Abaddon's Pit (written and directed by Jason Egan and Matthew Nash) is a metaphysical sci-fi horror that doesn't seem to be that bothered if its story can be easily understood. On the surface this has a lot that I like, a feeling of cosmic terror, some 'out there' ideas, and an interesting premise. An uninteresting protagonist and some really bad looking computer generated effects combine with its indie stylings to put a dampener on what is otherwise pretty strong stuff.
After the death of his beloved wife in a car accident, Dave (Jeff Ayars) moves to the countryside where he takes up residence in his aunt's farmhouse, the lady having gone missing presumed dead some time previously. The leader of a local religious commune, Faith (Faith Kelly) hopes that Dave's cousin Gareth (Lawrence Trailer) can convince him to join their group, but Dave is more interested in a small triangular hole that he has discovered on his aunt's property. With Gareth's help, Dave begins to perform experiments on the seemingly bottomless hole, with strange incidences occurring. A block of ice lowered into the hole comes out on fire yet intact, a dead fish comes out alive, while a live piglet comes out of the hole severely mutated. Despite the bad evidence, Dave becomes obsessed with going into the pit himself, meanwhile, Faith comes to believe the pit is a thing of evil, and with her flock sets out to stop Dave's goal.
Special mention has to go to the CG effects just due to how bad they look, in a way that I found increasingly distracting. Early on a skinless dog is discovered, but it moves in such a fake looking way that it doesn't look real in the slightest. Ill fitting CG effects pop up again and again, from the piglet, to locusts and fire effects, all look artificial. That isn't to say it is all bad, in one scene when something is killed blood spurts onto the camera lens, again I think this was via the use of CG imagery, but it brought to mind The Evil Dead, and looked great. 'Evil' contact lenses also didn't look good, but some of the effects were decent. I liked a character later on who seemed to have stars dancing in his eyes, and I thought everything around the religious cult was excellent, with some great costume design.
Dave made for a really bland protagonist, his obsession with the hole isn't that well explained to the viewer, and it isn't clear why he believes he will be able to see his dead wife once again should he get in the hole. Gareth was a more likeable person, but the stand out character was Faith. Kelly was fantastic in this standout role, she really stole every scene she appeared in. That brought another issue, the whole last act of the film really went down the rabbit hole. It seemingly stopped the story up to that point, instead turning into an art house style dream. It reminded me of episodes you get into TV show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bojack Horseman where characters are forced to encounter the weirdness of a dream world where nothing makes sense. It becomes prime surreal art house, even seeing fit to include a song and dance number or two. I just didn't think this worked that well, led to some interesting plot developments, but I didn't like that the religious cult storyline was literally left unfinished elsewhere.
Outside of the poor looking CG effects, the main problem with Abaddon's Pit was the bland and lifeless protagonist. I didn't care about his journey, and the metaphysical angle the story took didn't get me invested. There were some good moments mixed in with this, and I liked the cosmic horror parts, but the abrupt shift in style for the final half hour, and an open ended finish left me more confused than anything. Abaddon's Pit is available on digital worldwide (excluding Amazon Prime Video), and comes to AVOD digital platforms on 30th April 2024 thanks to Vipco and BayView Entertainment.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment