The worm and the maiden. Review of ”Virus”
Probably, the directors Henry Just and Ariel Schulman are guys too smart, and Jason Bloom is a producer too crazy, even if at times lucky, so it turns out from their cooperation, don't get it. The third and fourth parts of the "Paranormal Activity" franchise and now " Virus " - invisible films. As if in them the director's and production efforts are mutually leveled to the point of illusion. You watch movies and you don't see. There is something on the screen that is hidden with incomprehensible diligence, and this is not about characters who are masters of hiding, like ghosts or parasitic worms.Two sisters from a dysfunctional family - Emma (Sophia Black-D'Elia) and Stacy (Analee Tipton) - live with their father in a nice quiet suburb, slaughter frogs, hang out, fall in love, and meanwhile "the Chinese virus is already in California." The dysfunctional daddy goes to rescue the dysfunctional mommy from the quarantined airport and never returns. Obama on TV claims that everything is not so scary, and the sinister video blogger on the Web says that everything is terrible. The blogger turns out to be right, martial law is declared, television and the Internet end. And the beautiful Emma and her chosen one, a simple American guy Evan (Travis Tope), despite the rating of "18+", never having tasted the joys of the flesh, start awkwardly, but successfully survive,  A pretty girl and nasty worms is not a bad plot. Often the moviegoer has to be content with one thing. If we are condescending and approach the picture from this side, then, to repeat after Obama , everything is not so scary, but there are nuances. In general, worms are good: they "jump like a hack." Parasites communicate with each other, move nastily, grow rapidly in carriers and, most importantly, do not hesitate to appear. Already at the fifteenth minute, the main figures invade the school pastoral, and after another twenty they arrange macabre on an impromptu dance floor, and, as they say, rushed. But it started off very slowly.  At the party, all the extras from the film with a squeal disappear, and, the creators decide, the time has come to maximize the development in soulful dialogues both of the particular disadvantage of each of the heroes and the general hopelessness of the situation. With particulars it is strained, but it turns out, with the whole, alas, everything is complicated. Occasionally someone spits blood and parasites and gets a bullet, but the light confidence that one way or another all this will end soon does not leave for a minute. And "like this" or "otherwise", annoyingly, are not interesting, so you can discover that there is an explosion and a kiss in the finale. What spoilers are there ...  Sophia Black-D'Elia is a guardian angel and rental mascot of " Virus ". She walks, sits, frowns, smiles, plays a little (is she an actress, in principle, while the question is), and the whole surrounding freak show begins with a creak, but work as a retinue. Of course, the girl does not pull out this galosh entirely, but she will not be able to throw it out of the song. “ Virus ” definitely does not kill her and, accordingly, makes her stronger, which opens new horizons for the actress with the most beautiful double surname in the world. Also available are Anali Tipton and Michael Kelly - quite wealthy actors, albeit not of the first magnitude. Tipton is the only one whose role is more or less spelled out, but again, her character is more suited to a good youth indie drama than a horror movie. The rest of the scenario is such that it would burst at the seams if it claimed integrity. But it doesn't even pop - it just is.  Let's add here an apathetic camera, which even takes off somehow in a chicken way, and a boring, unreasonably dim picture, which, apparently, should be the basis of the film's atmosphere, but does not work well. Let us remember, if not to mention this work, the composer Rob Simonsen, who in melodramas - from "500 Days of Summer" to "The Age of Adaline" - may not work miracles with his music, but invariably delighted. Now it's even scary to imagine what the task was set before him. Everything is bad, but there are saving parasites and a saving girl. However, this is only important for those who are even a little interested in girls and horror.  And yet, Category B tapes have a wonderful thing in common - as a rule, there can be no serious questions about them. Neither the script, nor the picture, nor the cast, nor the production - to anything, except for possible claims to a different weight category. " Virus " doesn't pretend to be like that, and as a result, there is almost nothing to look at. However, the small, but honest production efforts spent on its creation did not go to waste, and if there is no more attractive option on the horizon, then this one will do quite well to while away the evening, if it does not cease to be languid. The Topic of Article: The worm and the maiden. Review of ”Virus”. |
