Island Escape

For those that enjoy low budget flicks this isn't the worst one. The story is decent, it's a sci fi horror action movie.

The movie goes along at a decent pace which is the only thing working for it, the budget went to the makeup department which is done quite good for the "monsters" and the rest probably for the main actors gym and protein powder as we do get a shirtless scene.

I'm giving it 5 stars because the camera work is okay and it's all well shot with good lighting which is something so many low budget movies fail at. Along with solid story elements and the fact it kept my attention enough for me to finish it.

A research facility on a northern Canadian island had an accident. The company CEO is searching for his missing daughter. A group of mercenaries gets recruited for the rescue mission. They find a place under strange influence and they battle monster versions of themselves.

There is a good idea here somewhere. It just needs a bit more work. More than anything, this needs better action and better effects. They could use more zombie monsters in an epic final battle. I get the attempt of doing the boat, but it looks too weak for the finale. The actors are nobody special indie amateurs. In the end, this is nothing more than a poor B-movie.

Experiments, testing, cloning, and studies into things man was not meant to understand or change are always headquartered on little, out-of-the-way islands, then, someone has to go there, usually after something horrific has happened, to try and fix or retrieve things. That's what happens here as well, except that our heroes are mercenaries, hired to find the daughter of the man who hired them.

On this island, though, well, there are some things going on that they aren't told about at all, and, unfortunately, it's not going to go well for them when they do. Things in the woods are stalking them, there are strange discoveries in the woods of duplicate items the team members have on them already.

It plays a lot like a syfy channel/asylum lower-budget sci fi film, but is a lot bettter than it should be - certainly better than the "sharknado" films, in my opinion. Would recommend if you don't have too high expectations.

Although some reviewers on here are complaining about the "convoluted" time warp story line, I really didn't have any trouble following it.

Sure at the beginning you're wondering what exactly is going on, however that's part of the intrigue of the movie. It pretty quickly becomes apparent how the time warp system works and what the perils are.

The acting is good overall, the characters are well written and sympathetic, and the practical effects are really good. The monsters in particular are quite scary and there were a couple good jump scares as well.

If you're a fan of mid budget horror movies, I would highly recommend it.

The intro paying homage to Predator was fine, I suppose. That's likely to be my main takeaway from this. The characters are portrayed reasonably well despite most of them being predictable tropes. Their tactical choices as elite mercenaries were dubious at best, which made it hard to root for them. That's not on those actors it's on whoever set up the progression of the scenes. I'm not some military armchair commander and nor do I care to be. All I know is I remember being more coordinated with my friends playing capture the flag as kids in the woods.

VFX didn't have too much to do here. As for effectiveness, it was almost there. The VFX on the adversaries was a bucket of fake blood poured over them with their eyes whited out. Then shot in the shadows to conceal it. Plus whatever digital modification was done, if any. It didn't really land for me. The aggro zombie growling into the camera came across as comical to me, and it was done far too often. Overall it was not frightening. It seems like something that could work on paper but in the moment it didn't get me.

While the monsters weren't truly pulling me out of the moment, the music absolutely was. The sfx and music were at odds with each other rather than complimentary. There would be several scenes with captions such as "bushes rustling" or some variation, but the music was so overpowering that I heard nothing else.

In the beginning the music was OK for the 'lets get the gang together' scenes. After that it didn't fit. During the stalking scenes a drone sound was typically used. Which usually progressed into stock action movie ambience. It was mixed poorly and often sounded like all my mids and highs turned off and then my lows cranked to 10. It didn't make me feel spooked. It had me wondering if I should pause the film to check my EQ.

Ultimately I don't feel like watching it was bothersome, but it did come close. I wouldn't watch this again, but once was fine. It vibes like a tv movie on the sci-fi channel in the 90s that you'd stop on mostly to cease channel flipping.