(Movies fail at the box office, and many more fail to even find release into theaters. When one of these dead on arrival titles arrives on disc they go under the knife of the forensic video-examiner, all in the hope of determining the causes of death in the marketplace. Be forewarned any who wish to see the film – this piece is entirely a SPOILER.)
Weather based thrillers have an established history, mainly because the terror on humans is natural and entirely out of our control. Now, mix in a spiritually demonic element to that menace and you end up with – well you end up with a supernatural disaster. I’m speaking not of the threat to the characters, but this film itself.
An outpost island gets targeted by a growing spiritual force that eliminates the citizens. Normally when presented with this type of menace the only solution comes by way of employing arcane or historical methods to neutralize the force. Here we get normal people getting by with things found at the hardware store. Lets carve open this murky disc and see why it was unfit for theater screens.
00:00:55 Comedic Arrest Two girls are in a cemetery, shrieking for someone named Will. They find him slumped and bloody against a headstone. Turns out he and his buddy were pranking the girls! They even high-five each other after. What fun, douchetards!
00:01:22 Exploratory Story Incision When one girl wants to leave Will explains to her information she should already know, for our benefit. They are hanging around during a storm because every time there is an electrical storm the graveyard gets hit with lightning. This passes for entertainment on a small island.
00:02:32 Diluted Tableau On cue a lightning bolt strikes a nearby memorial to the victims of a decades past massacre. They think the result is spooky and creepy, so naturally Will decides the first thing he needs to do is take a leak behind the now damaged monument.
00:03:25 Invasive Pathos While he is evacuating his bladder a mist begins to seep out from beneath the cement marker and a tendril of smoke wraps around Will. It then penetrates the youth and turns him into a desiccated corpse. This feature could be renamed “Ghosts In The Piss”.
00:04:56 Septic Introduction Hal is the no-nonsense sheriff on Elman Island played by Carlos Bernard, who was Agent Tony Almeida for numerous seasons of 24. After running with Jack Bauer through his many sleepless escapades wrangling a demonic thunderstorm will be light work.
00:09:11 Locale Anethesia We are never told exactly where Elman Island is located but the scenery and references clearly place it in the Pacific Northwest, yet the patches on Hal’s uniform look like those from the state of Arizona.
00:13:34 Ruptured Visual A deputy is sent to the cemetery to block off the scene. When she encounters the mystical mist coming after her she takes refuge in her squad car, but the hazy force seeps inside. When she deep-smokes the aggressive cloud she does not turn old, she explodes into ash.
00:15:47 Cranial Atrophy Hal’s daughter Daisy is trying to figure out what killed her boyfriend, why she gets creepy images sent to her iPhone, and is curious about the history behind the massacre. She suggests to her friends that they go speak with the local priest, to which her friend Rob says, “
Beats sitting around here talking about it.” Yes, sitting somewhere else and talking about it is vastly better than sitting
there and talking about it.
00:17:14 Arrested Physics Hal joins his coroner at the cemetery to figure out what happened to the deputy. Hal’s ex-wife is Ashley, (Ha! – I just got that!) a climatologist who has noticed a meteorological vagary at the site, so she arrives. As Hal goes to intercept his ex the coroner is set upon by the nefarious fog, which picks him up and hurls him against a tree, exploding him into cinders. This stuff is acting like an Ed Hardy-wearing drunken ass-hole after happy hour!
00:20:20 Blunt-Force Dialogue The cemetery smog has grown into a swirling cloud hanging over the island. As the residents gather to look at it Hal barks at them all to get inside for their own protection. After clearing the scene Ashley then randomly declares:
”I’m going to launch my weather balloon into that storm cloud.” 00:27:07 Plot Stimulant Now the cloud sends down a trail of smoke which kills a citizen with a bolt of electricity. The arbitrary means of extermination by this villainous vapor makes it difficult for me to grasp its menace -- also a challenge to care about, for what it is worth.
00:31:46 Cauterized Plot Cavity During a town uprising with the sheriff a mysterious stranger, who arrived by boat, walks up to declare the cloud a supernatural phenomenon. He is Greg, a paranormal investigator. He provides many answers to what is happening, with the exception of why he randomly arrived on Elman Island.
00:32:38 Blunt-Force Dialogue In order to come up with answers Greg turns to the crowd:
”Who here has suffered the biggest loss so far?” It seems rather than all deaths being equally tragic the gentry can be measured in terms of individual importance. However this makes the conclusion that the death of the ass-hole teenager Will as the “biggest” loss all the more confusing.
00:36:39 Weakened Impulse For some reason Hal listens to Greg the P.I. on what to do next. Greg’s suggestion – use salt water.
00:38:15 Invasive Pathos So a fire truck is driven to a bluff and the tank loaded with rock salt. End result: the firemen are blasted apart by the existential exhaust.
00:38:10 Invasive Pathos A ferry filled with “state investigators” is attacked by the cloud and the whole boat is vanquished. There is no further action taken by the government after this. Now I am starting to think the island is part of a Canadian province.
00:41:24 Cliché Malignancy Daisy and Rob search through the church records in order to find answers to the spiritual onslaught. They seem to be very intrepid in this effort, save for the fact they don’t think to turn on the lights in the archive room, relying on flashlights for their research.
00:49:23 Commercial Toxicity Numerous times Daisy receives a call from her deceased boyfriend, only to see the screen morph into a picture of the priest responsible for the infamous massacre. Island community possessed by tormented souls? There’s an app for that!
00:55:01 Weakened Impulse The storm continues to confound. Now citizens are liable to be killed when the demonic specters call on their cell phone and a bolt of fatal lightning can surge upward. That “G” on your 4G service stands for “Ghost”!
00:58:13 Cliché Malignancy Hollywood mathematics: While over 50% of marriages fail, over 90% of divorced couples reconcile their love. With a killer storm bearing down, and a citizenry turning on them, Hal and Ashley find the time to profess their rekindled affections for each other.
00:59:46 Iatrogenic Direction Now the foreboding fumes change tactics again, seeping into a room where dozens are huddled and enter a woman, but not killing her. Instead she marches like a zombie and shoots lightning from her mouth into the mouth of another man.
01:03:39 Chronicle Seizure After all the creative killing the storm reverts when it traps Rob and his girlfriend in a panel truck. She becomes a wrinkled husk, then Rob bursts into a cloud of ash.
01:06:53 Weakened Impulse As Daisy is hiding out at her mother’s research lab (where Ashley’s co-worker was shot with a bolt through his webcam) we watch all of the tension ebb away as she successfully fends off the evil exhaust with the use of duct tape, spray foam sealant in the electrical outlets, and putting a drain stopper in the sink.
01:11:41 Cranial Atrophy Survival Quiz: If you were to encounter a toilet filled with percolating blood would you:
A) Turn and run
B) Slowly creep up and investigate further
Allow me to show you what happens should you select “B”.
01:13:27 Editing Arrythmia While on the run Hal discovers Greg hiding out in a van with a scarred face and shriveled hand. As Greg spews blather about an emblem from the cemetery serving as a talisman no explanation is given as to his condition.
01:22:44 Commercial Toxicity As the family concocts a plot to defeat the storm the talisman breaks in half. The manufacturers of Duct Tape want you to know it can be used to reconnect the pieces so you fend off the threatening thunderstorm.
01:24:04 Collapsed Climax The solution to all these ills involves the weather balloon sending up an electrical pulse device which will match the frequency of the good spirits in the cloud, then somehow it will amplify their frequency. This will somehow neutralize the spirits, and also have them shot through the base of the radio tower, trapping them in the ground.
Really, you want to say this makes absolutely zero sense? This is a film telling us that items from the tool shed can neutralize the undead.
01:24:53 Blunt-Force Dialogue As mom and dad make out on the ground a disgusted Daisy leans over the base of the radio tower and places the talisman on the cement, cleverly stating,
”You’re grounded.”
POST MORTEM One of the key aspects of presenting an otherworldly force is handling the material with a confident voice. This film loses ground by inserting various components in arbitrary fashion, giving off the appearance of just winging it. The mixing of the supernatural and weather feels like it was done on a lark.
Whatever possible menace this concept does deliver gets completely wiped out when it can be challenged with elements like salt water and duct tape.