This festival favourite was a pleasant surprise for me and is sure to have technophobes and conspiracy theorists alike shaking in their boots with fear.
Genre fave Jeremy Sisto stars (and co-produces) as Simon J. a computer technician who begins receiving empty packages. Simon is already a highly strung individual, and begins to suspect that his strange employers have something to do with it, as he begins to receive malicious and threatening phonecalls from his anxious employers.
Simon soon begins to suspect that his strange neighbours are somehow involved, and his investigation uncovers terrifying results that will change life as we know it forever.
This film is such an accomplished piece of work with rich texture, amazing use of location, lighting and camera and fine performances from some of the genre’s most respected talents.
Jeremy Sisto was his usual weird self but it worked a treat. Bruce Payne was intimidating, Udo Keir hilarious, Deborah Kara Unger mysterious and Lance Henriksen turned in his best performance in a long while.
The Romanaian locations served as great additional characters to the movie and the underworld of sex, technology, viruses and all manner of creepy goings on made me question all that I had previously thought was safe.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The film was dark in nature and tone, but had moments of light relief and was so intriguing that it’s 90 minute running time flew by. I got what the film was trying to say, but I would have to rewatch it in order to fully understand it’s finer points. With remakes currently pulling in the big bucks, it is no wonder I saw this on DVD, yet it is so original that it deserves a hell of a lot of credit.
