Borderland

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Poe W Feb 5, 2017 This is one of those types of movies where a quarter rating system would work. Because while this movie is better, to me, than just average, it's also not good enough to get the 3 stars. It's a solid movie and it falls somewhere in the middle between 2.5 and 3 stars. 2.75 would have been a perfect rating, but I understand the reasoning behind keeping it half stars. I don't actually know what the reasoning is, to be frank, but I'm sure it's about keeping the Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes as user-friendly as possible. Quarter ratings aren't necessary, they'd just be for dorks like me who actually take this seriously. Well, I mean, it is one of my hobbies and I do enjoy it very much, but I wouldn't say that I take this seriously. I used to, some of my earlier reviews were so fucking pretentious, as if I was actually getting paid. They sucked back then. They still suck now, but at least now I'm far more aloof and my "style", if it can even be called that, is more conversational than anything else. This is how I would talk to my friends if they asked for my thoughts on a particular movie. Perhaps I'd be a little more eloquent, because sometimes I don't even know what I write or how I write it. I bet I have the writing level of a sixth-grader. But I digress, this movie is fairly solid all things considered. It reminds me, somewhat, of the Owen Wilson movie No Escape. The movie was a bit of a mixed bag for me, but I felt that the movie played into that white fear of going to visit a country, whose citizens may be colored (oh my goodness), and then that entire trip going to hell due to violence, kidnapping, murder, rapes, etc, etc. No Escape was a movie made for the Fox News audience. This movie has some of that, for sure, the fact that the movie takes place in Mexico and makes the entire country, for the most part, look third world, its people are either cannon fodder, romantic interests or trying to kill the heroes. You know all of the stereotypes. But I get it, I mean, I get it. Every great country has its uglier elements and those elements should be portrayed as well or you're not providing an accurate portrayal of what that particularly country might be like. Otherwise every movie that took place in a foreign country would look like a tourism ad. But the problems with movies like this is that people are still very naive. And this is more relevant with a film like No Escape, which more people watched when compared to this one. People take a film like No Escape and they see its evil foreigners or its uglier elements and assume that that's what the country must be like. It's absurd. I don't have any actual data to back this up, but I'm certain there's a good percentage of people out there that, subconsciously or not, react this way. This movie isn't much of a problem, since this is a smaller 'horror' movie. And I use quotation marks because this really isn't even a horror movie, even though this was a part of After Dark's 8 Films to Die For. I mean it is in the sense that what happens to Ed, Henry, Phil and Valeria is horrifying, at least from Phil's point of view, he was the one who was kidnapped to be sacrificed by this cult to gain the power of Nganga, who's some kind of spiritual healer according to Wikipedia. It doesn't really make sense, since why would you want to be a spiritual healer? I mean there's nothing wrong with that, but I think the villain needed more, you know, malevolent reasons to be doing what he's doing. But that's neither here nor there. The fact that this movie is inspired by an actual cult is what gives it its horror and not the fact that it has scares or anything of the sort. Well, I mean it does have gore, but this isn't a movie that's overloaded with them. Like I said, I felt the movie was actually pretty solid all things considered. The acting is considerably better than I could have possibly thought, the movie is decently written and I was kinda compelled to see where the story went. I will say that there's no reason this movie should've been longer than 90 minutes, but it was. I think, for pacing's sake, some trimming would have made the movie a little better, at least to me. It's well-shot, at least for 2007, I think horror movies are a little more sophisticated on the technical aspects, at least the really high quality independent horror flicks. This doesn't compare to that, of course, but it's well-shot. Cinematography's got that grimy, dirty look, but it works given the setting. It helps add to the mood. The climax itself may have been a little too violent, given its inspired by real events (I know creative liberties were taken here), for my tastes. But it is what it is. The third act felt a little out of place, even though the movie did have its share of gore leading to it, but it's not bad. I can't say much else about this movie honestly. This is a fairly solid movie, but one that I'm not likely to remember by this time next week. It's on Amazon Prime, if you'd like to watch it. See more

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Borderland

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