The definition of the word “nebulous” includes “hazy,” “unclear” and “vague.” These are good words to describe the post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie Nebulous Dark. Its story and world-building are incredibly hazy/unclear/vague and its visuals make it difficult to figure out where anything is in relation to anything else. It combines an alien invasion that has decimated the Earth, zombies and a very ill-defined time loop with dialogue that mainly serves to repeatedly show how confused the protagonist is. I was equally baffled. Much of the budget appears to have been spent on the look of the aliens and the destroyed planet. Both of those aspects of the production are fine enough. It is basically every other aspect of the production that is the problem.
A man wakes up in a barren landscape with no idea of where he is or what has happened. After being attacked by zombies, he realizes humanity is in trouble and he is their last hope. Or something like that.
To be honest, I had a hard time understanding how people were turned into zombies, as well as the nature of his time loop. There are no moments of discovery or even real story development. He ponders what has happened (a lot; that seems to be the purpose of the majority of the dialogue in Nebulous Dark), fires his gun a whole bunch and then the movie is over. It doesn’t tell its story so much as kind of describe it. This comes across like a feature length trailer for a post-apocalyptic/alien invasion/zombie/time loop movie, with bursts of action and exclamatory dialogue, but no details that would allow a viewer to actually care about anything going on.
The biggest issue is the way Nebulous Dark has been filmed. Most shots are close-ups. For example: we see the protagonist. Then we see a zombie growling. Then we see the protagonist firing his weapon. Then we see the zombie on the ground with a bullet hole in its head. At no point in the sequence does it feel like human and zombie inhabit the same space.
This also occurs during the few dialogue scenes. Someone says something in close-up, followed by a cut to somebody else responding in close-up. There are only a couple of moments featuring more than one actor in a shot. As a result, there is no sense of space. It is possible this had to be done due to budgetary reasons; however, it is extremely distracting. How can the audience follow the action if it doesn’t seem like the characters are in the same movie?
There are some ideas in Nebulous Dark, yet they have been executed in a way that is nearly impossible to follow. The story is muddled, the characters have no real personality to speak of and any potentially exciting moments are undercut by the feeling that the characters do not occupy the same plain of existence. Early on, there are several atmospheric shots of a confused man walking through a fog, struggling mightily to get his bearings. That is how I felt watching this.
--Ben Pivoz
