Baby it's cold outside, those are the words I bet the cast of The Colony said during the making of the sci-fi horror flick. Shawn Francis brings us a look at The Colony's U.S Blu-ray release. The apocalyptic sci-fi/horror starring Lawrence Fishburn and Bill Paxton, check out Shawn's words after the jump...
Written By Shawn Francis
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The
movie asks the question what happens to society when food becomes
scarce?
In
an indeterminate future mankind had created weather towers to
manipulate the weather when global warming finally reached an
unbearable level. Something went wrong and when it started snowing it
never stopped. The entire world was thrown into turmoil as food
slowly ran out. Now pockets of colonies exist where bands of humans
have been just barely able to survive with what food they’ve been
able to cultivate.
When
the movie opens we’re introduced to an unfolding situation at
Colony 7. Mason (Bill Paxton) is outside holding a rifle on someone
who doesn’t look or sound like he feels all that well. Mason wants
to kill him. The man wants to take “the walk,” whatever that is.
Sam
(Kevin Zegers) intervenes, but as the man starts running off, Mason
turns and guns him down. You see getting sick poses a great problem
when bands of humans are sheltering together to stay alive. Without
even the basic healthcare getting the common cold can kill you and
anyone you’ve come into contact with.
Rules
for the sick at Colony 7 are simple—you get sick you go into
quarantine. You don’t get better you’re given the test. What that
is I never learned. You fail this test you’re given two choices:
walk away from the Colony or let Mason shoot you dead. Mason wants to
kill them because those who walk always come back.
His outlook sets him
at odds with the leader of Colony 7, Briggs (Laurence Fishburne). To
further complicate matters they lost contact with Colony 5 a week ago
and when they finally get hear from them again it’s in the form of
a distress call.
Time
to go find out what happened.
Briggs, Sam and
another kid, Graydon (Atticus Dean Mitchell), take a trip to Colony 5
and learn something unimaginable has occurred to everyone there.
They’ve all been slaughtered for food by a roaming band of
cannibals.
This
movie reminded me of two previous films, The Thing (1982) and
Ghosts Of Mars (2001). The Thing vibe is obvious, setting in
an Antarctic-like locale, etc., the Ghosts Of Mars vibe comes in when
you see the cannibals. They grunt and scream and wield sharp weapons
and are led by a tall, bald guy who does the same. Basically they act
like the alien natives from Mars just without all the body
modifications and weird alien behavior.
All
the CGI/green screen is relegated to making the landscape looking
convincingly like a second Ice Age has taken over the earth with the
remnants of modern society dotting it. It’s a really good-looking
movie in that regard. The Colony isn’t the best thing I have
ever seen, but on the other hand it’s not the worst thing I have
ever seen. It falls in the middle, being mediocre excursion into
action/science fiction, with a pretty damn good final confrontation
with our hero and head cannibal. Personally, I think the bruising at
the end when our hero surfaces should have been way more extreme for
he takes a hell of a brutal beating. Of course I see that with a lot
of movies.
The
Colony hits US DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of RLJ (Image)
Entertainment and hits DVD in the UK on December 26. The 2.35:1 1080p
anamorphic high definition is appropriately good looking and the
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is equally so. Subtitles are for
English and Spanish only.
The
only extra is ‘Behind The Scenes: Interviews With The Cast And
Crew’ (9:50), which is basically just that. The primary cast
members and the director are interviewed on the set of the movie.
This
would make either a good mini-series or a full series, as a 90 minute
movie it just didn’t grab me interest enough.
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