Cell Count (2012) Reviews

• barely worthwhile

  hopla682012-06-20

  I have read a number of reviews for this movie. All these reviews were positive based on the fact that this is an independent movie with a small budget, no name actors and an inexperienced director and that if you take all that into consideration it is really a good movie... Well what happens if you take all these things out of the equation, do you still have a movie that is worth your time or not. This is - in my opinion- the question to be asked; otherwise you are left with the feeling you have as a parent when your child performs at a school play; " they really did their best". Now I don't get me wrong, by the time my son performs in a school play I will be very forgiving and proud, i am not forgiving for a movie that takes at least 90 mins of my time and doesn't give enough back for that investment. Which is of course the case here. The plot is simple, a handful of strangers with a " disease" ( its never explained which disease this is) are selected for a cure in a facility with questionable treatments by a scary doctor. Of course things go wrong, the cure has side effects and people get killed. This is basically not only the short version but all there is to tell. The first images of a husband at the bed of his dying wife and the choices presented to him ( either you keep trying to pay the bills to watch her die here or sign her up for experimental treatment) are powerful and set the mood for things to come; realistic choices. But the moment the couple arrives in the facility things go bad - not only for the couple but also for the viewer- the first mistake is to make the next scene " 3 weeks later" ?? I mean, what happened in the previous weeks, why does the husband have a scar, why is the wife suddenly better, who are those other people? What follows is a collection of loosely tied scenes. Couple of standouts ( there is an interesting vomit scene and you see a flash of the bug like creature the evul doctor uses as a cure, well a flash, more like two legs)but there is no cohesion. The facility - including a resident evil like promo that is played for the, well lets call them inmates, which is cool- is flat and not much of a background. Its the porn set mantra; every scene looks the same because they have just one background. Acting and dialog feels unnatural at best and just plain bad at the worst and because things "just" happen without any explanation or fleshed out background story individual scenes can be judged just as that and the movie crashes time and time again. So is this a recommended movie? I read reviews which compared it to early David Cronenberg; don't be fooled, it doesn't even come close to his work. An other review compared it to the equally flawed " Bane" which comes closer to the truth. The movie does have its merits and some good ideas behind it but the sum of acting, plot, no budget backgrounds and disjointed scenes makes it a chore for everyone watching it with half a brain. The ending which gives you one of the Baldwin Brothers for a cameo is half baked and lacks any form of logic; pleads for a sequel that hopefully never comes. Making a movie on a small budget must have its difficulties, but a coherent plot is the very least I expect from any movie.

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• Don't watch it. Just don't.

  kristoffermuhonen4052012-06-21

  The movie sounds promising, it looks promising and it disappoints about as much as a movie possibly could. The first 20 minutes had me on the edge of my seat, not because it was exciting, but because I really thought it would be a good movie. Then it got progressively worse until the very end. The only thing I can praise is the half decent acting and the extremely promising premise. Everything else is awful, what really got to me and what inspired me to write this, my first review on IMDb, was the plot. It's as if someone, after the first few minutes, came in with a hammer and started bashing the writer slowly but surely until at the end of the script he'd simply lost the capacity to write a coherent story. I don't want to go in to too much detail beyond that because the movie simply does not deserve it. Avoid!

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• Great film, brilliant story, and terrible reviews.

  jacobwhitt-600-4168312013-02-05

  Let me preface this by saying that I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I went in expecting a thriller, not a horror, and it actually quenched my expectations fully and with a little bit of horror tossed in on the side it made for a pleasant viewing. And from the reviews on this site I honestly wasn't expecting too much. But I've experienced this kind of incongruity on IMDb time and time again. Great film, terrible reviews. I'll start with it's strongest point which is the story. The story is absolutely fantastic and was presented almost flawlessly. You can feel the misdirection, as thick as arctic sea smoke, which is the key signature to a thriller's atmosphere. It'll start asking you questions that you didn't even know you wanted to ask. There was not a single moment when I felt I knew exactly what was going to happen next and yet everything was still easy to follow which, IMHO, is where most films (in this genre especially) go wrong. Even to the very end you're still asking questions but if you payed even a modicum of attention you'll understand everything just fine. The acting was decent. Some parts were a little weaker than others mostly due to underacting in a few scenes that involve gore/action, which detracted from the experience but considering that we're not talking about million dollar A list actors the performances passed my own personal 'litmus test' and I consider it quite nominal. One scene in particular will linger in my mind as the most outrageous and yet most underacted scene in film history due mostly to the writing rather than acting oddly enough. Came across a boorish sight gag to me. Cinematography and editing was well done. The special effects and CG left something to be desired but I'm sure it was a matter left to budget rather than talent or design/concept. Don't follow the 'advice' of the other reviewers. This film is much more than the poor (and poorly written) reviews it's received thus far. Watch it and expect an independent film that will delivers a clever story not as a premium blockbuster the AAA studios churn out.

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• This started well but the direction & editing made it hard to finish.

  Thrill_KillZ2012-06-23

  First off this is my favorite sub-genre of Horror ever since the first Saw film. Any time there is people that wake up somewhere strange imprisoned by any means(medically quarantined in this case) I can't wait to watch it. What is most annoying about this is the wasted potential. They had set up a great premise for all kinds of horrible things to happen & it makes the viewer hang in there waiting to see these things but they never happen. What does happen is a bunch of 20 second scenes in no certain order that make absolutely no real sense. In the second half of the film it seems like whoever cut this dropped the scenes on the floor & just cut it in the order they landed. Of course then there is the final act that leaves the viewer with the same questions they had in the first half unanswered. They had all of the ingredients but failed to use most of them to their advantage, kind of like my cooking. If you do decide to check this out remember to keep your expectations low. 4/10

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• laudable effort, but why didn't anyone say "*cough* ... it makes no sense"?

  chexmix2013-05-27

  I was predisposed to like this film. I like to support independent efforts, because on the whole I think Hollywood movies are pure sh*t, ridiculously expensive bags of empty spectacle made for an audience accustomed to equating an actor's ability with his or her being "hot." Plus, I love horror / science fiction fare, and telling me something is somewhere in the neighborhood of Cronenberg "body horror" almost gar-on-tees I will watch it. This film fails, however. It is incoherent. I will touch on only a few points, because there are so many. 1) Another reviewer has mentioned this, but the "cure" creature seems to have no fixed form. At one point it appears to be a large cockroach, at another point it's kind of like a really big meat slinky with teeth, at a third point it flops out of your mouth and wraps itself tightly around your head (for what benefit to itself, I ask?) and fourth, it makes you explode like a grenade. Huh? 2) Also huh: is there any conceivable point, even given the admittedly chaotic mental regions that "mad scientists" inhabit, for the sudden release of the psychopath characters to "integrate" with the others? A sudden uncontrollable burst of sadism (S.U.B.O.S.)? Please help, I am lost. 3) Aaaaaaand ... then there is the ending. Our doughty characters gun their way out of the facility (there's one guard. Wow), to find a bus driven by Smilin' Daniel Baldwin ready to take them to freedom. Well, er, okay, lucky them, but ... how did it get in in the first place, if the place is so heavily guarded? Meanwhile, weedy young "Mason," who has been left to die because he's been gut-shot, injects himself with ... something ... and is, gosh, suddenly okay, so he gets up and boards the bus. It's all right -- he's just a little bloody, plus (!) he keeps seeing someone who may or may not be there. He can see the future! Or not. Characters "Billy" and "Abraham" are staying behind, because Billy's "cure" is too advanced to be extracted ... oh, no, wait, Billy and Abraham are getting on the bus. Never mind. Then there are some explosions, I think, and someone at the entrance to the facility who looks like a melted Nazi but is apparently an old friend of the mad German scientist. He shoots at the bus. Then ... a ... thing ... runs squealing by in the foreground, and the bus exits the facility. If someone can "explain" all this to me, I'm all eyes.

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