WHAT IF A ZOMBIE OUTBREAK COMES AND GOES AND THE AFTERMATH IS THAT SOME PEOPLE NOW HAVE A CONDITION THAT TAKES EXPENSIVE DRUGS TO CONTAIN - BUT THERE SOON IS A SHORTAGE AND THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLS WHO GETS THE TREATMENTS? WHO ARE THE MONSTERS THEN?

The Returned (2013) Spain/Canada

This movie is more of a thinking kind of movie so if you're looking for zombie apocalypses, blood and brains and intestines, and vicious attacks followed by vicious retaliation and lots of chopped off or shot off heads, it's not here. This movie is kind of like an older description of The Walking Dead: 'A bunch of people argue and once in a while a zombie shows up.'

If you want to see this, it's not bad - it's just not that great. The implications are interesting and probably a little too close of a true indication of what would happen if a 'zombie' virus hit the world. In other words, since there's lots of spoilers, if you want to see it first it is currently streaming on Netflix.


Now the movie doesn't show it, but supposedly there's a world-wide infection in the 80's that kills millions. Those working on a cure instead have a medication that must be administered daily to, uh, keep the monster at bay. Some say 'How can you live with having to inject yourself every day?' Pffft. Ask a diabetic. They've been doing it for decades. Man up and listen up.


Those that get the infection but are human because of the treatments are branded The Returned. It is now another excuse for discrimination - those who are among The Returned keep it secret to keep their jobs, their families, their friends.

Since this is just a speculation about what would happen in a world where the 'zombie' disease could be controlled, I'll keep this short, as there really isn't much to it anyway and nothing is surprising or much of a revelation.


Kate (Emily Hampshire) is a doctor who lost her family when she was younger in the initial days of the virus. Her husband Alex (Kris Holden-Ried), a guitar teacher, is one of The Returned - only being so because of attempting to help a man he thought was having a seizure who infected him. In order to keep it all quiet, she gets his dosages on the black market.

As the world turns, the disease stabilizes. That means the number of The Returned has increased considerably. The government (Canadian? Spanish?) says the dosages are in short supply and so they will be controlling them. When a synthetic version seems to have failed, the government starts rounding up The Returned in camps. People without the disease just want them all dead. Their fear and hatred are a constant reminder that anyone different from the norm is going to be discriminated against. That was not a big reveal.

Kate and Alex's "friends" Jacob and Amber invite them to stay with them until things quiet down. What they don't know, and again this is not a big reveal, is Amber is also one of The Returned and their ultimate goal is to get all of the dosages Kate bought on the black market. Kate finds her 'source' murdered and things go downhill fast. Jacob and Amber disappear, leaving only one dose and a 'Whoopsy, sorry we stole your stuff' note.

A fellow doctor gives Kate the last dosages the hospital has - he tries to assure her the synthetic will soon be effective and available. As she's leaving the hospital, she's attacked by the father of a Returned boy she saved at the beginning of the movie. Again, not surprising. All the doses are broken in the process.

She goes home to Alex to find he has rigged himself up in his studio for when he regresses into a zombie. He's securely chained to the wall. But he doesn't want to wait - and she can't stand to see him suffer as he begins to have trouble breathing, starts coughing up blood, etc. She ends up shooting him in the head after a tearful goodbye.

And this is no big reveal, in fact I was expecting it from the beginning. She sees the kind doctor who had given her the medication with GREAT news - the synthetic version now works! She realizes she has killed her husband for nothing. That's a familiar gimmick and so also was no surprise.

Our final scene is Kate in a new house, very pregnant, looking over a whole wall covered with information and the pictures of Jacob and Amber as they start a book tour. She's planning to hunt them down and when she does, they're dead meat. Even if she or her half-zombie baby doesn't eat them.

It's interesting, but not surprising, as the whole movie is themed on human nature and human nature is very predictable, whether from small snow storms (one inch of snow falls and suddenly there's no toilet paper, bread or beer in an entire town), to food shortages, power outages, etc.

We're already animals - it's not that big of a step.





                        

FINALLY! FOR REAL! THE FIFTY MOVIE MARATHON OF PURE TERROR CLASSICS... WILL NOW BEGIN WITH DISC ONE!

Pure Terror

Ya gotta love Amazon. They're a little too convenient if you know what I mean and I think you do (I've got to stop doing that, sorry Joe Bob). You zip down a horror movie list and bam! A whole pack of different movies. Some have four, or eight - this one has fifty. The little pamphlet that came with it to list out each movie and a short synopsis (thank goodness) says Classic Features. Classic. Uh, I'm gonna let you decide on that one.

Disc One

Crucible Of Horror aka The Corpse (1971): Fortunately for me (maybe not for you) I watched this little gem already and reviewed it last February on the 16th, 2013. It is under the title If You're Gonna Kill 'Em Make Sure They Stay Dead on 2/16/13. So for this one, I'll just say it was... hmm. Basically this UK film was trying to be horrifying in telling its audience that a woman and her daughter would be willing to kill an abusive husband/father. Maybe in 1971 (in the UK) but this wasn't even remotely interesting and besides, they screwed it up so badly... well, read the review.

Double Exposure (1983): I'll tell you what it's about since the synopsis provided by the pamphlet is whacked. There's a photographer, his brother who's missing an arm and a leg (yes, I said that right, start getting used to stuff like this). I like how the only name in this movie is Cleavon Little (Blazing Saddles) and it says 'starring' but you'll see him in a total of oh, maybe two or three minutes. You'll also see a young Victoria Jackson playing a bimbo. Big stretch there. A photographer is having these horrid nightmares. He's killing people in violent and wild ways. He tells his brother and his psychiatrist about them (so we have three guys as suspects, not a lot to choose from).

The description says he takes photos for men's magazines which leads you to think there's a lot of nudity floating around. Nope. Among other shots he does is one supposedly for a plastic garbage bag commercial (like I said, get used to this), some sort of stock car stunt photo (Wouldn't they make that video?) and other settings. 

It never really says WHO he works for, actually. His brother, who actually WAS missing his left arm and leg (I don't think they had good enough effects to fake that in 1983) tell him that when he has a nightmare, make sure and call him right away and he'll help him. Whoops, I gave away the killer didn't I?

They try to lead you away from the brother 'cause you see the killer has two legs, but can you say prosthesis? Yup, the brother listened to the nightmares which gave him great ideas and he used 'em and killed for... some reason. Who knows. I just know that one killing (the plastic trash bag commercial) the model complains that the bag is sooo flimsy that as she scoops dry leaves into it it will probably break. The killer (not shown yet) gets another of those flimsy bags, puts in a hooded rattlesnake.... hmm? There's no such thing as a hooded rattlesnake? Sigh. 

The only reason anyone might try watching this...

They wanted a snake that looked really scary like a cobra but make noise like a rattlesnake so... you see, when two snakes love each other very, very much... you're not buying this, are you? Yeah, a lot of the movie is like that. The funny part (funny small ha ha) was that once the bag with this magical snake is on her head, the bag that couldn't hold leaves is impossible for her to rip open. Oookay. They also must have somehow combined honeybee DNA with it, 'cause it dies from biting her. Wow.

Another woman who was getting strangled by a guy wearing leather gloves COMPLAINS the whole time her throat is supposedly being crushed. You didn't expect reality in this, did you?

This movie is full of the stuff of the 80's people loved - people cheating on their spouses, taking cocaine, dancing at discos, complaining about alimony payments, and still being clueless enough to show gay people as being over-the-top gay. I know, I know, it's impossible to be not gay enough or too gay but this guy was ridiculous. Plus in the clubs he danced with women. Not a crime, I'm just saying they weren't enlightened enough (read honest) to show this man with a male partner. Did I mention the brother was the killer? I did? Good, then this review is over.

Horror Rises From The Tomb (1973) Spain: This film is horribly dubbed to almost incomprehensibility. Synopsis: A gentleman and his friends arrive at his family's ancient estate for some fun and relaxation. What the group finds instead is terror and bloodthirsty killings all as a result of a family curse. The decapitated head of the gentleman's ancestor is forcing the guests to act out the horrifying plans it is hypnotically sending to them.

Sounds half-way good, no? No. When you've got a guy who decides to write a movie and star in it himself... ick. This was slow, boring stuff. The only fun part was the head looked a bit like John Belushi (this also comes up in another film - but that's later). Massively annoying pipe organ music practically covers over the dubbing which is about four or five seconds off anyway.

See this... guy and his lady love are accused and convicted of witchcraft (and this voice in my head keeps saying "NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!"). He is beheaded, she is hung and burned. He vows to return to wreak horrible vengeance. Apparently it has taken him until the seventies to get around to it.

And then Paul Naschy (who wrote and starred in this) can't decide what kind of monster he wants to be. He's beheaded for witchcraft, but in the 70's he's reunited with his body so he's a zombie, right? Nah. Then he and his resurrected love start with the blood sucking. Okay, they're witch/zombie/vampires - got it. I just hope it's not catching.

Although we do get a brief scene with zombies (who are basically all the people he's killed in the course of this movie), it's still not enough to warrant sitting through this movie. What? They made a sequel in 1982? It better not be in this collection...

The Dungeon Of Harrow (1962): I thought this was a typo and it was supposed to be Horror. Nope. A B&W film set in Mexico but filmed in Texas, it's supposed to be about the Count De Sade - don't get excited, nothing happens in this thing. At all. Two men get washed ashore this island and discover the castle (Isn't it always a castle? It's never a cottage or just a two story house.). Let me break it down for you. First, you need to totally disregard the poster - none of that happens.

Old man likes to whip people - this consists of a rope winding around someones waist while a whip cracking noise is dubbed in about 3 or 4 seconds too late. He's nasty, his love has leprosy and his house maid (or whoever the hell she's supposed to be) falls in love with one of the men washed ashore. They wait for months for a ship to show up to rescue them. But when one comes, the men take one look at him and run screaming back to their boat.

Both he and his love have contracted leprosy. Now in the real world, about 95% of the population are normally immune. However, believe it or not, it can be transmitted by, and pardon the gross out, snot or armadillo. Or armadillo snot. Or snot on an armadillo. It's your choice. Oh did I mention this dude has been narrating the story in a monotone through the whole movie? No? At the end, his love looks like a living mummy (that's not how leprosy works either) and he decides it's time to put her in a coffin - alive. Now who's the monster?

This concludes Disc One and your torture is over - for the present. Mwahahahaha....

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MUTHA, DON'T WANNA GO TO SCHOOL TODAY - I THINK I'D RATHER GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY AKA YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL


Mama (2013) Spanish-Canadian

One small (very small) advantage of being disabled at home is not going to the theater to watch movies. That sounds... ludicrous I know but the last movie I dragged myself to (the hubby really wanted to see it) was such a chore for little enjoyment and I was sick for days afterward. And we didn't even try to see the 3D version - not because of cost, but because I get really bad headaches trying to reconcile the images with my astigmatized eyes. 

The movie was okay, MIB 3. But it was hard to enjoy it (although Breslin's portrayal of the 'K' character was brilliant) because some idiot parent thought it would be perfectly all right to bring his maybe 6 or 7 year old daughter to a PG-13 movie and because it was packed, she sat beside me while her so-called father sat in the row behind her. 

She did NOT think all the nasties and especially Boris The Animal were in the least way amusing - she was scared to death. My time was spent, therefore, trying to defuse the 'scary' for the poor kid by whispering what I hoped would be funny comments to her to remind her that this was total fiction and didn't the dummies on the screen look really silly? My tactics (I've never had children so I was winging this one) were only partially successful - the whimpering wasn't as bad and I even got a smile out of her, but she still was NOT HAPPY. Nice parenting job, dad. Eh, my parents were kind of the same - I remember being taken to movies like Play Misty For Me and then yelled at for not covering my eyes during the bloody part. DUH.

So my little blog here is mostly made up of the cheap or free older movies from the 50's to... whatever happens to come out on the internet. But the internet it getting faster and movies in theaters are staying for shorter and shorter periods before going to DVD so I am starting to be able to see 'new' movies that you either have just seen or not seen yet. This is not necessarily a good thing. When I take apart a movie, it's usually because of factors we come to expect from older (and cheaper) movies - acting, sets, plot (or lack thereof), etc. But with new movies with multi-multi-million budgets and in 3, 4, 50 D (or IMAX) that cost you up to... ummm, I actually have no idea how much those tickets cost. Anywho, you're spending big bucks and getting very little.

But I thought Mama would be a good bet. One, everyone (to me that means people that talk about movies on the internet) seemed to think it was extremely unsettling and spooky, and besides, it's a Guillermo del Toro movie, right? So it has to be terrific - del Toro doesn't do terrible. Remember when we used to think that way (briefly) about M. Night? And if you just said 'Who?' it proves my point anyway. 

Guillermo del Toro brought us such goodies as The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labrynth (both which I will be reviewing hopefully soon), Hellboy (Hey, I liked it!), While She Was Out (Which I thought I was going to hate - who cares what happens to Kim Basinger? But it was good.), The Hobbit, and this one. Sort of. See, I kind of got suspicious when it said that del Toro proclaimed he was the Executive Producer. You know what that tells me? He gave them either his money or his name or both to promote the film. Ummm, yeah.

So once again I've gone on and on and no movie. There's a reason for that. This. Was. Terrible. I kept hearing how scary, how awfully spooky, how creepy, how... inventive. This is what I saw: Yet another movie full of creaks, fast moving shadows, near-miss encounters with the... thing, the typical man vs. woman - one wants the kids, the other doesn't, and toward the end it degraded to the typical freaking ghost story. With moths. Lots of moths. After Sadako, I had seen enough moths (and still don't understand what they're trying to say with them) for a lifetime. But here's the gist of the thing:

A businessman goes postal and kills his coworkers and wife, inexplicably taking his two young daughters out into the woods for... I have no freaking idea. In movie duh style he drives too fast on snowy roads and crashes down an incline. All are alive and he finds an abandoned cabin. He starts a fire to warm them up and then takes out his gun. Wait - he drives clear out to the woods, rescues them from the wreck, takes them to a cabin and warms them up and NOW he's gonna kill them? The DUH is starting early.

The girls are small - the older one has glasses so he takes them off so she can't see that daddy's gonna put a big hole in her. But before he can do anything we get that fast shadow that grabs him and kills him. The girls are subsequently taken care of by... something. Five years later they are found - walking on all fours, the only word they can really say is 'mama' and are adopted by the psycho's identical twin brother Lucas. It takes a bit but the older child, Victoria, starts to come back to reality after being given back her glasses. She can now see and recognizes her uncle. Lilly however is still little more than an animal, refuses to talk or walk and sleeps on the floor under Victoria's bed.

The uncle is granted custody as long as he, his girlfriend and the girls live in a house with equipment with which a Dr. Dreyfuss, who wants to study the girls, can observe them anytime. It's not long before the creaking doors and fast shadows start. When the girlfriend Annabel sees the shadow, she asks Lucas to check - he gets injured and is now in a coma. So Annabel, who has no maternal instincts, has to care for two difficult children who insist they belong to 'mama' and give both Annabel and Dr. Dreyfuss nothing but attitude. 

Meanwhile, the girls great-aunt wants the two girls badly and will stop at nothing to get them. She suspects they are being abused (In the care of a doctor?) and when she doesn't get what she wants, she lets herself into the house to, I dunno, kidnap them? She too is eliminated by 'mama' who we are shown looks alternately like a regular ghost (that's a dumb couple of words right there) and a horrific looking monster (and the kids love her for it).

Annabel asks the doc to find out about this 'mama' and we get ridiculously stupid backstory: In the 1800's wherever the hell they are living used to have a mental asylum (because apparently there's one on every street corner in the world except where I live) with a psycho mom separated from her baby. It is revealed (slowly) that the mother attacked the nuns running the whacko farm, grabbed the baby, and when cornered, went to a cliff over the ocean and threw them both over. 

She made it to the water - the baby got hung up by its blanket on a branch. I guess it died when it hit the side of the cliff because they later recovered a 'body' and put it in a box in a storage room. Uh huh. So 'mama' doesn't know her kid is dead and considers the two girls to be 'hers' now. Oh and we get moths. Lots and lots of moths. 

Not wanting to do a lot of research 'cause I really didn't care - the bottom line is that most of the time when moths are in horror films they represent 'dark' souls - as opposed to butterflies being 'light' souls. Evil and good? Dunno, don't care. They're just everywhere and it's dumb.

So our 'no happy endings' story has a totally predictable conclusion - 'mama' takes the two girls to the same cliff, this time to get all to die like she wanted the first time. Since Victoria has kind of returned to normal, she rejects 'mama' and certain death and comes back to the couple. Lilly however only knows 'mama' and so both plunge off the cliff. So this is a win-lose situation? Duh. Oh and we get more moths. Lots and lots of moths. 

Now how can such a little girl have a dark soul - 'cause one of them lands on Victoria and she knows that a part of Lilly is still with her. Oh goody. Oh but wait, this moth has bright blue wings so it's okay. I guess. Again, duh.

WE INTERRUPT THE POINTLESS 80'S HORROR MARATHON WITH THE FOLLOWING HALFWAY DECENT MOVIE YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF




Red Lights (2012) Spain/US

Dazed and confused by the horrific display of bad movies floating in my brain I looked casually for something to 'clear the palate' so to speak. This looked - boring as hell but it had Robert DeNiro and Sigourney Weaver so why the hell not? I was actually pleasantly surprised.






Now this is the type of movie I usually despise - a college teaches parapsychology along with psychology which happens in no college ever anywhere. And the main two characters, Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant Buckley (Cillian Murphy) who is also a physicist work at debunking psychic frauds. Sigh. Another one of those huh - just with a bit better actors and more money. And I went through the whole movie trying to figure out where I'd seen Cillian before (pronounced Krilian) and duh, he carried the movie 28 Days Later... shame on me.

The movie opens with Matheson (Sigourney playing her usual I'm-in-charge-don't-push-or-I'll-eat-you type of character) and her assistant debunking some very talented (but totally fake) psychics and 'mentalists'. Buckley is a little over-eager in this line, he hates fakes and uses his own talents at slight-of-hand and other slippery practices to get what he needs to take these guys down. 

During the whole movie he seems to be writing a journal/letter to Matheson trying to explain why he is the way he is which is not clear until a pivotal point in the movie where things change (of course I'd figured it out already but that's just me - it was actually kind of clever).

One premier 'psychic', a blind man named Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) has been a target for years - but he had 'retired' and disappeared from the public eye. Thus Buckley wants to bring him down hard, but Silver and Matheson had tangled years before and she wanted to stay far away from him. Buckley disagrees and against her wishes goes to one of his performances. As soon as he turns on the electrical equipment that would catch if there were transmissions between Silver and his cohorts, something happens and the whole place shakes as glass shatters, equipment collapses, and he must get out quickly. He then finds that while he was gone Matheson, who had a pre-existing serious medical condition, collapsed in her office. She later dies.

Bereft but even more determined to prove Silver a fraud, he bullies a coworker to let him observe as the college is allowed to run a battery of tests on Silver to confirm his abilities. It is hoped by that department that the results will be the final say in whether paranormal talents are real. In a way, Buckley becomes more and more like Matheson - he acts as if he owes that to her. Even as strange events start to increase - birds keep hitting his windows, his office is vandalized, electronic equipment keeps shorting out - he still wants Silver's head on a, well, on a silver platter (sorry about that).

The tests are performed for hours, with every precaution taken, every scientific control used to prevent false readings and results on Silver - but he seems to 'pass' with flying colors as being the real thing. This makes Buckley even more determined to expose him. By now though, the movie has given the necessary hints to pretty much give you the results of the movie - the reference to 'Occam's Razor' (the simplest answer is usually the right one), Buckley remarking to an assistant that he knows things because he's psychic (in jest), the strange effects on lights and electronics while Buckley's around, his adeptness at sleight of hand and knowing a phony when he sees one... well it was obvious to me anyway.

The climax was good but a little disappointing at the same time. While it did give the answers and explain the movie, it also wrapped it up a little too perfectly in a neat package. And I think they over-simplified it quite a bit. Buckley goes to Silver's performance (again) even though it seems that Silver has been proven to be genuine. Which was laughable considering that among his 'abilities' he added psychic surgery (using just your hands to enter the body and 'remove' the sickness/failing organ) and levitation.

That assumption is destroyed when, as Buckley is in the men's room, one of Silver's goons comes in and tries to kill him. He fails and Buckley manages to storm into the auditorium and approach the stage (No security measures in this place huh? Oh well I guess that would have made the ending too difficult.), basically calling Silver out. 

Here's where De Niro gives his best, uh, De Niro attitude and becomes combative - and the auditorium shakes, the electronics blow, and chunks of the ceiling fall near the audience (but hurting no one apparently). Now it's Silver's turn to be amazed, he keeps demanding of Buckley how he managed to do that but Buckley just gives him a speech on... something and tosses the quarter he's constantly twiddling in his fingers at De Niro, who catches it. The solution WAS Occam's Razor when it came to Silver's abilities - he can see. That was a bit of a duh and a silly way to prove him a fake. Oh well.

As Buckley leaves flashes of the movie show those who don't get it yet that all this time the reason Buckley was trying so hard to debunk all the fakers was that he was looking for someone like himself - a true psychic. He laments that he didn't share what he was with his friend Matheson, who wanted to believe there was something more to... us but he didn't tell her. He ends the movie telling her/us that 'You can't deny yourself forever'.

Okay, not a perfect movie, not even a great movie, but much better than the average paranormal movie and actually a bit interesting, especially the ways they showed how so-called psychics get away with their scams. It's worth a look if you need a little distraction.

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HULU SNOOZE PART DEUX




Paranormal Xperience 3D (2012) Spain

Bless their European little hearts - the Spanish decided to throw their hat into the ring so to speak into two different attempts - the paranormal movie stuff and the 3D stuff. Oh and some CGI stuff to make this a triple-stuff movie. Other than that... uh sorry kids, no. This is not a paranormal movie, this is your typical slasher flick - in 3D.



We have our typical group of college students in psychiatry. Angela is a total non-believer in all things paranormal which is not allowed in her psychiatry class. Which is typical. In no school. EVER. But for the movie the professor is determined to teach all his students a lesson (apparently the word LAWSUIT is not translatable into Spanish - oh wait, yes it is, PLEITO) by dragging them out to a deserted mining town named Susurro (Sussudio?) - that's Whisper in English, not that it really manners. It's also where many people died. Hey, that's right where I'd go. NOT. EVER. But this movie has to move so here we go...

The town is Susurro (whisper in Spanish) and supposedly this is going to scare the pants off the audience. Uh, no. We've already been ruined and not much scares us - well some of us anyway. So wanting to one-up the typical stupid slasher or paranormal movie that usually starts with kids doing something dumb like conjuring up demons or whatever using Tarot cards or a Ouija board, they use a COMPUTER PROGRAM to induce one of their number, conveniently the sister of Angela and sort of psychic anyway, into a trance and 'open' the... whatever is going to get this movie off the ground.

That's not to say there aren't good gore moments in this movie but that's the trouble - they're only moments and it takes a long time to get there and beyond. The tag lines 'Believe the legend, enter the darkness, experience the fear' only makes you expect that surely there's going to be something more. But no.

See young Spanish film makers, this is NOT a Paranormal film. This is a slasher film. SLASHER. Oh, sorry. Uh, slasher doesn't translate so... Esta es una película donde los niños maten por medios poco espectaculares. You savvy?

Nice try, a solid B+ for gore, sorry, not much above a C- for story and acting... well, see me after class.






                               

HORROR BY THE NUMBERS DONE A BIT BETTER




11-11-11 (aka 11-11-11: The Prophecy) 2011 US/Spain

I think most probably they tacked on 'The Prophecy' after the abysmal other movie came out just to make sure we knew the difference. I don't think they had much to worry about - although this is not the greatest of movies it is far superior than the horrid movie I reviewed 3-1-13 also called 11/11/11 (with slashes instead of dashes but I couldn't really tell you why). This mostly takes place in Barcelona, Spain and although like I said it isn't great it was still kind of interesting although you could see the ending come a mile away - if you use my horror worksheet (patent pending) of course.

People are desperate for guidance. I should say some people are and they will look to any source they think is credible. Although the Bible prohibits divination, the looking for signs, portents, and other kinds of 'extra' knowledge has been known since almost the beginning of man. That includes looking to numbers for signs. While the Bible itself is known to use numbers to emphasize things, like things repeated 3 times usually meant real significance, the number 7 was known for completeness or perfection (hence the devil is sometimes referred to as 666 because that's three times a number less than perfection), numbers were NOT used as a divining tool. 

We have the sad story of writer Joseph, who lost both wife and son in a fire. He's in a support group of journal writers although his agent is pushing him to start writing novels again. He meets a girl named Sadie who listens to his growing fear of the number 11-11 because he is starting to see it come up more and more in his life. 

It is the time of death on his son's certificate, it's usually when he wakes from nightmares of the two of them burning, and it's the time his watch stops when he's involved in a car accident. After his release from the hospital he receives a call from his crippled brother Samuel from Spain who informs him their dad is dying. He has been estranged from both of them for a long time, but decides to go anyway.

Once in Spain he sees a lot of things that make him uneasy and to believe that this numbers thing is really a warning of sorts. Through kind of contrived events (Hey, we've got to keep the movie rolling, right?) he becomes convinced, although being Atheist, that something is going to happen to his father and brother on 11-11-11. Why? 

Among other things his brother Samuel (Michael Landes who I really liked in the Sy Fy series Special Unit 2) had installed motion sensitive cameras around the house and starting in November the cameras capture each night at 11:11 ghostly appearances of people - first only a couple, but more and more as the eleventh day approaches. A strange thing Joseph is also noticing is some kind of roots making their way into the house - they wind around his computer cords, they're attached to a candelabra that almost smashes his brother, they're appearing everywhere. That is never explained but adds to his fear.

The Spanish caretaker also is a bit strange - she also has a journal but insists that it is 'the gospel according to me'. All these things together start to convince the non-spiritual Joseph that something not of this world is happening and his brother is definitely in danger. Suddenly Sadie shows up and appears to support him and try to help him. But nothing is as it really appears.

With all the portents and 11-11 stuff and his brother preaching at him at every opportunity, he starts to get his head turned around and all he knows for sure (he thinks) is that his brother is in danger and he is the one to protect him. His father had told him that Samuel's birth was a miracle and Joseph was always meant to take care of him. So the big day comes and their father dies. That night all the figures show up, looking grotesque and having huge bat-like wings and Samuel is held up for slaughter. Joseph interferes at the last moment, getting stabbed by the things with something that was meant for Samuel and all disappear. While Joseph dies, Samuel stands over him, triumphant.

Yes, 11-11-11 was the big day - for Samuel. He has not been there for a gateway to be opened as everything has been pointing to, but to 'close a window'. He is evil and the grotesque figures had been there to prevent him from becoming the new 'Leader'. Umm, okay. I'm not going to pretend to understand why angels would be grotesque and why it would all be so... evil seeming but thanks to Joseph 'saving' his brother, he has brought about 'The End' as Samuel is now free to write his own Gospel, his own religion, his own world I guess. In the end he stands before his congregation, which includes all those who Joseph had thought to be his friends, such as Sadie, his agent, etc. Evil now reigns.

Okay this movie had a lot of flaws but hey, it was well done, had great imagery, the acting was good and it is definitely worth a look. If you can get over the total DUH factor of evil seeming good and good seeming evil.