Over the years it has gotten more and more common for movies featuring big names going straight to video for whatever reason. Most of them are pretty clear after seeing them, but every so often one comes along that really surprises. The latest The Colony takes on a frozen post-apocalyptic world and features Laurence Fishburne and Bill Paxton but does it deliver something worth surviving or will you be frozen before getting out alive?
The Colony follows a struggling outpost of survivors who have been forced underground by the next ice age, who must fight to preserve humanity against a threat even more savage than nature. This film has the vibe of John Carpenter’s The Thing without the mutated creatures, but still brings the horror element. At first the film moves a bit slow, but once it sets out on it’s real journey and brings the true threat to light it picks up quite a bit. The story is pretty simple, but surprisingly still delivers. The performances were not surprisingly good from Fishburne and Paxton, but it was still a treat seeing Paxton step into a darker place than he has in a long time. There are a few moments where the acting isn’t great, but overall is pretty good. Despite being a straight to video release the production felt huge and looked great. As mentioned before it takes a bit to get to the good stuff but once it does it keeps the intense gory fun going until the very end.
This isn’t breaking any molds in the horror genre and will surely be compared to the Thing on some level, but this is a different film. It delivers what it set out to do with some great visuals and bloody fun. It doesn’t go for the jump scares, but instead the more action driven blood fest that is sure to entertain. Step into the freezing depths of terror when The Colony hits shelves on October 15th.
