Alive

I recently watched the Canadian film 🇨🇦 Alive (2015) on Tubi. The storyline follows two people with amnesia who wake up strapped to hospital beds. A man feeds and cares for them, claiming to have saved their lives-but it soon becomes clear that if they don't do what he wants, he's willing to take darker measures. Who are they, where did they come from, and what are the motives of this madman?

This picture is directed by Rob Grant (Fake Blood) and stars Angus McFadyen (Braveheart), Thomas Cocquerel (Escape Room: Tournament of Champions), and Camille Stoppard (Bordello).

It's one of those films where you feel like you've seen the premise a hundred times, and you keep wishing it would push things further than it does. The setting is effective and draws you into the story, and while some of the torture scenes work better than others, they suffer from weak special effects. There are a few solid attack sequences scattered throughout, and the acting is strong across the board. The twist at the end lands well, but overall, the content doesn't hit as hard as it should.

In conclusion, Alive is a mediocre kidnap-and-torture thriller that had the potential to be better. I'd give it a 5/10.

What I did like was the props and atmosphere. The script was not (too) terrible. And the sound/music was quite good.

I will say, I did not care for the acting here. It was pretty amateur and overall the movie came off quite silly and campy. I still enjoyed it and genuinely laughed several times, but I get the feeling they weren't going for that.

Also, this feels like a really boring story the entire time. A story you've seen countless times. The final five minutes attempt a twist, which had some potential, but missed a couple big answers and it's almost like they came up with it last second like when the teacher is going around picking up homework. At least give a LITTLE character development or foreshadowing. I didn't care about the main characters at all. They were random and just... I felt nothing for them. At all.

It would have been better if the film just said nothing and left it at that. No twist. Then I wouldn't expect to have empathized with the characters. Instead, in the end, it came off half-assed.

I don't think I'd recommend this film to a general audience. I'd probably not even recommend it to a horror buff. It could be worth a single watch but if you skip it, you're not missing out on much.

This film was pretty well done. The actor playing the caretaker was crazy and sold it. The lady and man were both good also. It made you think it was just one of those people wake up and have been kidnapped type of scenarios. It was that well in a way but it felt it was so much more. You felt for these people and as it went it made you think of different outcomes and what the real intention could be. Altogether a well made horror film and with limited cast makes it easier to follow and enjoy.

I went into this after reading the other 2 reviews and of course making sure they were not the usual 1 review shills and I was not disappointed as it is not a bad little low budget horror.

It does actually feature one of the actors from the original Saw series as the main character and it was his acting that puts this a rung above your average horror film. The two leads are quite effective too and coupled with an amazing location it keeps you guessing all the way to the gruesome denouement similar to Saw so it accomplishes what many other in the genre fail to do with larger budgets.

Its not on the level of Saw but it will satisfy any true horror fan as the script, acting, setting, photography are all top notch so give it a go; it gets an above average 6 hatchets out of 10 from me on this one!

Solid acting, great little premise, great protagonist ending, some head turning little bits in there too which do make you whince.

But... It was painfully drawn out, the protagonists continually chose the most ridiculous things to do purely to help the movie along when there were obvious things to do otherwise... Then the most worn out trope right at the end there could be.

If you do watch it you will hear yourself say, "oh just do (insert action)" , "Really?" "FFS" a fair bit, and none of this is in an excitement induced way because you are riveted to the screen. No. It is because you have had enough and just want to see how it climaxes.

That's my warning for you!