I think I like these mysterious types of horror movies. I think I was pretty forgiving to Vanishing on 7th Street, which never explains itself to satisfaction. But this movie is really pretty bad. The script is ridiculous and unsatisfying. It tries to offer some kind of philosophy, but it comes across as a desperate attempt to give the impression of depth without saying anything. Do I need a serious message to the movies I watch? Not at all! But I can’t stand to be told I’m seeing something important when it’s obvious I’m not.
Wow, I sound really angry about this movie.
Okay, let me start off with the bad stuff.
First, the movie kicks off by introducing the characters as they chat in their cars as they make a long trip. There’s some silliness, some gags about urinating in a bottle. (This gag should be pretty funny to me. A friend of mine insisted that he really wanted to do the same thing during a drive we made.) During this sequence, I realize that I’ve seen this setup happen. It’s happened many, many times before. Nearly every dead teenager movie since the 90’s has done this kind of setup. It’s cliche, but I’m not too picky about this kind of thing. We move on.
Then they arrive at the mysterious luxury cabin. They look around, and seem mildly wary of the fact that no one is around. This is okay, but this also takes up about a half hour of running time. In that time, they make mild incremental discoveries. This would be okay of this was setup, but this is just developing atmosphere.
This makes me wonder what the structure of this story is supposed to be.
Eventually, people start to disappear. They just blink out of existence. This is a little puzzling, I suppose. The other characters have the weirdest reactions to this. I would expect the experience to just be creepy to them, but in this movie, half the time, characters start screaming in reaction to it. Why?
Mena Suvari got top billing. She’s got a minimal part. She’s the first person to disappear, and her disappearance happens off-camera. It’s almost like her character was written out unexpectedly.
Pretty early on, I noticed that there were references to the characters being in college. One of them is specifically supposed to be 23. (Maybe 22? I’m not positive now) I realized that they all looked a bit old to be playing college-age kids. I looked it up on IMDB… and most of them are in their late 30s, some of them in their early to mid 40s. I should also clarify; this isn’t the kind of thing that I normally complain about. I don’t notice it in most movies. In this, it seemed weird.
The rest of the story doesn’t have much of any development. It’s characters overreacting, people occasionally disappearing. There doesn’t seem to me any real speculation about what is happening. They go through a phase of that early on, but they never offer any ideas that seem worthwhile.
Then, we reach an ending that doesn’t explain anything at all. I feel ridiculous for complaining about this, since sometimes the absence of an explanation can be very effective. In this case, the whole movie was built up around getting the audience to wonder what was happening. When we end without any explanation or clues, it’s only natural that the audience will feel cheated. No characters developed. No mysteries were uncovered. No deeper meaning was explored.
Now that I’ve addressed the bad qualities, maybe I should talk about some of the good things.
The movie is shot reasonably well. There are a few notable sequences, including a fairly long scene of talking and argument, as the camera runs around in a circle. Some of the decoration is effective and clever.
There are occasionally a few nice moments in the script. There’s an exchange where a guy says that he was concerned that a girl had melted. This felt genuine, and probably one of the nicest bits in the story.
I hate saying that it’s a bad movie, but it’s a pretty poor script.
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