The Void
Directed by Steven Kostanski, Jeremy Gillespie
- mystery
- horror
- science fiction
The story
In the middle of a routine patrol, officer Daniel Carter happens upon a blood-soaked figure limping down a deserted stretch of road. He rushes the young man to a nearby rural hospital staffed by a skeleton crew, only to discover that patients and personnel are transforming into something inhuman. As the horror intensifies, Carter leads the other survivors on a hellish voyage into the subterranean depths of the hospital in a desperate bid to end the nightmare before it's too late.
What it’s like
Dense, practical-effects darkness: hospital corridors lit in sickly fluorescent green and sodium-orange, with cult-era 1980s horror saturated into every frame. Rooms are cramped and wet with fog, the camera lurches through narrow halls and crawls down stairwells, and creature design is tactile and grotesque, all latex, prosthetics and ooze rather than glossy digital effects. The score is a pulsing synth drone that swells into dread and then drops into silence, punctuated by wet, squelching sound design. The vibe is claustrophobic, feverish and deliberately retro: a late-night, lights-off watch with the volume up. Pacing is relentless once the horror starts, with little breathing room between set-pieces. The tone is grim and gory, with frequent brutal violence, bodily mutation, body horror and gruesome deaths, plus disturbing imagery of pregnancy and surgery; it lands as visceral rather than suspenseful. A lawman and a small group of wounded survivors are pushed to their limits, their bonds fraying under pressure. Made for fans of gory practical-effects horror and Lovecraftian weirdness who want an unapologetically gruesome throwback, not a gentle or quiet one.
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