Have you ever walked into your garage and glanced at a tub of extension cords, wondering if it could come alive at any moment and possess your body? Well, wonder no longer because Await Further Instructions is here to tell you exactly how that would happen! This film is an incoherent mess of horror that does not seem to serve any purpose. An absolutely awful script and meaningless character motivations make this movie the jumbled heap of under-saturated garbage that it appears to be. And yet, despite this movie's student-film feel and completely nonsensical plot points, I couldn't help but keep watching. If there is one element that this film is good at, it's making the audience wonder what the hell could possibly happen next.
This film follows Nick (Sam Gittins) and Annji (Neerja Naik), a young couple who are visiting Nick's family for a traditional, British Christmas. After one night of high tensions and the struggles that come with family dinners, Nick and Annji decide to leave but find out that they can't due to a strange, black substance that covers their home, not letting them outside. The television gives the family instructions on what to do next while the tensions quickly turn into bloody chaos (pun intended). What drew me in the most about this film was the picture displayed on my Netflix screen of a character with wires wrapped through his head, seemingly possessed. This decently interested me and while I knew I was in for a C-grade horror story, I hoped for at least something creative. The biggest issue with this film, however, is that it does not even make use of the one supernatural element that it seems to be marketing. As the family slowly goes insane when they begin getting picked off one by one, the audience is left to wonder the entire time about who is controlling them or what the horrific substance on the house is. These questions are never answered, however, and as each character was killed off in strange ways, nothing seems to connect. So once the evil, monster wire bundles attack in the last five minutes or so, I was left feeling so unsatisfied as to what the meaning of any of it could be. This whole movie is really just an exercise of "how many illogical different ways can we off our characters without seeming repetitive?" without attempting to tie together any of these important plot points.
Gavin Williams' writing and Johnny Kevorkian's directing are absolutely this film's two biggest issues. They were so horrible, in fact, that I am not even sure if Williams and Kevorkian ever even met to discuss the film they were making. Williams' screenplay is chock full of cheesy clichés and almost obsolete character development or motivations. Every character seemed to be taken right out of a textbook full of familial archetypes and their dialogue blatantly displayed that too. This was, of course, most apparent in the opening scenes at the family dinner. Since this is a British film with British actors set in (you guessed it) Britain, I was not expecting what they fought about to be politics. But strangely enough, it seems like American politics were written into this film about a British family, which made no logical sense. I really do not think every country on Earth argues about the same topics that we do in America and I found this entire scene to be unbelievable. But then again, this family is apparently a prehistoric one that doesn't even own a basic flat screen TV, so who knows?
Perhaps the screenplay was one that built tension very well, but Kevorkian's directing took that opportunity far away, nearly breaking this film. The pacing was unbearably awkward as each family member was killed in some weird, unexplainable way. The wire monster that had infested the entire neighborhood did not rear its ugly head until the last few minutes, which honestly would have made the rest of the film a *slight* bit better. And to end the film with a shot of a baby and theme of apparent rebirth, akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey, did not help to clear any of this film's confusion. The performances, cinematography, and editing were all very standard as nothing stood out, but at least those aspects seemed to work well together. However, despite this movie's lack of coherence in practically every aspect, I could not help but be entertained. This movie provides pure, dumb fun in the most ridiculous way and for that, I applaud it.
Await Further Instructions is definitely a film that I will be unapologetically forgetting about in the next few days, even hours. There is not a single piece about this movie that even tries to make it somewhat cohesive, but honestly, I can not say that I was not entertained. Thankfully, I was in a good mood and did not expect much as I watched this or I would be writing a much harsher piece right about now.
My Rating: ★½
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