Film tip -- The Gorge
The set-up: a remote, mysterious gorge is guarded by two watchtowers, one on each side, bristling with armaments, for the purpose of keeping creatures that live in the gorge from emerging. Each of the towers is manned by an elite sniper, one (Levi) from the US, the other (Drasa) a Lithuanian working for Russia. Contact between the two towers is prohibited, but both snipers quickly begin to disregard this. After they successfully obliterate a massed effort by very weird-looking monsters to escape the gorge, Levi falls in, and Drasa follows to attempt a rescue.
Here are a few clips (out of order) -- yes, that's Sigourney Weaver as the recruiter in one scene:
I do note one error -- a film record apparently from 1946 mentions DNA, which actually wasn't discovered until 1953. It also didn't seem logical to me to have only one person in each tower (leaving it inactive whenever that person is asleep) or that they'd be forbidden contact with each other (they'd be more effective if they could coordinate), but perhaps the movie explains these at some point. It seems over-the-top that the monsters look like agglomerated bits and pieces from different animals and plants, but there turns out to be a good reason for it.
Overall this looks like a good movie of its kind, with plenty of action, appealing lead characters, and suitably nasty monsters. It also seems like real science fiction (even if the science is a bit far-fetched), free of magic, prophecies, ghosts, "The Force", superheroes with ridiculous powers, or other supernatural stuff that really belongs to fantasy, a totally different genre of movie. I'm not generally a fan of the visually-dark look, but in this case it fits. It's a bit surprising they didn't give this a shot in regular theaters instead of streaming. If there's a sequel (possible title: Gorge Rising) maybe they'll do so. When this comes out on DVD I'll probably get it from the library and see the whole thing.
posted by Infidel753 at 9:39 AM
9 Comments:
You mentioned two flaws in the story, DNA and what happens when they sleep since there is only one person in each tower which is a stupid idea in the first place. The creatures in the gorge are strange and scary as hell. So who or what government or entity created it? Was it an experimental facility gone wrong as in most Syfy movies or TV shows? Just asking for a friend. But I can say it does look intriguing even for a ridiculous story line.
The clips available are too disjointed to tell the whole storyline, though they give a basic sense of it, as I outlined here. The videos here kind of hint at how the gorge monsters got the way they are, but I didn't want to explicitly give away everything in the post.
I'm not a fan of the visually dark movies either. I Googled that as a question and learned that, for the most part, it's because movie-makers shoot using digital these days. I find the visual darkness annoying.
I might like that one. I'll have to watch out for it.
Ricko: I think in some cases it's to conceal shoddy special effects. But there's not much point in watching a movie if you can barely see what's going on. At least in this case it's suitable to the theme. What I object to is when they take something bright like Star Trek and turn it gloomy.
Mary: It looks worth checking out.
Hi Infidel,
I did watch this film recently. It's a bit of fun - it isn't a film triumph or a total failure. It's entertainment with a romantic story and decent actors. It's probably helpful not to engage with the plot in any analytical depth. My favourite is how the dna has somehow "changed" to create monsters ... but these stories fail to mention that it takes many many many generations of small changes via natural selection and mutations.
Did you ever get to see this film?
Liam 🙂
I haven't seen it yet, but I plan to. I don't expect high art, but it's nice to watch some SF without getting stuff like magic crystals or mysterious prophecies thrown at you.
If DNA were artificially modified, or allowed to mix freely between species as was apparently the case here, it would be able to manifest dramatic changes in organisms fairly quickly -- such a thing would be very different from ordinary natural selection. It's far less likely that the monstrosities resulting from such mixing would be viable organisms, of course. Mixing, say, human and spider DNA would produce something extremely weird-looking but also extremely dead.
I saw The movie. It wasn’t worth the time to watch. It got ridiculous towards the end.
Chacun à son goût.
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