New Releases: The Rift: Dark Side of the Moon (2017) Reviewed




Perhaps borrowing a name from the classic Pink Floyd album is enough of a sign that people should fear this movie. Using a title that sounds extremely similar to a Transformers movie should be the second sign that all is not well in the world of low level foreign science fiction. While we're no one to bash someone for giving it the old college try, The Rift is something better left unseen by human eyes. 

Dejan Zecevic obviously had an idea of what he wanted to do here. Sadly, his efforts have failed to produce a congruent work of cinema. His project ends up playing like one of those bad video game movies from the early 2000's. Remember junk like Alone in the Dark? Okay, then. Problem solved. 

Bearing a plot that could have been cool in the right hands. The Rift is an attempt to cross the lines between the wormhole elements of Interstellar with the darkened corridors of haunted villages and their grimacing inhabitants. It simply does not work. By the forty minute mark, it becomes clearer that a great idea had taken a left hand turn into unfocused territory that should have remained hidden. 

When an X-Files type story is turned into a no money feature film that stars e-grade actors with a script that needed far more evolution, we get movies like this. After sitting on the shelf for nearly two years, this Ken Foree vehicle finally sees the light of day as a missing astronaut reappears in a small village after missing for decades. The biggest task of this film is making it through the first half. The Rift is a boredom inducing slog that will grind at any viewer expecting something of quality. With a score and soundtrack that sit over the top instead of seamlessly becoming part of the film, annoyance is the name of the game here. Nothing fits. Nothing works.


Care to get some coffee before
this guy rips our movie to shreds?

This week sees the official release of the new horrror/science fiction hybrid, The Rift: Dark Side of the Moon. Notated as the first Serbian production to mix those two specific genres, audiences are given a strange mash up that really can’t decide what it wants to be. Made on a shoestring budget, The Rift looks pretty great considering the lack of funding but the plot is a whole different story. Advertised and marketed with art that makes us think we’re going to get some awesome new outer space adventure flick, this no budget feature takes place in abandoned buildings as the cast tries to solve a mystery that would be better left unsolved. Time is barely spent in the outer limits. This is a muddled mess that’s more like a Resident Evil knockoff meets an extended Twilight Zone rip-off episode that lacks direction or any type of character development.

No, sir. I don't like it. 

Score


-CG