Horror Movie Review: The Blackout (2009)

Never judge a movie by its cover…I learned these lessons years ago. Movie makers love to plaster a kick-ass cover all over the place to make you want to see their movie & then it sucks…

Check out that cover…looks amazing right? I mean the monster alone looks like it’s worth the money…yeah?

It’s Christmas Eve in L.A…The residents of an apartment complex are going about their lives in earthquakes, stifling heat & power surges that are affecting the entire city.

We are slowly introduced to our fodder… *ahem* I mean characters as they get ready to attend neighbours Christmas party. We have a family of 4 & the man’s unwelcome brother hanging about much to the chagrin of the wife. Then we have a couple who are estranged for reasons that are unclear…not that you’d care anyway. Then we have a couple who are in love & soon to marry…adorable….and the rest who are extremely interesting people.

The story really gets going when the parents of the kids want to mess about in the bedroom but the kids are being a pain. They send them off to the dark basement to get the presents where they run into some sort of nasty creature that kills the boy (the little girl survives somehow & reappears later).

So the party gets underway…it’s one of the worst parties I’ve ever seen & no-one seems to really like each other. It’s not helped that almost everyone involved are genuinely bad actors with awful dialogue.

Anyway the building comes under attack from the nasty beasties in the basement – seems the earthquakes might have had something to do with their arrival.

Can the group of party-goers survive the onslaught? Will the unhappy couple sort their shit out? Will anyone of these actors get work afterwards?

So much of The Blackout is bad…bad acting, bad visuals, bad special effects but the worst thing of all is the monsters. God damn it…

In a monster movie you gotta get the monster right…you can’t have some dude in a rubber suit trying to look menacing. It looks awful, it looks like rubber! The big creature reveal is easily one of the most disappointing moments of the film. I don’t understand why they didn’t stick with fleeting shots & the creatures being shrouded in darkness so it looked intimidating (which at times it does).

So what does the film get right? There are plenty of deaths & some of them are pretty funny (the photo-sensitive one). The film doesn’t mind who it kills & people I thought were sure to survive don’t. I mean the film kills kids & leaves some bloody remains about which not enough films have the guts to do.

Sadly as is the norm now the ending is a sequel bait ending with a few survivors getting out to see the creatures attacking the city & large spire/spikes breaking out of the ground. Now that sounds like it would have been a better movie.

I hoped for better, I shouldn’t have. Thankfully it never over-stays its welcome & there are enough deaths to keep your attention. There are plenty of negatives but the one that will always stand out for me will be the creature design…so disappointing.