I love the horror genre. It has the potential to do things to an audience that no other type of film can. A great horror film may change the way we think, feel, and process.
A terrible one makes you question a lot of your life choices.
Quick Plot: Stop me if you've heard this one: a batch of attractive strangers awakens in a dirty but highly secure locked down warehouse with no memory of how any of them got there. The brick walls and bolted doors are impossible to break, even with the handful of rusted weapons scattered about. A sad little television set is their sole connection to the outside.
The only channel it shows comes courtesy of the mysterious Dr. Kasuma, a calmly deranged scientist who informs them that they're now part of her experiment. When the television shows a timer countdown, one subject has 15 minutes to kill a person in the room or risk someone they love being gassed to death onscreen.
The rules are fairly simple. Unless you're an idiot.
Surprise! EVERYONE in this movie is, indeed, an idiot. Sure, you can forgive the first contestant for doubting the validity of, you know, murder, but by the third cycle, it's really on you. Even if, spoiler alert for a movie you should absolutely not see, Dr. Kusama doesn't keep her word.
What IS this? Or rather, why, in 2021, 17 years after the first Saw gave birth to an easily-executable-on-a-small-budget subgenre, do you decide to make a movie like this? We've seen some fun takes: Saw with a shark, Saw as a plea to fund high school musicals, Saw reality TV, and so on. The problem with a bad Saw ripoff is that it reminds you just how empty the genre can be.
There is nothing of value to be found in The Blackout Experiment. The inexperienced actors try (at times too hard) but have no real support behind them to make anything register. The look is bland. The actual sound, garbled (though the dialogue gives you nothing of value, so perhaps it's not a loss). Our villain has no spark nor clear motivation. None of the characters do a thing to warrant our sympathy, though one comes somewhat close only for the film to scream at us that he deserves to die. We don't even have exciting violence. Every attack happens during the blackout, despite the rules being VERY clear that kills have to happen before.
I guess what I'm really saying is that it's unfair that the characters in The Blackout Experiment didn't have to actually watch The Blackout Experiment. Then again, no one really deserves that kind of fate.
High Points
It makes dreadful use of all of its 81 minutes, but hey! At least it's only 81 minutes!
Low Points
Aforementioned 81 minutes
Lessons Learned
It takes more than killing a hot chick trying to hack you down with an axe to know what it means to survive
Even if you steal all her boyfriends and her money, a good little sister will love you til the end (even if that end is entirely your fault)
You have to do what a girl holding a gun tells you to do
Rent/Bury/Buy
Oof. Unless you're a completist for these kinds of films (aka the masochist that is me) there is no value of any kind to be found in The Blackout Experiment. Skip it on Amazon Prime.
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