Had no real idea what to expect when I picked this up, my decision was based almost solely on the cover and the small synopsis on the back, the same way we used to choose movies back in the day. Well I'm glad I did as this was a very pleasant surprise and although it doesn't break any new ground, it was refreshing to see a new horror done in an old style and still manage to work.
The setting is a largely abandoned hospital that has recently suffered a major fire. A highway patrolman finds a man, a drug addict, lying in the road and takes him to the hospital for treatment. The hospital is now only run by a skeleton staff of one doctor, 2 nurses and an intern. There are only a handful of patients. Not long after arriving the police officer notices one of the nurses killing one of the patients and seemingly under some kind of hypnotic state as she has removed the skin from her face. After she lunges at the officer with a pair of scissors, she's shot and killed. A state trooper who was already on the way investigating a previous murder relieves the officer of his gun.
Somehow the nurse has reanimated and transformed into a grotesque creature killing the trooper. Meanwhile hooded figures have surrounded the hospital not allowing anyone to leave. 2 armed men show up wanting to get their hands on the man who was recently brought in as he apparently has knowledge of what's going on and they believe he's responsible. With communications between the occupants and the outside world cut and the place surrounded, the small group find themselves in a twisted nightmare and a fight for survival as the mystery of what's going on gets more and more complicated until it's revealed that the doctor has been experimenting on reanimation and has instead found a way to transform people believing that they are a higher and more advanced form of life.
The doctor has managed to impregnate one of the patients and the remaining nurse, (ex-wife of the police officer) in an attempt to recover his lost daughter. The police officer, 2 gun-men and the addict venture down into he lower levels to locate the missing nurse and find themselves hallucinating. It's at this point the movie gets a little hard to follow as you don't always know what's real and what isn't. In any event, the doctor, who was actually killed earlier has since brought himself back to life and with all his skin removed and using a hidden sub-basement area for his experiments has been able to open a portal into another dimension which represents itself as a "plains of hell" complete with black pyramids. The pregnant patient gives birth to a full sized creature which is supposed to be the reincarnation of the doctors daughter. The police officer who is now wounded and near death anyway, grapples with the doctor and they plunge through the portal and into hell. He then reunites with his ex-wife as they stand holding hands at the base of a huge black pyramid.
The movie certainly has a familiar feel to it but that doesn't make it any less fun to watch. Anyone who's seen Re- animator, HellRaiser, From Beyond, John Carpenters - The Thing or even movies such as Xtro will find similarities in The Void, and it's clear that the creators of this have deliberately made it that way as they are obvious fans of trashy creature/gore films. The budget in this certainly wasn't high enough to produce the effects to the same quality as huge production features, so instead they opted for low-light more atmospheric shots, where limitations in design were not going to distract the viewer from the overall effect of what they were trying to achieve. It's sad this this only had a limited run in a handful of cinemas as people have really missed out on seeing what can be done using old-school special effects that still hold up today if you know what you're doing and not rely solely on CGI.
The setting is a largely abandoned hospital that has recently suffered a major fire. A highway patrolman finds a man, a drug addict, lying in the road and takes him to the hospital for treatment. The hospital is now only run by a skeleton staff of one doctor, 2 nurses and an intern. There are only a handful of patients. Not long after arriving the police officer notices one of the nurses killing one of the patients and seemingly under some kind of hypnotic state as she has removed the skin from her face. After she lunges at the officer with a pair of scissors, she's shot and killed. A state trooper who was already on the way investigating a previous murder relieves the officer of his gun.
Somehow the nurse has reanimated and transformed into a grotesque creature killing the trooper. Meanwhile hooded figures have surrounded the hospital not allowing anyone to leave. 2 armed men show up wanting to get their hands on the man who was recently brought in as he apparently has knowledge of what's going on and they believe he's responsible. With communications between the occupants and the outside world cut and the place surrounded, the small group find themselves in a twisted nightmare and a fight for survival as the mystery of what's going on gets more and more complicated until it's revealed that the doctor has been experimenting on reanimation and has instead found a way to transform people believing that they are a higher and more advanced form of life.
The doctor has managed to impregnate one of the patients and the remaining nurse, (ex-wife of the police officer) in an attempt to recover his lost daughter. The police officer, 2 gun-men and the addict venture down into he lower levels to locate the missing nurse and find themselves hallucinating. It's at this point the movie gets a little hard to follow as you don't always know what's real and what isn't. In any event, the doctor, who was actually killed earlier has since brought himself back to life and with all his skin removed and using a hidden sub-basement area for his experiments has been able to open a portal into another dimension which represents itself as a "plains of hell" complete with black pyramids. The pregnant patient gives birth to a full sized creature which is supposed to be the reincarnation of the doctors daughter. The police officer who is now wounded and near death anyway, grapples with the doctor and they plunge through the portal and into hell. He then reunites with his ex-wife as they stand holding hands at the base of a huge black pyramid.
The movie certainly has a familiar feel to it but that doesn't make it any less fun to watch. Anyone who's seen Re- animator, HellRaiser, From Beyond, John Carpenters - The Thing or even movies such as Xtro will find similarities in The Void, and it's clear that the creators of this have deliberately made it that way as they are obvious fans of trashy creature/gore films. The budget in this certainly wasn't high enough to produce the effects to the same quality as huge production features, so instead they opted for low-light more atmospheric shots, where limitations in design were not going to distract the viewer from the overall effect of what they were trying to achieve. It's sad this this only had a limited run in a handful of cinemas as people have really missed out on seeing what can be done using old-school special effects that still hold up today if you know what you're doing and not rely solely on CGI.