Infernal follows young couple Nathan and Sophia as they welcome their first child, Imogene shortly after their wedding (which itself takes place shortly after they move in together). The pair suspect something is wrong when their daughter begins acting strangely and spooky goings on start happening in their home.
What a strange film this is. From the opening sequence, it’s apparent that Infernal is a film which has been forced to fit into a specific genre to have the best chance of making profit and not because the filmmakers wanted to make a horror movie.
The film seems to have a decent budget, looks good, is well acted (for the most part) and even has a plausible explanation for existing in the first place (a therapist tells the couple to document their daughter’s behaviour on camera) for a found footage movie this late in the game.
Where it falters is the fact that it’s a horror movie. Had this been a documentary or even a drama about a young couple struggling to raise an autistic child this would have been quite intriguing, as it stands, it’s melodramatic fare with some truly laughable visual and sound effects work.
Everything feels off about this movie from the ridiculous scenes where Nathan’s best man is supposed to be shooting the wedding video on the same camera the crew used to film the movie (as opposed to using a different camera for effect), which falls flat on it’s face, as they mimic zany handycam moves on a good quality camera, to the ridiculous song choices that take you right out of the movie, to the awful creature scenes where some chode crawls out of a door in a shitty latex bodysuit to touch people – which we the audience are supposed to be scared of by the way. It’s insulting.
OVERALL SUMMARY
I’m usually the first person to leap to the defense of low budget clag but if you think my review is bad, one only needs to read the IMDB message boards for affirmation. I’m even more disappointed because I had recently seen the rather good The Possession of Michael King which made me think people have finally turned a corner with this whole found footage thing and were thinking creatively again. I guess I spoke too soon.
