Review of Rift

Rift (2017)
3/10
Amateurish in the extreme
30 August 2021
This film just couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Was it a love story, a drama, a horror film or a slasher movie? Honestly, it was really stupid. Someone knocks on the door in the middle of the night. On the third time of knocking, Gunnar opens immediately and there's no one there. No one's running away, no one came to murder the lads.

Dire warnings abound. The neighbour warns of burglaries, the petrol station girl warns about hitch hikers, the neighbour again suddenly remembers to warn about an eccentric farmer. All through, Gunnar and Einar are working through their relationship breakdown and their memories, some painful. This might have been an interesting film if it had simply followed that path. For a start it would have been thirty minutes shorter once all the supernatural stuff was taken out.

I lost count of how many times the hoary old device was employed of having someone rush across the frame in front of the camera while the lead's back was turned and he was looking for the person. It didn't make me jump the first time and I was getting fed up on the sixth or seventh occasion. On other occasions it was worse. People being chased disappeared and then were seen fleetingly at the corner of a house, disappearing. So the chase began again, only to have another glimpse of the figure rushing round a corner or vanishing into a doorway.

Absurd coincidences abound, Gunnar finds Einar's phone in the middle of a lava field after he just happened to stop at that particular spot by the road.

There are occasions when people speak and are visible but aren't really there. It's utterly risible.

This could have been a good two-parter exploring sexuality and break ups. To pace it a bit, a few of the village inhabitants could have been introduced during the narrative. Instead, we got a mishmash of nonsense and genres that was half an hour too long.

Not recommended.
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