Cosmic horror in the vein of Lovecraft is a rare thing in film, and the examples often veer into camp, intentionally and otherwise (the loss of Del Toro's big budget In The Mountain of Madness still stings). Combined with the promise of grotesque practical in the vein of many great '80s horror films, needless to say I was very excited for The Void. While there is a decent amount to admire here, the film is undone by a crowd-funded budget and inexperienced directors that have yet to find their own voice.

The film tries to go for a classic Carpenter, in particular The Thing, but fails to understand the most important lessons. Whereas The Thing's tension built and built, The Void does. I appreciated just how quickly things ramp up, but this creates pacing issues the film never recovers from. Sequences that could have been incredibly tense are undone by either being too short or poor editing (the former likely a consequence of the budget, the latter is a bit more baffling to me and almost gives the impression the filmmakers are embarrassed of their monsters). I ultimately found myself not caring about the characters, and as a result the tragic background stories did nothing. Carpenter was wise in The Thing to not even attempt this.

That said, there are elements here that make me hope this film is financially successful. The dreamlike imagery of a Lovecraftian world is easily the most intriguing and unsettling attributes of this film, and I was left wanting more. Thematically the film tackles some interesting subject matter including the destructive nature of not moving on from the death of loved ones, but the various threads fail to come together well. And as mentioned, I was pleasantly surprised by just how quickly things go to hell. If the filmmakers get a bigger budget and learn from their mistakes here, I think a second film that is in the same vein could be something special. Sadly, I have to consider this one a disappointing miss.

C-

Ok so I actually have quite a bit to say about this one.

As much as I don't want to say I was disappointed with this movie I can't get past the fact that I was expecting so much more from this considering all the praise. First off, I loved the 80's aesthetic of this film. For a low budget, indie horror movie it looks top notch and there are truly some amazing shots where they use light and shadows. The practical effects and the gore is quite impressive as well with Lovecraft's influence playing a big part in the overall creepiness of the movie and the nightmarish look of the creatures. However, all the good stuff about this film stops at the technical aspects, because while the performances are fine I honestly didn't care for any of the characters and they try really hard to get you invested in them.

Everytime there was human drama onscreen this movie came to a screeching halt and it was annoying how many times the momentum/pacing got screwed up only because they thought it would be a good idea to focus on some cliché shit for what felt like 20 minutes. Also, while the creatures were cool the editing in this movie is pretty bad. I swear there was so much damn shaky cam at times that it was hard to see what exactly was going on during the action. It was like you barely saw enough of the monsters, but I guess that might have something to do with budget reasons. I do want to see what these directors can do in the future with a more reasonable budget, but so far it seems as if this movie is only getting the pass because it is somewhat ambitious which I can understand, but don't necessarily agree with.

Very flawed in a lot of ways—there are a few too many characters, and their relationships are sketchily developed; the plot is hard to follow despite a highly expository antagonist; the pacing is a bit lax considering the claustrophobia and immediacy of the story—but the John Carpenter-pastiche style and ultra-glutinous, cosmic-demonic practical F/X are cool enough to push the film over the finish line. But only just.

C+

This is a stronger movie, easily, but The Void reminds me a bit of Skyline from 2010. A relatively inexperienced directorial duo who want to display their see-what-we-can-do-with-almost-no-money technical prowess—Roland Emmerich-style CG destruction there, practical creature F/X here—but do not entirely understand how to utilize actors, tell a crisp story, etc.