The Void Has Cool Practical Effects, But…
The Void is a largely empty movie focusing on a police officer (Aaron Poole), whom, after delivering, to a hospital, a junkie covered with blood he found on the street (Evan Stern), is stuck in thatsaid hospital with a group of people, until the hospital get attacked by a mysterious cult with weird-ass creatures. I honestly don’t really know what the movie is about so, I’ll leave it at that.
Running at 90 minutes, The Void could’ve been a fun genre horror film, but instead is a weirdly pedantic movie that has wholly underdeveloped characters and a hackneyed story. The script is so paper-thin with character development that, when the characters are faced in dangerous situations, you don’t care because:
A) You have no idea what’s going on. What is that cult anyways? Who are those weird-ass creatures that may or may not look like Predators? (I say may or may not because the scenes are so poorly lit and you don’t really see the creatures that it’s hard to tell). What is the villain’s motivations? The villain is revealed to be Dr. Richard Powell (Kenneth Walsh) who wants his daughter to be reborn, but why the hooded people? Why the creatures? Also, how do the creatures work? What makes a human transform into creatures and/or how the humans transform into creatures? I legitimately have no idea — nothing is explained, everything is rushed together and written so ambiguously that it inadvertedly becomes frustrating. It’s frustrating because things happen, and you don’t understand why they happen, so you don’t care! Let’s not talk about that weird-ass ending that left me more perplexed than enlightened.
B) The characters have zero development. The police officer is in a relationship with a nurse, who lost her child?!? Is that it?!? Two other characters appear at random after killing part of a cult, and they think they know how the cult operates (or do they?). Who are they? What are they doing in this movie? How do they serve the plot? They don’t. All of these characters are so thinly developed that you don’t care what happens to them. There’s no emotional reaction on all sides because you don’t care! The acting is OK, but then again, the characters are so thinly-written that it’s hard to care about any of the characters!
That being said, the practical effects are effective. Instead of adopting CGI, many of the film’s thrilling action sequences heavily rely on practical effects. It makes for great, highly cathartic action sequences that are incredibly bloody & gory. There are some scenes that are terribly gross and disturbing to watch, but most of the film’s action sequences involving practical creatures reminded me of John Carpenter’s The Thing, the best use of pratcical effects in film. It’s the only good thing The Void has going for, because the film is literally an empty void that will confuse audience members with a hackneyed plot and underdeveloped characters that makes the movie incredibly boring. See it only for the practical stuff.
✯
