Shockwave: Darkside (2014) Reviews

• Some people should never make movies

  sevagc2014-08-25

  Watched this "movie" at FrightFest 2014 (a "world premiere" and I hope the last ever showing), it was by far the worst movie shown and an embarrassment for anyone involved. Never have I seen a cinema auditorium empty so quickly. Dubbed as a 3D movie, it was the worst use of 3D I have ever seen, with at least 50% of the shots viewable with no 3D at all; I ended up watching most of the movie without 3D glasses. The CG looked unfinished, a very confusing use of HUD (used throughout the movie) made some moments unwatchable and the script was just plain awful. There really was no need to make this into a movie, an audiobook would have been easier to digest. The boxy spacesuits looked like they were made from cereal boxes, you could clearly see tape around the edges! My creativity in writing has waned so I'll bring this to an end, this movie is truly awful, some people should never make movies.

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• Seldom have I experienced something like this

  kosmasp2014-10-14

  And I'm not talking about "how bad the movie is" or me watching this was awful or worst ... ever scenarios. I've seen worse movie, that's not it. But I have never seen anything and talked to people after that, where no one ... let me write that get again -> NO ONE(!), not one single person, had anything good to say about the movie. This happened at Frightfest and if this movie won something, it was worst movie playing in 2014 at the Festival. Having said all that, I normally have a weak spot for movies that put a band of people together, preferably with different skills, diversity in general. One of the few things this almost succeeds in. One of the other being the science factor, where a friend of mine said, they got a couple of things right. But all is rendered useless, by an uninspired script, acting "wooden" (which is also attributed to the really bad costumes), bad effects that could be able to make you puke and a general disorientation at times. Which is even worse when it happens during action sequences. It's a shame, but this 3D experiment went completely off the rails .... not in a good way

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• A new low

  steve-173-3169792014-08-28

  This was a catastrophic new low in my film watching and cinema going life, easily the worst film I've ever seen and the first time I've walked out of a film at the cinema. For god sake, I even sat through Transformers 2!! An incomprehensible mess of a film with poor sound, pointless ill conceived 3D and a complete lack of plot, structure, anything. CGI reminiscent of my 80's Atari console which only helped confuse the viewer as to what was happening. The actors were stuck inside cardboard space helmets the entire films which meant any attempts they made to act were sadly thwarted by a script which was pure amateur hour I'd give it 0/10 if IMDb let me

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• There are probably worse films in existence, but I don't think I've seen any of them

  leominosa2014-08-29

  I'd rather forget the experience of watching this film altogether than dwell on it, but this is so bad that I feel people have to be warned. Unlike many people who left the screening I was in (at London's FrightFest) I stayed to the bitter end out of morbid curiosity. Shockwave Darkside fails as a piece of filmmaking on every level. Unwatchable 3D, faulty colour grading, dull and unvaried visuals, incredibly basic CGI, awful sound, a ridiculous and nonsensical plot, a terrible and pretentious script, two-dimensional and unbelievable characters, high school-standard acting (though I do feel sorry for the actors, especially Bill Sage who doesn't deserve to have this abomination on his CV), silly costumes, poor and muddled exposition, nonexistent structure and sloppy – at best – direction (at one point a major character dies in a period of relative action, but this is only apparent after a few minutes when you realise she's just not there any more so must have been killed). It also features the sort of cod philosophy that you engage in when drunk or stoned as a teenager at 3am. You might imagine that a film this bad would benefit from a degree of so-bad-it's-good entertainment, but it fails even on that level. While the whole thing is extremely silly, and some quotes are potentially funny, it's way too dull and charmless to justify comparisons with the sort of 70s and 80s low-budget genre films that many of us love to laugh at (or with). The only thing you could possibly credit the filmmakers with is ambition, including an attempt at a pay-off involving a (totally infeasible) "discovery" regarding nothing less than the origin of life on Earth (I hope that's vague enough to not be a spoiler, but it really doesn't matter anyway). Unfortunately this sub-Twilight Zone reveal is as poorly executed as the rest of the film, involving arbitrary and unbelievable decisions made by characters and preposterous scientific postulations. I'm genuinely curious as to how this film got made. At any number of points from first draft of the script onwards it must have been clear to at least some of those involved that this was going to be terrible. I feel sorry for the people who made Shockwave Darkside as I can empathise with anyone who tries their best and puts a lot of time and effort into creating something only for people like me to say horrible things about it, but frankly they should consider their futures in filmmaking as I fear it's not for them. In any case any sympathy I had disappeared when I saw that 11 people had given the film 10/10 on here, as this is obviously people involved with the film. While you'd expect that with any film, to make THIS and then do that betrays an unhealthy degree of chutzpah. There are probably worse films in existence than this, but I don't think I've seen any of them.

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• Terrible in all aspects

  Nestor_Sanchez2016-01-10

  Avoid this piece of crap at all costs. I really tried to find any redeeming quality in the movie (if it can be called one) but I sincerely can't find any: the script is terrible, the production value is even worse and the direction might as well have come from a high school kid. The movie lacks structure, any decent line of dialog or engaging plot, it has lame HUD's superimposed at random times and shows what might be the worst space suit design even for a low budget film. I can't give it a 1 simply because I can imagine that somewhere there is a worse film worth of that rating, but I have yet to find it.

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