DVD Review: 7 Below

DVD Reviews, Film, Reviews

While watching this film a thought crossed me mind. I had plenty of time to think, you see, because this film was really boring and failed to engage me on an intellectual level so I had to entertain myself by thinking about other things. So the thought that occupied my mind while this film was running was about the faults of the digital age.

Specifically this: When you watch an older B film, whether shot on 16mm or 35mm, the film generally had that low budget film look. You knew from minute one what you were getting yourself into. Nowadays, with the advent and improvement of digital technology, even if a film has a low budget and is going to be intentionally bad you might not know going in. Case in point, 7 Below, the production value is rather high and with two reputable actors, Val Kilmer and Ving Rhames, you think the film just might be okay, not amazing, not great, but okay. Sadly this film thoroughly disappoints.

The film opens in 1911 when a young boy kills his entire family, including sisters, mom, dad and grandma. We cut to a century later and meet up with a van full of strangers going someplace for some reason. In the van we’ve got a couple of brothers, a couple on the verge of divorce and some others. The van crashes into a tree and Ving Rhames shows up being kind of creepy. In fact, being kind of Tony Todd creepy, who I feel really should have been cast in this film. Sure, Rhames is the better actor, But Todd plays creepy so much better.

Anyway, Rhames tells them that a storm is coming and they should jump in his truck and go to his house to ride out the storm. His house happens to be the murder house from one hundred years earlier. As night comes on creepy things start to happen like dead kids appearing in mirrors and such. All the people start to get creeped out when they all realize they’re seeing stuff and one of them dies.

And as they continue to make horrible cliché horror film like splitting up and going down into the basement alone they start to get killed off one by one.

It was at this point when I thought I had a revelation. I thought for sure that all of them had died in the car crash and this was some sort of crazy spooky afterlife. Then the real reveal happened and I was wishing it had been my stupid idea.

7 Below is all around a bad movie. The story is stupid, the dialog is bad, the characters are uninteresting and underdeveloped and the twist is complete nonsense. Val and Ving didn’t bring their A games and brought nothing to the table to raise the bar for this film.

The film is presented in a widescreen format and 5.1 Dolby Digital surround. Like I said, the film looks pretty good, but that’s about all this film has going for it.

For once I’m glad there were not special features. I didn’t want to spend any more time with this than I had to.

Arc Enterainment presents 7 Below. Written by: Lawrence Sara & Kevin Carraway. Directed by: Kevin Carraway. Starring: Ving Rhames, Val Kilmer, Luke Goss and Rebecca Da Costa. Running time: 93 min. Rating: R for violence, sexuality, nudity and language. Released: April, 17 2012. Available at Amazon.com.

Mike Noyes received his Masters Degree in Film from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. A few of his short films can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikebnoyes. He recently published his first novel which you can buy here: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-Years-Mike-Noyes-ebook/dp/B07D48NT6B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528774538&sr=8-1&keywords=seven+days+seven+years