Hello Youtube!
I am Torstein from Cinema Terror and today I have dugg around for a modern indie horror
film and I ended up with quite the little unique film called Kiss the Abyss from 2012.
I must admit right away that I was close to turning this off after the first few minutes
as this looked and sounded like something I would not be into.
If you are familiar with my channel then you do know that I enjoy low budget features,
but modern shot on digital ones rarely does it for me.
While Kiss the Abyss got off to a rough start, it did eventually start to win me over and
I must say that this was not bad at all.
Kiss the Abyss tells the story of the young couple Mark and Lesley, played by Scott Wilson
and Nikki Moore.
They are deeply in love and together they are trying to better they life as they are
currently stuck living in a bad neighborhood.
Their future life together is put on hold after a terrible event takes place.
After this event, they have to get into some pretty wicked stuff to try to save themselves
and their relationship.
And I am being vague on purpose here as the surprise element should be present if you
decide to give this movie a chance after watching this review.
Kiss the Abyss does something new with a subgenre that has been present in horror films since
the beginning of cinema history, and it does so in such a unique way with twists along
the ride that keeps your interest going while the story uncoveres.
While the story structure was a bit choppy and I would have had it done differently,
I have to give praise to them for the fact that they were able to make something new
and fresh, especially as this is a low budget production.
More than often from these types of productions we get some type of silly serial killer premise
that are playing off nostalgia of the 80's slasher boom, so on that alone, Kiss the Abyss
sets itself a part.
It's ambitious in that it tries to do a lot with little means and at times scenes work
very well, while at others it comes off as amateurish and poor.
A lot of the film stand and fall on the relationship between Mark and Lesley and some of the events
that distrupt their relationship comes a bit too early in the story, even if the filmmakers
try to make it seem otherwise.
I would not have minded it if they had stretch out that part more as I would have liked to
see the two interact and show their love for each other a bit more before shit hits the
fan.
I had trouble with some of the supporting characters though.
Lesley's family, especially her brother and father, plays a big part in the film and I
didn't care for them at all.
They are a bit too over the top with the way their characters are suppost to act and it
didn't come off as believable.
I would have liked them to have a bit more grounded characters as it would have added
to the emotional factor of the film.
Another character that gets enough screen time to stand out is Douglas Bennett as Gus.
He is also over the top, but more enjoyable to watch than the rest.
Even if he had his funny moments, I would also have prefered it if they had went a totally
different direction with him as well as it feels like he is from a different film than
the rest of the characters.
My main problem with the film however, and my main problem with a lot of the newer modern
ones is that they tend to look and sound terrible.
I will say that Kiss the Abyss have better production than a lot of other films that
I am going to guess play within the same budget range, but there are some scenes that I felt
were bad, perhaps just due to lack of time, so I understand it from the filmmakers perspective,
but it does hold the film back from fulfilling its potential.
This was the first, and so far only, by Ken Wrinkler.
He directed, produced and co-wrote the film together with Eric Rucker.
As already said, it takes a lot to make a small budget film like this work, so even
if he didn't succeed with all aspects of the film, I do hope that he is proud of the work
he did.
Even if I didn't love this one, I would not mind seeing a new film with a better budget
from him.
Kiss the Abyss is a low budget film that tries to do something new and unique.
It takes much to get me on board on some of these low budget production as they tend to
have a terrible visual look, and while I don't think this film looks all that great and has
several other issues in it, it still kept me on board for most of the running time.
If you are into checking out modern low budget horror films then you can do a lot, lot worse
than Kiss the Abyss.
The filmmakers should be proud of what they were able to produce here and while it is
not a film I think the general audience will have patience for, I found it to ultimately
be an okay experience.
Kiss the Abyss gets a respectful score of 2.5 out of 5.
Has anyone else out there seen or heard of this film?
I'd love to hear others thoughts on it as it is not a film that a lot of people have
done a review for.
Any other new low budget horror films that you feel deserves more praise?
Let me know about it in the comment section below, push that like button if you want me
to review more of these types of film.
Hope you enjoyed the video and of course, thank you for watching.
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