The opening scene of "Pod" does a nice job of setting the mood for what I anticipated would be a little story about a monster that terrorizes a snowy winter cabin. I mean, I wasn't expecting anything more than that. What I got was nothing of the sort.
The first 50 minutes of "Pod" is comprised of three people yelling at each other with one guy acting insane. Well, overacting actually. The final half hour offers one suspenseful moment that is ruined by an actress that hysterically screams for way too long. There was also one moment when the main character thinks he sees something in the cellar. It's a good moment for certain, but it's later ruined with a cheap jump scare.
There's also an instance when I was surprised by a secondary character and his actions, which almost paid for the debt incurred by having to sit through the first hour. But the whole thing is ruined (again) by the very last second of the movie, a manipulative wink of the filmmaker's eye toward the viewer.
An intense indie horror film, Pod delivers some frightening thrills. The story follows a brother and sister who go to their family lake house to stage an intervention for their other brother who seems to be suffering from paranoid delusions about the government and pod creatures; but after a mysterious attack they start to question if he might be right. The script is fairly good at creating intrigue and suspense, however the plot kind of fall apart at the end. And the acting is rather poor. Still, for a low-budget horror film, Pod is creepy and delivers some terrifying scares.
This movie is way too ambiguous. It doesn't explain any of the events that happen and leave everything completely open. In some cases, this would be a good thing, but in this case, it actually ruins it. I will say the one thing that was done well was the basement scene. That is the only part in this movie I can say I was genuinely impressed by as well as the performance by Larry Fessenden. He was the only interesting character and he died halfway into the movie. Lyla was probably the most unhelpful and unbearable character I've seen in a while. They added in a 4th character at the end who was completely not needed and did not add anything other than the killing of two more people. We have no background information on what these "things" are. Are they aliens? Who is this person? Is he part of the CIA? Why did he shoot and kill the two of them? Why did the "things" attack people? Instead of this, it gave shots of those that died with a cheap jumpscare-to-end-the-movie which is typically a cop-out and no way to end a movie. I would rather have seen some shots about where those "things" came from, or why they are here. They always seem to have some sort of resolution in the end, but this movie seems to be missing it.
This was a really fun B movie. I’m surprised it had such low ratings.
The pace was pretty good, but the want to be plot twist at the end to me made it "meh." For most of the movie I was thinking giving it a 7 or 8 rating, but the ending just tried to cram too much plot twist and information that should of probably of been introduced earlier in the film.
I thought it was pretty good actually, nice and short, with a great reveal where you actually get to see the CREATURE. Which seems is a rarity these days! Will watch other Keating movie DARLING next..
Shout by CaesarBlockedParent2022-02-27T06:53:18Z
This is a quick and creepy paranoia horror film with some very good focus on family dynamics. It takes a while to get going, but once it does, it really gets going. The whole thing is enjoyable and extremely tense with the sound design that really ratchets up the unease. The plot is fairly simple but the family dynamic and its role in the story is very well executed. The darkness in a mostly single location is used incredibly well and the performances are believable for the most parts. I noticed it's not as stylish as his other films but while watching this, I get this similar feeling of watching found footage films, from the way it follows the characters to how the scares are presented, and I quite liked it.