The Void

Year: 2016
Genre: Horror
Directed: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski
Stars: Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh, Daniel Fathers, Kathleen Munroe, Ellen Wong, Mik Byskov, Art Hindle, Stephanie Belding, James Millington, Evan Stern, Grace Munro, Matthew Kennedy, David Scott
Production: Cave Painting Pictures

The Void is not a very good movie, though to be honest the film has every conceivable handicap inherited from the trappings of its genre. It's cheaply made, independently produced, terribly acted and starts with a pretty straightforward slasher plot that pits the occupants of a small town hospital against a swath of knife-wielding wackos. The fact that The Void was also crowdfunded only cements the idea that the film will eventually be the butt of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-Present) episode; if not forgotten outright.

Welcome back guys!

Yet I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss this amateurish ode to Lovecraftian horror. As decidedly terrible as it is, the direction and cinematography hints there's someone at home. The moments of suspense are for the most part genuine, as is the all-permeating feeling of bleakness and dread. There are some truly create set-pieces that effectively hide the cheapness of the movie as well as some literate flourishes akin to Kenneth Anger's celluloid abstractions and H.R. Giger's feral body horror.

So this is a thing that happens...

The sustained doom and gloom of the film is complimented admirably by The Void's ghastly third act, which all but gives up on its mundane plot to give us something new. Well, maybe not new, but definitely something mainstream audiences haven't seen since Silent Hill (2006) and haven't seen done well since Hellraiser (1987). If you can forgive all its faults and brush off the film's additional misplaced pretension you may find something worth salvaging here.

But of course for every competent tableaux of occult mythos, spooling across the screen there's about a dozen or so moments of eye-rolling stupidity. The group dynamic between this crop of expendables never seems to coalesce or even make sense. There are a few woeful moments of bad character decisions that never seem practical, expedient or in any way reasonable and, as if to draw attention to it's laziness, one character straight-up idiot lectures every piece of our protagonist's (Poole) backstory like he's his biographer. I mean good God, I've seen bad exposition dumps before but this is Village (2004)-level excruciating.

The Void is a bad movie. But it's a bad movie the same way Bad Taste (1987) or The Last House on the Left (1972) are bad movies. There are huge problems that could have been solved with a little more money, little more organization, a little more rewrites etc. Yet when it comes to the composite parts (makeup, lighting, art direction) as well as the film's overall vision, co-directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski do seem to be headed in the right direction.

FYI: These are the guys who made Last House on the Left and Bad Taste

Final Grade: F