Film Review: Silver Cell (2011)

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SYNOPSIS:

A Wicked, Atmospheric journey into the dark depths of the human psyche…

REVIEW:

Man, oh man. If you’re going to make a film where I have to learn a new vocabulary and this broad convoluted after-death system just to get through the darned thing, you could at least make it a good movie!!

Silver Cell is an odd little film that awkwardly mixes dark fantasy, sci-fi and a pinch of horror into a mish-mash that never really works. Part fever-dream, part experimental who-knows-what, I found the whole thing reminded me of one of my late-night lactose-intolerance episodes.

The film opens on a young woman seated in a kitchen playing with some sort of stuffed animal. She appears to be distraught, and this fact is really driven home when she shoots herself in the head!  The opening credit sequence then rolls and we get to watch a skinned hog’s head (I think it was real……ewwww!) rapidly decompose through the magic of film (God knows what this had to do with the price of beans!) We’re then strangely catapulted across some sort of Nether-world plane where we find the young woman speaking with a presumed spirit-guide. He explains that she’s now in the ‘Bi-Mex’….and goes on to explain the difference between the Bi-Mex and the Car-Tex (yep, it’s about as exciting as it sounds). We’re then treated to a view of some odd soul-eater type critters known as the Vadaliatrope.

I cant seem to figure out why they wear straight jackets and Cold War-era gas masks (that looked brand new, mind you), but why should anything in this film make sense? So a few confusing, boring bits of shenanigans transpire with the young woman and she finds herself once again, chatting with the spirit guide.

They meet at two doors (wow, the old two-doors trope, whatever could lurk behind them?), and the spirit-guide spews some absurd nonsense about them. See, each door has a name….sort of a ‘pick your pathway’ kinda-thing. One is named ‘Saint’, while the other is named ‘Whore’……….ooooo-ooooo, that’s heavy, man. I’m sorry to point out that the doors were created using the most pathetic CGI I’ve ever seen. Now, I can roll with low-budget films…I can. I’ve seen some beautiful stories told on a $2000 budget over the past few years…..but these doors are sad looking. So, we get the general idea that the woman (who, remember is technically in a coma–I think–but couldn’t really care enough to be sure….and is now wandering through this strange mental-purgatory situation) chooses the ‘Saint’ door.

So, a weak little portal opens in the door and we find the woman now standing in a hardware store shopping for a lawnmower blade. It’s around this point that the film’s horrible acting really kicks into high gear.

The woman meets a man in the store, she tries to flirt (or at least, I think it was flirting) he takes the bait (when you mix two bad actors together, you don’t actually get ONE good actor, in case your were wondering), and they meet up at her place so he can install her lawnmower blade (no, that’s not innuendo). A few little events transpire (the dialogue between them is so sadly delivered, it’s…..well, sad). At this point, I will toss this in: the writing in this film is not really horrible. This is truly one little flick that, I’m sure, looked FANTASTIC on paper.

The delivery, however, was poorly wrought.  Maybe, even, the actors were more talented than how they came across…….1 hour and 12 minutes was just too much time for a film that does so little. With a primary cast of only 5 players, you’d have thought much more could have been squeezed out of this one.

I don’t want to ruin the ending for you, but I will attempt to SAVE YOU from the ending: don’t watch this movie. Inventory your stock of toilet paper, organize your collections of paper clips…….do something useful, but don’t watch this movie!!

I will give these 1.5 upchcucks out of a possible 5 upchucks…..the extra one-half star only because the score is pretty good!