#Shane Abbess

[movie-titlecards]

Infini (2015)

My rating: 6/10

I'm like 90% certain that this is a Doom fan film with the serial numbers filed off, with a good smattering of The Thing and Aliens, and for that? It's honestly not bad. I also like the bit at the end where the hero gives such an impassioned speech, the alien goo monster spontaneously grows a conscience and brings everybody back to life. Almost a Doctor Who moment, that.

[cinemgc]

The Osiris Child (2016)

[neovallense]

[grigori77]

Guilty Pleasure #5

GABRIEL

Dir. SHANE ABBESS; Wri. SHANE ABBESS & MATT HYLTON TODD; Music. BRIAN CACHIA; Starring. ANDY WHITFIELD, DWAINE STEVENSON, SAMANTHA NOBLE, ERIKA HEYNATZ, HARRY PAVLIDIS, JACK CAMPBELL, MICHAEL PICCIRILLI, MATT HYLTON TODD, KEVIN COPELAND; R.T. 113 mins; 2007, Australia

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: An eternal war rages between Arcs (angels) and Fallen (demons) for the fates of human souls trapped in Purgatory, each side sending seven warriors to battle for Light or Darkness.  It now seems that the Fallen are winning, so Heaven send their only remaining champion, Gabriel (Whitfield), for one desperate last push to tip the scales back in their favour.  But as he begins to uncover the fates of his fellow Arcs, Gabriel finds his new human form weakening so far from the Light.

WHY IT’S GUILTY: Writer-director Shane Abbess’ debut feature is, in many ways, a derivative mess of a film, borrowing already well-worn ideas from much larger, far more expensive films and then trying to make them seem new and fresh with just a fraction of the budget and resources. It’s also almost unrelentingly bleak and brutal, the oppressively dour tone sometimes dragging and certainly crying out for some much needed humour to break things up.  And then there are the characters themselves – those who aren’t dangerously underwritten ciphers are as derivative and clichéd as the plot, or given to sometimes life-threateningly baffling inconsistencies in behaviour and motivation.  This film shouldn’t work at all – it SHOULD be a dreary, stinking TURD, genuine cinematic toxic waste.  And yet …

WHY IT’S A PLEASURE: Despite its myriad flaws, there’s fiendish creativity at work in this film that makes for surprisingly compelling viewing.  Shane Abbess has too much innate talent for this to turn into a sub-Underworld mash-up of The Prophecy and Blade Runner, and shows real skill in taking the decidedly miniscule budget (a mere 150,000 Aussie dollars) and stretching it into something that looks SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive.  He’s clearly learned every trick in the low budget book to bring his decidedly ambitious project to fruition, and it consistently shows in a selection of modest but surprisingly inventive set-pieces and the moodily evocative setting. He’s also helped enormously by a talented cast of (then) near unknowns, each bringing the patchily-written characters to vivid, fully-realised life and making us root for (or against) them despite their flawed conceptions – the late Andy Whitfield started out in Aussie soaps and similar TV before landing his first significant role here, and it quickly becomes clear that his turn as Gabriel was something of a training run for his true star-making break as the lead in the immensely popular series Spartacus: Blood & Sand as he proves a compellingly compassionate underdog hero here, a seemingly gentle soul driven to increasingly brutal extremes as the road ahead grows increasingly dark and twisted; Dwaine Stevenson and Michael Piccirilli, meanwhile, both create cracking, meaty villains as, respectively, dangerously nihilistic head Fallen Sammael and his lieutenant Asmodeus, a truly despicable, narcissistic monster who consistently delivers the film’s most full-on boo-hiss moments, and Samantha Noble raises disgraced, broken Arc Amitiel above the over-baked “hooker with a heart of gold” cliché with a performance of genuinely heartbreaking vulnerability and tenderness. This is also a film of great beauty, even its most corrupt moments displaying deeply effective visual flair and ingenuity, while Abbess and co-writer Matt Hylton Todd (who also plays kind-hearted Arc Ithuriel) did sometimes manage to craft some moments of inspired originality amongst the more derivative material, as well as conjuring some compelling tension and enough true heart and emotional power to keep us invested until the genuinely arresting and surprisingly uplifting climax.  On its release, this became the second highest grossing Australian film of 2007, Abbess definitely proving he had real future potential, and he’s been delivering since with impressively edgy low budget sci-fi offerings like Infini and Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child, so it’s only a matter of time before he finally makes it TRULY big.  In the end, then, Gabriel may be pretty flawed, but it’s still a debut to be proud of.

[whatsnextmovies]

The Osiris Child

[iamjrank]

Movie #1819 - Infini (2015)

“Singularity, blackhole bullshit“

[olvaheiner]

The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One (2017)

[kellanlutz]

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Team fluffy Shane Abbess and Kellan Lutz via Isabel Lucas Instagram stories

[movie-titlecards]

The Osiris Child (2016)

My rating: 6/10

Starts out pretty slow, but once it gets going it's solid, and the cast of various fucked up assholes and Space Rednecks is pretty likeable. Also, the production design is gorgeous, and I'm pretty sure they used mostly practical effects for the monsters, which is very impressive.

I have one question, though: Once your army of convicts-turned murderous snapping turtle ogres has wiped out whatever hostile local lifeforms prevented you from settling on a planet, how are you going to stop them from doing the same to your settlers? Seems a bit short-sighted.

[lady-of-glass-and-bone]

🦆 Duck's Horror Movie Wednesday 🔪

4/22/2020

Infini (2015) Dir. Shane Abbess

Final Prayer (2013) Dir. Elliot Goldner

Prom Night (1980) Dir. Paul Lynch

Housebound (2014) Dir. Gerard Johnstone

REC (2007) Dir. Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza

Veronica (2017) Dir. Paco Plaza

You're Next (2017) Dir. Adam Wingard

Night of the Living Dead (1968) Dir. George A. Romero

[theworldofthedarkcrystal]

Now that a prequel is really happening, let’s have a moment of silence for the sequel that never came to be: Power of The Dark Crystal.  Announced in 2005, it was to blend puppetry with CGI.  [x]

“The story itself doesn't lend itself to a sequel, you know, we won't follow it with a sequel to this picture.  You could tell another story in the same world, but the story itself is complete.” - Jim Henson, promoting The Dark Crystal [x]

“When I quit The Dark Crystal it was because I’d fallen in love with Jim’s handwritten notes on what his sequel idea was.  All I wanted to do, for the fans and for myself, was shoot his version of the film. But nobody gave a shit about what Jim Henson wanted.” - Shane Abbess, at one time a proposed director for Dark Crystal 2 [x]

The synopsis:

“The Power script continues the tale of elfin heroes Jen and Kira, last seen returning the shard to the evil crystal and seemingly abolishing the vulture-like Skeksis from their land. Set many years after the first flick, Power casts Jen and Kira as king and queen, now overseeing a kingdom whose peace is disturbed by a visit from the underground-dwelling U-mun people. After the Gelflings refuse their request for a shard of crystal that could preserve the U-mun race, a desperate visitor takes it anyway, threatening their world with another thousand years of chaos.” [x]

[cinemgc]

The Osiris Child (Shane Abbess , 2016, Australia)

[hacerking]

[Kilka słów o...] "Ex Drummer" oraz "Infini"

[Kilka słów o…] “Ex Drummer” oraz “Infini”

Dzisiaj mam dla was patologiczny film oraz sci-fi, które jest tak bardzo retro, że nie każdemu przypadnie do gustu. (more…)

[scifiandscary]

Indie Zone: Interview with Shane Abbess, Writer/Director of The Osiris Child

Indie Zone: #Interview with Shane Abbess, Writer/Director of The Osiris Child

Shane Abbess co-wrote, directed, and produced The Osiris Child, an Australian sci-fi adventure film starring Kellan Lutz, Daniel MacPherson, and Isabel Lucas. The Osiris Child Synopsis: Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonization, an unlikely pair race against an impending global crisis and are confronted by the monsters that live inside us all. Talking with Shane Abbess Sci-Fi &…

[thegeekdevil]

'Origin Wars' (Blu-Ray/DVD) Review

‘Origin Wars’ (Blu-Ray/DVD) Review

Its ‘Star Wars’ meets ‘Mad Max’, apparently…

In the far future, where humanity has begun colonising other worlds, a pilot attempts to save his daughter when a prison riot escalates into a potential end-of-the-world scenario…

To those of us of a certain age, the phrase ‘straight-to-video’ will certain memories. Back in the seemingly dark days of the local video store rental establishment (everyone…

[moviesinfocus]

Blu-Ray & DVD Round-Up: THE HANDMAIDEN, AMERICAN GODS, THEIR FINEST, ORIGIN WARS & LONDON HESIT

Blu-Ray & DVD Round-Up: THE HANDMAIDEN, AMERICAN GODS, THEIR FINEST, ORIGIN WARS & LONDON HESIT

This time around in the Movies In Focus Blu-Ray & DVD Round-Up: The Handmaiden surprises, American Gods shocks. Their Finest impresses, Origin Wars entertains and London Heist exists. The Handmaiden [usr 4 text=”false”] Lauded Korean director Chan-wook Park offers up a sumptuous period thriller with The Handmaiden. The film sees a young woman (Kim Tae-ri) sprung from apparent poverty to take up…