#19 - The Void (2016)
When Sheriff Deputy Carter finds a man bleeding and stumbling along a remote country road, he rushes him to the nearest hospital, which is nearly abandoned due to a recent fire. He and the few staff members that remain soon find themselves trapped inside the building by a group of mysterious hooded figures, and pretty soon all hell breaks loose (possibly literally).
I thought this was a pretty cool movie. It has a very Lovecraftian vibe to it, with secret cults and cosmic horrors and all that. The highlight is probably the creature effects, which are all (or at least mostly) practical and look fantastic. They are extremely reminiscent of stuff from the 80's, especially movies like The Thing and From Beyond. The film in general is brimming with atmosphere and creepy imagery, and you're probably going to need a strong stomach for some of it.
Aside from the impressive visuals and effects, though, there isn't much else to write home about here. The plot definitely takes a backseat to the visuals, to the point where I was sometimes not sure what was even going on. I guess cosmic horror doesn't always need to make perfect sense, but towards the end the story goes maybe too far off the rails. Still, I can mostly forgive the faults, as this film works really well as a love letter to classic 80's horror. Plus I really love stuff about supernatural cults and horrors from beyond.
Also I wanted to note the similarities between this and the Turkish film Baskin from 2015. That one also has a group of characters investigating an abandoned building that may or may not contain a portal to another world, and features a ton of similar gory and nightmarish imagery. I'm not sure whether or not The Void was influenced by Baskin, since they were released just over a year apart, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it was.
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