Isolation

c - 13 · 20-03-2007 12:31pm #1

Having missed this in the cinema on release it completely slipped from my mind until I walked passed it in xtravision last night. After a bit of deliberation I decided to buy it.

From IMDB - "On a remote Irish farm, five people become unwilling participants in an experiment that goes nightmarishly wrong."

So I sat down last night expecting something along the lines of "Dead Meat" - Zombies in Ireland kind of thing.

This film is not about zombies, this was very dissapointing as this is what I had been expecting
The film is very drawn out, I think it could have ended after 45 mins to be honest.
Dodgy Irish accents, normally funny not so much here. People kind of forgot to put their accents on every few lines.
Lots of dissection scenes which were done very very well, lots of gore in this manner not your standard gore style at all.
The overall idea is not bad, I wont go into detail so as not to spoil for others, but, I get the distinct impression I have seen this idea somewhere else, in a more famous film.
The "Monster" is never really seen clearly for the duration of the film, even up to its demise

I'm sure ill think of more as the day progresses. Overall though I felt really dissapointed by the film. I was hoping this could be a breakthrough film for the "Irish" horror scene. Especially since remote Irish farms are such a promising set and very eerie looking.

My advice - I can think of better ways to spend a wet bank holiday monday but if your not doing anything else give it a spin, certainly not worth a purchase as I dont think it has much rewatch value.

So has anyone else seen this movie ? Opinions ?

20-03-2007 3:28pm

I read the screenplay to Isolation and it's basically Alien on a farm.

c - 13 · 20-03-2007 3:31pm

That wouldnt be a badly inaccurate description at all - Only Alien is way better.

20-03-2007 4:18pm

I remember reading the screenplay and making note of everything it lifted scenes from. I don't think I came across an original or decant line of dialogue in the entire thing.

trendkill · 20-03-2007 7:21pm

http://www.filmmakersnetwork.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=326

niallon · 20-03-2007 9:47pm

Irish horror needs such a bott up the a**! Been meaning to pick this up to rent so as to laugh myself stupid. Boy Eats Girl was the last straw for me. I mean the bloody script was actually incomplete, I'd swear it was! The last 15 minutes are just a tag on!

spooky donkey · 21-03-2007 12:47pm

Well Irish Horror is far better than Irish Si~fi in that there is at least an Irish Horror scent. I think the best Irish horror to date has to have been Podge and Rodge`s scare at bed time, im waiting on something to beat that.

iremex · 21-03-2007 12:53pm

i watched it over the weekend. didnt have a clue what i was getting.
i thought it had its good points and also pretty ****e points.

the score was pretty good. acting was average.

what sucks was the lack of script. i swear i have never seen a movie with such short dialog in my life. i mean it went on for mins without a word.
think the scriptwriter used a post-it note during the writing process.

2.5 stretching to 3 stars outta 5 for me

humanji · 21-03-2007 3:53pm

c - 13 wrote:

This film is not about zombies, this was very dissapointing as this is what I had been expecting

In fairness, how can you blame a film because you thought it was about something else. Nothing in the trailers makes any mention of zombies.

But that said, it was still shìte

DerekP11 · 21-03-2007 9:10pm

niallon wrote:

Irish horror needs such a bott up the a**! Been meaning to pick this up to rent so as to laugh myself stupid. Boy Eats Girl was the last straw for me. I mean the bloody script was actually incomplete, I'd swear it was! The last 15 minutes are just a tag on!

Considering the Irish film scene itself is pretty much diabolical and controlled by a film board, we can never really expect much in terms of horror output. The only way forward is guerilla film making. We have to rethink how the product gets seen. Aspiring to cinematic releases with distribution deals or limiting films to shorts, strangles creativity and kills careers before they get started. Against this background, how the hell can we expect horror films made in Ireland to be anything more than over indulgent rip offs and/or piss takes.

Ive seen Boy Eats Girl and Deadmeat. I havent seen Isolation yet. Im in no hurry.

c - 13 · 21-03-2007 10:00pm

humanji wrote:

In fairness, how can you blame a film because you thought it was about something else. Nothing in the trailers makes any mention of zombies.

But that said, it was still shìte

Oh no your getting me all wrong here, I wasnt holding that against the film at all, just saying I probably thought less of the film as a result of my misconception and hence dissapointment.

niallon · 23-03-2007 5:15am

The biggest problems I've found with Irish horror are:

1) Imitation. Bot Eats Girl was tackling a subject already tackled in the 80's by Dan O'Bannon with Return Of The Living Dead. The only reason Shaun Of The Dead rose above it in the noughties is because the film makers genuinely loved the genre

2) Post modernism. Moving straight off the imitation factor, most Irish horror feels the need to "fit in". Back to Boy Eats Girl, yes D4 accents are funny, no we don't need them in ZomCom's. Yes you managed to stick a colloquialism in there, no we don't give a s**t.

It's always down to script it seems. I didn't happen to notice anything wrong with the direction, cinematogrophy etc in these films, it was the shere stupidty of what was actually being made!

Archeron · 23-03-2007 11:53am

As mentioned above, having seen Boy eats Girl I expected NOTHING from this, but for some reason, I rented it anyway. NOt too bad, all things considered, and I've seen many worse horror films that this. Quite drawn out alright, but not too bad. Strangely, my Dad really really enjoyed this, and he hates horror films. I think he may have just been being patriotic. :rolleyes:

DerekP11 · 23-03-2007 10:34pm

Archeron wrote:

Strangely, my Dad really really enjoyed this, and he hates horror films. I think he may have just been being patriotic. :rolleyes:

Yep. My dad felt the same way about "Eat the Peach".:D

niallon · 25-03-2007 4:09am

Archeron wrote:

Strangely, my Dad really really enjoyed this, and he hates horror films. I think he may have just been being patriotic. :rolleyes:

Interesting point this, I often wonder if it isn't the only reason Ireland still has a silm industry at all. I find myself watching Irish films and going easy on them simply because I WANT Ireland to succeed in this territory so much! Even the latest drama on RTE 1, Single Handed, I watched and ignored all the obvious faults in order to say "Ya know what, that wasn't half bad".

Not ideal really but a start I guess...

DerekP11 · 29-03-2007 10:30pm

niallon wrote:

Interesting point this, I often wonder if it isn't the only reason Ireland still has a silm industry at all. I find myself watching Irish films and going easy on them simply because I WANT Ireland to succeed in this territory so much! Even the latest drama on RTE 1, Single Handed, I watched and ignored all the obvious faults in order to say "Ya know what, that wasn't half bad".

Not ideal really but a start I guess...

I was like that in my teens (80s) when I thought "The Courier", "Reefer and the Model" and episodes of "Glenroe" were all good. Being an aspiring film-maker then, I was desperate for Irish product to make my dreams relevent. Unfortunately, as I look at the past and present day, I fear nothing has changed to any great degree in the horror stakes. Just for the record, I was a Raimi and Jackson fan in 1990. My colleagues in film school (mentioned it before) had never heard of them. As a result, I was seen as a nut. But both went onto great things as we know. There are many irish film-makers out there both budding and practicing who want to explore more, but the system/set-up isn't conducive to doing it. Current product is poor.

It may change soon with the help of a project that both I and Niallon are working on. We'll have announcements soon.

29-03-2007 11:04pm

DerekP11 wrote:

I was like that in my teens (80s) when I thought "The Courier", "Reefer and the Model" and episodes of "Glenroe" were all good. Being an aspiring film-maker then, I was desperate for Irish product to make my dreams relevent. Unfortunately, as I look at the past and present day, I fear nothing has changed to any great degree in the horror stakes. Just for the record, I was a Raimi and Jackson fan in 1990. My colleagues in film school (mentioned it before) had never heard of them. As a result, I was seen as a nut. But both went onto great things as we know. There are many irish film-makers out there both budding and practicing who want to explore more, but the system/set-up isn't conducive to doing it. Current product is poor.

It may change soon with the help of a project that both I and Niallon are working on. We'll have announcements soon.

It is difficult to get any film set up in Ireland. Ive been shopping my horror script around for the past year and got turned down for funding by everyone.

I decided to raise the finance myself, which is a slow process.

Isolation

Comments