fan inside me, a brand new movie trailer lit up, and peaked my interest. The imagery of The Void looked like a combination of the recent Netflix hit Stranger Things and lots of gore mixed with this 80s horror referential movie. While I was not going in with any expectations (especially after Life), it was interesting to see how a low-budget horror flick can still bring a few heavy punches to 2017s horror movies.

The journey to The Void starts out a bit too cliché, but after another minute or two after the initial ten minutes, the ride begins to switch into high gear.

The sunken hospital

The local sheriff named Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole) while out on a night patrol on a lonely road, but his peaceful night is soon disturbed by James (Evan Stern), a man who is crawling for survival after a brief confrontation with two men. James is quickly taken to the hospital by the sheriff, and that is when the weirdness starts going out of control. The power is cut off, and masked men surround the building, and they will kill anyone who tries to leave the building.

The story from here spirals into creepy monster transformations, to possessions, and even body horror which is mostly reminiscent of the early 80s and 90s movies, some of the shots were Hellraiser worthy scenes, and the brutally is always on point. It does not feel forced, and the so-called “monsters” are entirely otherworldly. The design of the monsters is not clean like in Life, or per say in the Alien movies, but rather a mesh of different disgusting features. Rather than being outright scary these creatures are disturbing and will make you not eat for at least a couple of hours.

The movie also is rather brutal compared to high budget horror films. Slow torture of the victims and tense action scenes are prominent in the film. Nothing is quick in this film, and everything moves at a snails’ pace when compared to other horror films. The costume designers and the makeup artists did a hell of a job here for The Void.

The gore, and despair in the movie are also heightened not just by the monsters but by the location, as it moves to “otherworldly” places, and even the music and sound effects are top notches. It always filled me with a sense of dread when viewing and listening to the movie.

The actors for the movie are okay, and none of them are particularly horrible, but none of them have too much dialogue. However, when it comes to playing possessed/reciting creepy lines, they do a fine job. Still a bit more background to some of the characters would have been nice, and a bigger role for certain characters. A bit more budget would have been great, as while some of the monsters were well designed, sadly they were at times “masked” due to the low budget nature of the movie. Not the end of the world, but it felt like a cop out in certain scenes.

Low-budget big scares

The Void is a fun little experiment when it comes to low budget horror movies. It hits the right balance between the scares, brutality, and the actors. While it could have maybe used a bit higher budget, it still ends up being one of the good horror movies of 2017.

-Dante-