Intersect

There is very little to like about this movie. For one, the tone is all over the place. I turned to my co-watcher about an hour in and expressed my sentiments. "Who is this movie for???"

Because it watches like a Hallmark Channel attempt at horror. Is it a horror movie? Is it a romantic movie? Is it a coming of age movie?

I watched it until the end and I still have absolutely no idea!

Apart from the terrible acting, which has already been covered here in the reviews... it's one of the messiest and laziest scripts I've absorbed in some time. Nothing makes sense... and not in a 'good' Lovecraftian way. It just literally tells no sort of cohesive story.

Maybe it'd be better if I watched while I was high out of my mind, but for the average horror fan.... avoid avoid avoid.

The audio is off.

The plot is basic yet convoluted for no reason.

The cinematography is suspect, especially with all the unfortunate closeups.

The acting is dumpster fire trash.

The pace drags.

This story could have been told in less time with less confusion and character development.

Yeah, this 2020 movie titled "Intersect" was a swing and a miss, especially for a Lovecraftian movie. Well, I am getting ahead of myself here.

I was lured in by the movie's rather interesting cover/poster, and the fact that this was allegedly a Lovecraftian movie. And yes, the cover/poster definitely also sold the movie as being Lovecraftian, and the fact that the synopsis included the Miskatonic University just cemented that fact. So of course I found myself sitting down to watch writer and director Gus Holwerda's 2020 movie "Intersect".

This 2020 movie was slow paced, incredibly slow paced. And it just prolonged the agony and boredom that there was so very little of any interest taking place throughout the almost 2 hours that the movie ran for. I stuck with it though, given its supposedly Lovecraftian roots. But that was just a stretch. Sure, there were some cosmic influences, but it just never really reached a level where I personally would deem this worthy of being labeled Lovecraftian.

The storyline told in "Intersect" was boring. Let's just be bluntly honest. Yeah, it most certainly was boring. Sure, the movie's script and plot did have some interesting aspects to it, but writer and director Gus Holwerda just never really brought them to a noteworthy fruition.

While the movie was dreadfully slow, uneventful and just downright boring, then it should be said the the casted actors and actresses put on good performances, and they made the ordeal bearable to sit through. But entertainment-wise then "Intersect" was just a shallow experience.

The special effects in "Intersect" were for the most part actually adequate. I liked the portal effects. However, the Watchers - or Lurkers - creatures in the movie were just atrocious to look at. They moved like something taken straight out of a 1990s computer game and also looked that way. It was just an eyesore to look at.

I am a big fan of Lovecraft's works and Lovecraftian work in general, "Intersect", however, doesn't really tickle me in the right places. Nor would I deem it worthy to be branded as being actually Lovecraftian. Sure, it may be Lovecraftian inspired, but that is about it.

My rating of "Intersect" lands on a mere three out of ten stars. I had hopes for the movie when I sat down to watch it, but those hopes vanished like morning dew before the rising sun pretty early on in the movie. In fact, the last 8 minutes of the movie is essentially what you need to watch to get the concept of the movie. Not worth the time or effort really.

Meh. It was alright. So, in this Covid world in which we live, the vacuum created by the constantly delayed big budget stuff is going to be filled either by mediocre titles that probably would've under performed in a crowded summer theater (Mulan, Bill & Ted 3, Greyhound) or the arthouse/small/tiny budget festival treats that somehow find a footing with critics and audiences alike (Vast of Night comes to mind). But we have run out of those. Intersect is a perfectly decent SyFy movie of the month. It is inoffensive in its attempts at mediocrity. If it means anything - I didn't pause it when i went to get another beer or release said beers back into the wild. If you like sci-fi, and specifically Lovecraft inspired tales, this is a perfectly reasonable 80 minute movie. Except that they made it 40 mins longer than it needed to be (2 hours??!!). If you are desperate for something and its your genre, have at it. 5/10

Ok, first of all, all the positive reviews with a high score are made from bot accounts, since all of those fake users have only one review (of the film) and those are mostly overwhelmingly positive. I'm not judging anyone, but this is not a good practice to promote a film.

Second, the production quality is way under the level of a 2020 production. I understand the budgetary limitations, but it seems like they spent their budget on the wrong things. It doesn't look good, the color correction is messy, dubbing is also not a good thing for a film in 2020. The CGI is fine, but the film could've done without it. It wasn't a good idea to boost your film's look by spending money on that. Especially since they re-use those a couple of times (using the same CGI sequences backwards).

This is followed by the third and the most important point, which is - inexperience of the creators. It shows in every aspect, the writing, the structure of the film, all the basic aspects of filmmaking.

The inspirations were very clear and the ideas of Stephen King (homages to characters from IT and more), classic time travel sci-fi elements (Time Machine), Lovecraftian unspeakable horror are all present, but all of these are undermined by point #3.

Instead of being a 2hr slow film with lots of tearjerking and not particularly interesting dialogue, this could've been a mini-series (yes, I understand the budgetary limits). There was no need to reverse the story, especially in a confusing way they did it (again, stemming from point #3). If you want your audience to understand what is going on, you have to give basic locations, dates, establishing shots.

The acting was also very uneven, kid actors were surprisingly fine, but some of the more mature performances were horrendous. The overacting of the actor who played Nate Beaumont was a mental pain. His overexaggerated facial expressions were a real pain to watch.

Again, if the story would move from the start to finish the evolution of the characters would be easier to understand, again, the film that also inspired this - Contact (1997) managed that. There are many good films that handle jumps in time much better, like Starship Troopers. It would've been interesting to see what these kids will grow into, and how everything will fall into place. But in this film, they made a mess of it, and due to low production quality (they didn't even have the ability to apply old-age make-up) it doesn't work.

The story is rushed through even though this is a 2hr film, they give lots of unnecessary details, it feels very cheap (but again, because they just didn't have enough experience to cut corners where possible and save money for the more important parts).

It clearly wasn't the worst film I have ever seen, and the ideas are there, but the ideas they had were obviously beyond their grasp in many aspects, not only due to limited resources. So low budget is not an excuse, I've seen better acted and more immersive Russian detective series, with a budget of 10 grand.

Many renowned directors started with cheap films and they only became big because they were able to make good films with only their enthusiasm and creativity.

So I would like to wish the creators to get back to these ideas a couple of years from now, re-think, re-write and try to make a bigger and better film out of this. James Cameron would never be able to create a big-budget masterpiece of Terminator 2 if he would not demonstrate his creative genius while making a lesser in scale but still good Terminator.

And please, drop these practices of botting your scores, it diminishes the credibility of your work.