Virus (1999)
Life on earth is in for a shock.
Well, I had everything planned out and then something went wrong and the regularly scheduled post - the only one I’ve done at the start of the week so it’d be ready to post when I was off on vacation - did in fact not post. To make up for it, I posted that one yesterday, and now you get this weeks movie - which I figured I’d flow with the convention I went to, which was all about a virus that effects machines and people and stuff and the year 1999. How could I tie into that? How about a movie about alien electricity that takes over technology and starts making terminators that was released in the year 1999? Yeah, I’m a little surprised I never hit this one either, tonight we check out Virus.
A Russian seafaring fancy-vessel is talking back and forth and keeping in touch with a space station as they do science stuff. As they have them on the line, the station is struck by some kind of crazy space electricity that beams down to the ship below. The computers start going crazy, and we cut to some credits and shift our perspective to a little tug crew towing a big haul through a hurricane. It’s pretty ill-advised, and the cargo get’s sunk with major damages to the little boat. After finding some safety in the eye of the storm, they come across a seemingly deserted Russian big-boat, and climb aboard to check it out. The crew is pretty excited about salvage rights and go to get the power back on so they can get it out of there - but when the power goes on things start getting weird. Someone or something is causing trouble - like dropping anchors and destroying their little tug boat, almost wiping out some of their crew in the process. They find a surviving crew member - or perhaps it’s more accurate to say she found them - and she delivers some cryptic warnings about how they have to get the power back off if they want to survive.
Characters here are alright. It’s pretty straight forward, not really a whole lot of room for character building or arcing paths. Some do get to advance in levels to some extent - like going from semi normal to near-crazy like - but for the most part how they come into the movie is how they exit the movie. For the action/horror blend it has going, it gives enough for you to decide if you like or think a character is cool, but it also doesn’t waste too much time slowing down for exposition in regards to the characters - which isn’t a bad thing. The basic character personalities can go a pretty decent way as far as being entertaining, aided slightly by some of the interactions between the characters.
Most the lifting work for the humans is left to the actors themselves then. They do a decent job here - with some getting to go a little more off the rails than others. Although I wouldn’t write it up as being a marvel of the careers of everyone involved, there is some memorable names in here and they do in my opinion a good enough job to keep you enjoying what you are watching. The beginning of a crazy descent with plenty of shouting “who will carry my stuff,” for example, seems a bit over the top but enjoyment wise it nails what I’m watching perfectly. There is some drift back and forth between a feel of underacting from some folks and a bit of overacting at other times, but most movies (especially with sci fi elements) end up feeling that way if for no other reason because who knows how we would react to something that out there).
Space entities in space.
Being set on a boat it does provide a bit of claustrophobic nature to aid in the horror elements. Why wouldn’t it really? It makes the characters isolated by harsh and deadly exterior conditions while also having them battle the horrors contained within it’s steel-clad walls and dangling wires and wreckage. Periodic splashes of blood and torn door seals elude to a threat larger than we’ve seen - even though we technically get a hint at the main culprit at the start we never really see just what happens aboard the Russian vessel. When we do start finally seeing all the technological creations running about, it’s one part impressive work and another part body horror as it advances into creations blending human flesh to what slowly becomes robotic monstrosities. The props team had a hay day with this one, and they did a darn good job with all the physical stuff filling up the frame.
How scary you find the movie is probably going to be more based on you tolerance for creepy little robots and the body hijacking of the later mechanical creations. The mood is pretty decent throughout the movie, but I can’t necessarily say that I was frightened watching the movie - even that last ditch jump scare attempt. Part of it could be because I have seen the movie before, and part of it might just be the large tolerance to scary movies I’ve built up from seeing so many films that I have a somewhat annoying understanding that everything I’m watching is just a movie so there is no reason to be afraid. Don’t worry - we’ll experiment with breaking that on another date, as I see a slew of spider-based movies have been released lately and being an arachnophobic person at least one of those should score a critical hit on my nerves.
Audio is well balanced, and the soundtrack helps support the mood going on. Effects work does a good job as well, although the main alien-wave electro-robot pig scream is a bit mediocre feeling in my opinion. It’s got a bunch of little sounds to help build out the soundscape though, so that’s all good. There are that classic “humans are a virus” tagline for folks that want to think about something, but outside of that there’s really just a few limited moments of moral decisions in there. Maybe someone more thoughtful than me can dig out more than that, but sometimes a movie doesn’t really need to have crazy commentary and just sets out to be a decent monster flick with some decent actors and entertain. If nothing else, I guess you could soak in the existential amount of dread that is just how screwed the world would be if an electrically based entity decided to infect the world and take out humans in the modern world where electricity is everywhere for a good deal of places.
Isn’t he a cute little welder spider crab bot thing.
If you wanted to check out an older movie that’s got a ton of sweet little visual effects, this could be a good choice. Something that’s not extremely scary, but at worst is really just mediocre in most departments - this would easily make for a decent thing to throw on in the background with some friends to enjoy. It’s got some highlight moments beyond just the effects, but for the most part it’s the kind of flick that you’ll watch and be impressed by a few moments or effects and largely just be content that it wasn’t time horrible spent even if it doesn’t become your most favorite movie. Still, it does point out part of why I enjoy horror movies and it’s not being scared, it’s checking out all kinds of interesting and thoughtful special effect creatures!