Solar Impact the Destruction of London ซอมบี้สุริยะ (2019) [พากย์ไทย]

Picture

We watched Solar Impact: The Destruction of London on DVD format, Blu-ray unavailable.
It is low budget and it shows.  Craig Tudor is on directing duties and he uses some interesting techniques to get the film over the line. There are quick cuts that miss out half the action. For example we have the footage of the meteor hurtling towards earth, the next scene is an explosion. We did not see the impact and have to believe that the explosion is the effect of the meteor hitting earth.   The use of stock footage interspersed with live action is not in itself unusual however the images have been graded weirdly. At times the film goes really over lightened, or over saturated. It gives these parts the look of being filmed on a VHS camera low quality film rather than something filmed in the 2010s.  Other parts of the film look normal. It’s also noticeable that the film seems have only have used a couple of cameras. The shots being quite close to the subjects, or seemingly handheld.

Sound

There is no other way to say this, the sound mix is terrible.  It has the option of 5.1 but not even our cinema system could make the sound bearable. The talking is way too quiet and background music way too high, it was like watching episode one of Poldark all over again. Queue a restart of the film and selecting 2.0 made it slightly more listenable, but we still had to contend with volume tennis.

Like the video, the score seems to be a selection of shall we say ‘inspired’ tracks. We had twinkly bits like the shining, we had dum dum beat of Jaws played via a violin type sounding instrument. Long increasing tempo sounds to increase suspense. What is jarring abut all this, is that is really noticeable.

We feel music should aid what happens on screen, not take over its focus.

Effects.

With an apparently small budget it was never going to have Harry Potter levels of prosthetics, and what this film does well is the rather grotesque features of the Infected and the grouse dispatching of humans and infected.  What it doesn’t do well is the VFX of buildings blowing up and the aforementioned meteor impact. The other annoying effect is the dreaded shaky cam. Every-time we see a horde of the infected, other in a field or a building corridor, the camera goes into shaky mode in an attempt to convey danger and peril. However its just reinforced the fact that the horde is about 5 strong and about as dangerous as a wet lettuce!

Script

Its nothing outstanding, the concept has amazing potential – radiation instead of the T Virus that caused Zombie like behaviour, but the writing is subpar. We do not get to learn the character names early on, there is a plot to get to a family member that is not really explained, the usual tropes are followed, I.e get to high ground, but the story does not go anywhere. It would have been nice to see the radiation element explored more, possibly driving the MacGuffin, and I am not even going to mention that ending!!