The Void (2016) Review

5Full of blood, guts and gruesome practical effects, The Void is pure midnight movie madness that will more than please fans of the video-nasty sub-genre.

Writer and director duo, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski have cut their teeth in the art and make-up departments on some big contemporary blockbusters like Pacific Rim and Suicide Squad but this time, the duo have cooked up a bizarre creature feature that works great as a send up to horror movies of the 80’s with a splattering of Lovecraftian mythology.

Going in, the less you know about The Void the more you’ll enjoy the exciting ride it offers but there are positives and negatives to a film whose pace never lets up to for much explanation. Something about the way all the characters and their circumstances are suspiciously all fall into place a little ham fisted and forced but before you can begin to question what is happening bloody tentacles start flapping out of someones face.

3

The special effects work in The Void is great to watch. It’s basically what we can here for and Gillespie and Kostanski make the most of their respected past industry experience. Slimy, bloody, pussy make-up and set designs look grisly and gross, it clear they had fun when designing this hellish dimension.2

The collaboration between the two of them has created a strange and weary world that seems rich with mystery, slowly drip feeding you dread and shoving big gruesome, bloody monsters in your face that wouldn’t look out of place in something like Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond.

There’s a lot of nods to these 80’s cult-classics throughout, even the trailer prepares you for them by selling it to you as ‘a gory tribute to John Carpenter.’ It’s a treat for hardcore horror fans, especially those of who are already familiar with Astron-6 production company, but because of this flourish of fandom the film misses an opportunity for the two directors to stamp a bit of their own creativity on the film, even the plot feels like it’s been directly lifted from pages of a H. P. Lovecraft nouvelle.

Asking to be taken slightly more seriously than other modern B-movies, The Void tries elevates itself above the more generic additions to the genre and does so because of Gillespie and Kostanski’s work as a team.

4

This could be the beginning of an awesomely gruesome collection of movies from these filmmakers. Still, unless you’re a fan of these high-octane, grindhouse-equ creature features you maybe be better suited to kicking your horror kicks from the more psychological side of the genre.

Movie Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Trailer:

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Steven Coates

On a cold winters morning the doorbell of Love Horror’s haunted offices rang and we opened the security gates to find that we had received delivery of a very old, very large German cabinet... More

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