Ruins

I'll be honest, I prejudged this one pretty heavily. From my experience Tom Bown's scripts have often left much to be desired, and Michael Sandford was still an unknown factor to me. It didn't help when I booted it up on my older, more virus-ridden hardware and had the movie run at 1FPS in the OPENING CORRIDOR. Overall, I wasn't expecting big things. In a way, I was sorta suprised by the actual movie, and at the same time not so much.

By being so overly cynical, I actually ended up falling face first into the big plot twist. Pretty much 2 seconds in I figured "O SHIT LIEK HE'S A ZOMMIE DOOD!" but then about halfway through, Bown throws an interesting twist in which kinda defied my expectations, then as it hits me and lands on the floor in front of me, Bown proceeds to walk over pick it up and throw it again, at point blank, twice. Then he liquifies it and funnels it down my throat. A pity, since the buildup and Daughter Monologue are handled really well, with spectacular voice acting from both James Burgon and Dustin Guest (although "THE OVENNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!" really made me laugh for all the wrong reasons)

Graphics wise, this is really nothing to write home about. The Silent Hill-esque footsteps were pretty neat, and there are a few neat flashback shots to watch out for. Augustin's new clothes are pretty well done but Patrick's textures on the other hand are quite clearly MSPainted in, and come off as rather unconvincing. This isn't helped by a really shakey shadow effect and a Bloody Arm Stump circa 1998. After seeing some of Michael's work in the Pictures and Animations thread I was expecting a whole lot more.

In the end, some good ideas are let down heavily by poor pacing, and dated animation.