20FT BELOW: THE DARKNESS DESCENDING
Original Title:
Redemption: The Darkness Descending
USA, 2014
Director: Marc Clebanoff
3/10
"20ft Below: The Darkness Descening" is the feature version of a 5-episode web-series called "The Darkness Descending" that went on air (online) in 2009. The movie's original title was "Redemption: The Darkness Descending" but I guess they changed it to avoid confusion with recently released similar-titled films like "Redemtion" (Jason Statham) or "Blood of Redemption" (Dolph Lundgren).
The movie tells the story of a young and oh-so-motivated documentary filmmaker who discovers a mysterious cult in the abandoned subway tunnels of New York City, led by a Mexican called "Angel", a ruthless guy who has some serious Jigsaw-like morals...
Well, what can I say: it's everything I expected from a direct-to-video title with a heavy-handed title and Danny Trejo on the cover, though contrary to the exceptions of Dread Central (see here!), he's in for more than 5 minutes, but not more than 20 minutes.
Trejo is decent as always, but his character is shallow, one-dimensional and not believable at all, and he's constantly forced to deliver clichéd lines like "I am God." or "You are ruled by fear. I am fear" .
The direction is trite and the writing is highly uninspired. There's hardly any tension, nothing thrilling, nothing scary. The whole thing plods along at snail's pace from start to finish. There are a few solid fight sequences, and a few well-shot scenes that look and feel like a bit like a blend of "CSI" and "Cops", but the rest is just tedious, dull and very lackluster. The acting ranges from good (Kinga Philipps, Frank Krueger) to terrible (Michael Rene Walton, Darren Darnborough).
[Oh btw, why "20 feet" when the main character clearly says that she's
"200 feet underground"?]
Well, what can I say: it's everything I expected from a direct-to-video title with a heavy-handed title and Danny Trejo on the cover, though contrary to the exceptions of Dread Central (see here!), he's in for more than 5 minutes, but not more than 20 minutes.
Trejo is decent as always, but his character is shallow, one-dimensional and not believable at all, and he's constantly forced to deliver clichéd lines like "I am God." or "You are ruled by fear. I am fear" .
Speaking of lame dialogue: there are more god-awful lines like "You wanna be a man? Be a man!" (Frank Krueger) or "You gotta carry a big stick... and I've got the biggest stick of them all." (Louis Mandylor) or (worst of all) "When inspiration calls, I answer. Brrrrring! Hello? Who's this? Inspiration? Oh, of course, I'll be right there." (Wylie Small)...
The direction is trite and the writing is highly uninspired. There's hardly any tension, nothing thrilling, nothing scary. The whole thing plods along at snail's pace from start to finish. There are a few solid fight sequences, and a few well-shot scenes that look and feel like a bit like a blend of "CSI" and "Cops", but the rest is just tedious, dull and very lackluster. The acting ranges from good (Kinga Philipps, Frank Krueger) to terrible (Michael Rene Walton, Darren Darnborough).
[Oh btw, why "20 feet" when the main character clearly says that she's
"200 feet underground"?]
May this movie descend into darkness and never come back... ;)
Imdb
Thanks to Kelly Williams from "
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