A group of friends from Rio de Janeiro decide to skip carnival and spend a few days in the country. After some difficulty they finally book a villa which turns out to be absurdly remote, and looked after by a slightly spooky concierge and his even spookier wife. The friends are told that this spookiness is down the couple's young son having disappeared under mysterious circumstances. In the complete absence of mobile signal some of the party feel isolated - a feeling which only deepens when the ancient TV starts to report the appearance of alien spaceships hovering over major cities around the world.
This really is a very low budget movie but it does have quite a clever plot. The rough edges from shortage of cash are fairly obvious from the start resulting in rather too many hand-held shots, some points where the sound is unclear - especially by the swimming pool, and probably a few scenes that would ideally have been redone and show up shortcomings in acting and direction. I watched the film with English subtitles and there were a couple of glitches here too with, for instance, the mood of rather indistinct music being zealously described and even the quietest moments helpfully labeled as "silence".
It's a pity that at some points elements of the plot can be confused with short cuts to avoid expense, but if you give it a chance and make it through to the end, you'll find the plot itself hangs together remarkably well. 5/10
This really is a very low budget movie but it does have quite a clever plot. The rough edges from shortage of cash are fairly obvious from the start resulting in rather too many hand-held shots, some points where the sound is unclear - especially by the swimming pool, and probably a few scenes that would ideally have been redone and show up shortcomings in acting and direction. I watched the film with English subtitles and there were a couple of glitches here too with, for instance, the mood of rather indistinct music being zealously described and even the quietest moments helpfully labeled as "silence".
It's a pity that at some points elements of the plot can be confused with short cuts to avoid expense, but if you give it a chance and make it through to the end, you'll find the plot itself hangs together remarkably well. 5/10
