There are
sometimes where I sit down to watch a movie wanting so much to enjoy it. I can
tell where that happens because my notes always are hopeful and pointing out
little things that I liked. I’m almost trying to convince myself that it is fun
when clearly something was missing. Sadly, that is probably how my review of
The Rift is going to end up.
Our
characters are assembled and sent to recover a downed satellite that crashed
somewhere in Serbia. When they arrive, they run into a creepy kid, get shot at,
and find an astronaut in the basement of a farmhouse! It becomes clear that
there wasn’t a satellite at all, but something else. The tracker that they were
given to locate the downed hardware points them directly to the immobile
astronaut, so someone knew something. Some more weird stuff happens. We find
out that the elderly scientist who is with the team knows more about the situation
than he initially lets on. There is some time travel, interdimensional portals
(or Rifts…), dead people not staying dead, and of course someone goes crazy.
I so
wanted to like this movie. I made a list of the stuff that I thought it did
well. There are several creepy moments and at least one great jump scare. The
performances from Ken Foree and Monte Markham are wonderful. I’m used to Foree
being reduced to glorified cameos, but with The Rift he has a real part and is
able to create a character. Plus, he gets to go crazy and chews the scenery up
in a sinister way. Markham is a veteran actor that I guarantee you will recognize
and he brings all that experience to his character. Both actors are a joy to
watch and are the highlights of The Rift. While the movie is light on the gore
we do get a disturbing tattoo removal that stuck with me after the end credits.
At times
the music is perfect and at other times intrusive. All of it fits into the
“knockoff” almost sounds exactly like someone else. When it is good there is a
seventies “Pink Floyd” vibe that totally fits with the story. Plus, I mean Dark
Side of the Moon… We also get scenes that have that annoyingly crappy pop music
that gets turned up so loud you can’t hear what is going on. But the worst is
when they are creeping around the house and the soundtrack starts to crank up
and ruins the mood. Sometimes less is more and those scenes needed much less. Totally
spoils what could have been a rather spooky sequence.
 |
| Ken Foree is the best part of the movie! |
What
really kills the movie for me is the story. It jumps all over the damn place
and can never seem to decide what it wants to be. Somehow a rift took an
astronaut on a secret mission from the dark side of the moon to a Serbian farm
more than forty years in the future! And for some reason he isn’t human anymore
but can bring back the dead and wants to kill people. Only then he doesn’t
because he allows another character to go back in time to save her son… Which
means that none of this happened. But then in the past the astronaut starts
riots and the dead start to rise. But all of this takes place before the
astronaut ever arrived from the moon. There is clever and then there is muddled
mess that makes no sense. I’m leaning towards the latter.
It makes
me sad, but I can’t recommend The Rift: The Dark Side of the Moon in spite of a
great performance from Ken Foree. They had some good stuff here, but the plot
is a mess and destroys any chance of enjoyment.
© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer
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