I certainly agree with other reviewers that Melissa George in the lead role of Jess really does an excellent job. And I also agree that the film is worth a look, but I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with the storytelling and plot.
After their yacht capsizes, 5 friends find themselves seemingly rescued by a cruise liner named Aeolus. One of the group remarks that in mythology, Aeolus was the father of Sisyphus
you can look him up if you want a clue as to the film's theme.
Jess is immediately uncomfortable and it's not long before her trepidation seems to have been warranted. She suffers disturbing dejá vù as the plot unfolds, and faces a number of increasingly difficult choices. We rarely doubt that Jess will make the difficult choice if it means a chance of escape from the nightmare. In a perverse way the choices become easier as it dawns on Jess what is happening.
The movie is definitely a thriller, not a horror. Although there is quite a lot of blood! Personally I was glad there were no "boo!" moments where you jump out of your skin. The writer had many opportunities to do that but clearly chose not to turn the movie into just another bad-guy-jumps-out flick. But this doesn't mean that the movie lacks suspense! There's plenty of suspense and I was tense (in a good way) almost throughout.
Towards the end, the pieces all start falling into place, and a few odd and inexplicable moments at the start of the film, which made me wonder what the heck the writer was thinking of, suddenly made perfect sense. As the final scenes unfolded I felt very much more satisfied than at any other time during the film. The ending is very neat and tidy, and clever too. It left me grinning.
But overall this neatness and feeling of completeness didn't make up for what had gone before. As a total package it just wasn't as good as it could have been, perhaps because the main plot device has been done before, and in my opinion, done much better by others. I'll give it 6/10.
I'm sure that others in the sparsely populated theatre liked it much less than I did: I overheard several damning comments when the titles rolled which I felt were pretty harsh. If you're looking for a bloody and frightening horror, this movie isn't it.
*** SPOILER ALERT *** I'm not going to ruin the film for you, but I will say that the forever-repeating never-ending loop scenario has, in my opinion, been done much better elsewhere. Groundhog Day, 50 First Dates, and others I haven't seen, plus a myriad of sci-fi shows such as Star Trek and Stargate. However it's truthful to say that Jess finds herself in an altogether more disturbing scenario than any of these others mentioned! *** END OF SPOILER ***
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