The Void (2017)

The Void (2017)

IMDB Rating 6.1/10  (as on 18.04.2017)

1h 30min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi

Shortly after delivering a patient to an understaffed hospital, a police officer experiences strange and violent occurrences seemingly linked to a group of mysterious hooded figures.

Directors: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski

Writers: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski

Stars: Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh, Daniel Fathers

 IMDB link Here

One of the more action-packed features to come from the current crop of John Carpenter-inspired filmmakers, The Void finds collaborators Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski going much further than many of their peers: Where others might relish an hour or so of slow-build retro mood that leads to a single horrific set piece, these writer/directors graft enough plot for three different varieties of 1980s drive-in flicks into a single film. The result should find admirers among the fanboy crowd, raising the stakes for the team's next feature, even if it has little crossover potential.

Aaron Poole plays Daniel Carter, a small-town sheriff whose beat is interrupted one night when a stranger emerges from the woods, badly beaten and traumatized by something he has seen. He takes the young man to the closest hospital, which is in the process of closing down and is manned by a skeleton crew — including Daniel's estranged wife Allison (Kathleen Munroe), a doctor, and the town's old G.P., Dr. Powell (Kenneth Welsh).

Viewers who know enough to compare this shape-shifting monster (evidently made entirely with practical effects, not CGI) with the one lurking in Carpenter's The Thing will certainly also connect the more reality-based hospital-under-siege side of the film to his Assault on Precinct 13. If Gillespie and Kostanski don't quite wring the maximum amount of tension from either aspect here, it's largely because their real interest is in yet another source of scares: the eponymous "void," the object of occult activity by a madman who has created a veritable house of horrors underneath the hospital.

What this all lacks in cohesiveness it makes up for in sincerity, with cast and crew intent on exploring a world that is built upon, not built to emulate, those encountered in '80s genre cinema. An ambiguous final sequence furthers the impression that the filmmakers hope to conjure something bigger even than their own imaginations can fully describe.

Read full review at Hollywood Reporter

Movie Rating 🌟🌟☆☆☆

An effects-driven gore-fest

Wendy Ide

This gleefully amateurish satanic gore-fest is the kind of film you might get if you gave a 15-year-old horror fan access to a strobe light, some white bed sheets and a job lot of exploding prosthetic heads. The plot is of negligible importance in a movie that feels more like a CV for an effects artist than a coherent story. In the basement of a burned-out hospital, grotesque cadavers hang like flesh stalactites, and a monster that looks like the leftovers from a liposuction operation picks off the cast. Fortunately a chatty evil genius is on hand to explain his nefarious plan at length (while simultaneously flaying off his own skin, for some reason).

Read full review at The Guardian

Movie Rating 🌟🌟🌟☆☆

The Void is a horror B-movie most likely to excite those who enjoyed the Tom Baker-era of Doctor Who

Jamie East

Fans of Tom Baker era Doctor Who and pulp horrors like Creep Show will feel right at home – others may need to adjust their sets.

We begin with the rather gruesome killing of a young girl at the hand of some redneck types before meeting Daniel Carter, a small town Sheriff who stumbles across a terrified, injured man in the middle of the night.

Rushing him to the virtually deserted local A&E for treatment turns out not to be the greatest of ideas, for whatever scared the bejesus out of him has followed.

Made on a shoestring, it's a wonder they managed to cram so many reference points in, but we get satanic cults, lunatic doctors, alien pregnancies, heroics, the full shooting match.

This is a proper homage to the kind of cheesy VHS horror people of a certain age will remember with fondness.

John Carpenter's influence hangs off every slimy tentacle and whilst it's not the most layered or complex film you'll see - the lack of polish is it’s charm.

Expect nothing more than John Landis going nuts in a hospital and you’ll have a proper fun watch.

Read full review at The Sun