The Blackout (2009)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

i must have seen a different film!!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The Blackout is set in Los Angeles & starts on Christmas Eve as the city has been suffering from a heat wave, minor tremors have also been causing the local authorities concern. The Ravenwood apartment block is almost empty, most of the residents have left for the Christmas holidays but a select few are still living there hoping to have a happy Christmas. Suddenly a city wide power cut causes a mass blackout, candles & torches are the only source of light as the few remaining residents of Ravenwood discover that the apartment block has been infested with carnivorous creatures that like the taste of human flesh. With no lights or way of contacting the outside world for help the small number of residents must work together to try & get to safety before they all become monster food...Edited & directed by Robert David Sanders this typical low budget Creature Feature mix of Alien (1979) & The Mist (2007) as a group of faceless clichés are trapped in an isolated location & are hunted down by some generic creatures, the whole film is lacklustre & takes most if not all of it's ideas from better films. From the one dimensional character's who make you root for the monsters to the script that never really tries to tie anything together, the origins of the creatures are never explained except that there's a hole in the basement floor, the whole electro magnetic field angle isn't covered to any great satisfaction, the human survivors plans to escape the monsters just seem silly with one guy actually trying to find one to test some silly idea out he has & the significance of the tremors or where those huge rock spires come from is left unclear. Then there's the stupid script that has people do stupid things, people constantly split up, while being chased by flesh eating monsters these people keep stopping for little chats, some guy randomly decided to bring a gun to a Christmas party, after seeing a long trail of blood a little girl decides to follow it rather than run, the whole elevator shaft escape turns ordinary people into superhuman climbers & when the elevator does drop why does it explode like it was full of explosives? The character's are bland & forgettable, to be honest I had a hard time keeping track of who liked who, who was related to who & who hated who since they all lack any sort of personality. At a shade under 80 minutes at least it's short & there are worse films out there but as far as Creature Feature horror films go The Blackout isn't anything to get excited about at all.The main area of interest in a film such as The Blackout is obviously the monsters themselves, here they look exactly like what they are, men in rubber monster suits & a CGI style Scorpion tail. They are pretty inanimate, they open their mouths & occasionally blink but there's no great facial movement or dripping slime or moving tongue or any little detail that might truly convince us that these creatures might actually be real. There's a bit of gore, someone is decapitated & their body slides down a wall independently of their severed head, there's some blood splatter & a monster sticks the end of it's tail into a woman's face. Despite taking place during a total city wide blackout there seems to be a lot of light about, especially in the basement & the elevator shaft which really should have been pitch black.Filmed in Los Angeles on what was probably a low budget The Blackout does look quite slick at times though the effects are no better than average & the clean modern apartment building interiors fail to generate much interest, tension or atmosphere. The acting is pretty bland but none of the actor's are given much to work with.The Blackout is a by the numbers people trapped in an isolated location getting killed off by monsters type horror film, while not the worst of it's kind the negatives like people splitting up all the time outweigh the positives like a short duration.

I would love to write an eloquent, cohesive review on this film, but after watching it, I think my IQ dropped about 50 points. The movie takes place in Los Angeles, but the buildings look more like Chicago or Kansas City. The sub terrestrial monsters could have been rented at a local costume store, and the acting is completely laughable. The premise is that monsters from underground are coming up to wreak havoc on the city in general and an apartment complex in particular. My time could have been spent better picking lint off the floor of my house by hand. The only way I would recommend this movie is if you are considering having a lobotomy, watch this film instead, it would be cheaper.

We open with a family and the fathers slacker brother having Christmas dinner. Their next door neighbors are throwing a Christmas party, they're a bunch of lame D-bags. Some guy awaiting his soon to be divorced wife's return. And some agoraphobic dork with a short wave transmitter. The city has been suffering small earth quakes all day and mild blackouts do to the earth quakes it would seem.After a small family fight the parents go into the bedroom for some unplanned alone time. The daughter comes in and catches them and inquires as to what they're doing. The parents reply "We're playing." The daughter replies "Can I play too." This also occurs when the son enters the room. The son is sent to the basement to get his Christmas present? On the other side of the script the guy and his soon to be divorced wife mildly argue about something and he storms off to the party.Then if this movie didn't have enough pointlessly intertwining plots some other couple gets tossed in so they can die. They're in love thats about all they have going for them. The party seems to be filled with the types of people that you avoided in college. Basically rich kids who tell bad jokes, hit on their best friends significant other, and whose social skills were acquired at keg parties or discotheques.And then yes more characters are brought in to die. A rather large man and his small and disgustingly sleazy friend.At this point the son has gone to the basement for his gift and noticed these alien like shell creatures with slimy tails being dragged across the floor by fishing line (no joke it was like an Ed Wood film). Then one of these creatures sheds its shell and grows roughly 100 times it's size in about two seconds. And then it's dinner time.Dad and the daughter decide to go search for dinner time but for some bizarre reason only the daughter gets in the elevator (which I'm still not sure why the characters are still using since every ten seconds or so there's another earth quake). And guess who doesn't think to use the stairs to follow her? Once in the basement desert sees the trail of blood only after getting off the elevator. She hears noises and hides.At this point weird nerd guy with the short wave radios get a visit from the super and an electrician they decide to go into the hallway. The electrician gets it in the gut. This is when the super and dork come to the conclusion that the creatures emit an electromagnetic signal that disrupts electricity and thus screws with the lights. At the party the guy with the ex starts being aggressively hit on by the hostess and is caught by his soon to be ex. Finally noises start coming from a bedroom and the hostess goes to check it out. The monsters are pretty much the shape of a human with what appears to be an exoskeleton but it's actually skin and it's covered in sweet and sour sauce. It's face is sort of Venom from Spider-man and it has a tail with a razor sharp pincer on the end of it. I't grabs sleazy hostess and begins to devour her. The big guy who had just finished telling a story that he heard someone else tell at a fraternity party five years prior pulls out a hand gun with a light attached to it. Then he pulls out another one. Yes, thats right from his waist area he pulls out not one but two handguns both with lights attached to them. I often go to Christmas parties with two hand guns.All the party people try to get into the next door families house and have to kick the door in to get some sanctuary yet for some reason the parent don't want to help them and insist that they all leave immediately. Finally the guy who was really gross and came with the big guy with two guns drops some knowledge on the crew by explaining that the creature must be photosensitive yo! Dang ain't you never watched the discovery channel. Whack a@* crackers! And suggests to try and hurt the creature with light while the others make a run for the stair well. They get to the stairwell but Discovery channel gets the pincers to the throat.For some reason guy and girl who are in love stay behind in the families apartment. The guy puts a ring on girls finger and she gets the pincers to the skull. Guy drops the other gun and walks out into the hallway covered in her blood. The Charlton Heston guy hears their screams and decides to go back up.There's an awesome goof right here regarding the floor number they go down the stairs by the third floor twice. On floor two they meet up with Super and Dork. The earth quakes are being caused by sharp rocks coming from underground and one has blocked the entrance, The ladies are left on the second floor stairwell landing (except for mom) so the men can go search for the kids. In the basement they encounter two of the monsters and actually you never see more than two at a time which leads me to think that they only had two monster suits made. They kill one and then another and the mom cries because they find dinner times shoe. I'm running out of space so I'll let the end anger you as it did, me.The script was sub-par. The acting was dry, completely lacking of sincerity, and just generally unbelievable. There seemed to be no direction and no one around to examine what was being done with a critical eye. The monsters were beyond lame. Zero explanations were offered.

To be fair the premise of the movie is a good one, they (the actors) just do not do it justice. They never explain where or how these critters came about nor why they have not attacked before now. The monsters are completely unbelievable as no living thing could exist with that many teeth in its mouth. Some of the scenes were so dark you could barely see what was going on. The actors are fake and you really start cheering for them to be killed. In some scenes you can actually see the reflection of the lights from the cameras in the eyes of the actors and in others you can see them looking quickly off screen to get their cues. I tried to be fair and give it a chance, but it was too hard. So if you want to waste some time, then this is a good film for you to see as it actually wastes the time you watched it, just don't ask for it back.