Pod review: An interesting premise spoilt by predictable plot points, cheap costumes and an unnecessary ending.
Pod review
Director: Mickey Keating
Cast: Larry Fessenden, Lauren Ashley Carter, Dean Cates, Brian Morvant
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 76 minutes
Synopsis: A family intervention goes down the pan in a remote cabin in the woods.
Pod reunites three estranged siblings at the family cabin in the woods. What becomes overwhelmingly obvious whilst watching Pod is that there really doesn’t need to be three characters. Lyla, the younger sister, doesn’t offer anything to further the plot, her main use appears to be purely to give the older, sensible brother Ed someone to pass expositional information too. The story could have worked just as well, if not better, had the sister been the brother’s partner who wasn’t that clued up on the family history. Although it would play even better still if it were just brother versus brother.
Pod review
The premise of not quite knowing whether troubled Martin is telling the truth or not is clever and engaging. The siblings talk in circles and the audience is left to switch from side to side as more information, or misinformation, is presented. On one hand we have erratic conspiracy theorist Martin, on the other we have the doubting and pragmatic Ed, but whose truth is right? In many ways it feels like an old school episode of The X-Files, sans Mulder and Scully.
Pod let’s itself down in it’s execution and the revealing of which truth writer / director Mickey Keating decided to come down on. After being brilliantly built up, with a few unexpected developments along the way, it’s disappointing that once the elephant in the room is answered, everything starts to unravel. Even worse, the film ends on a cheap scare that is both totally expected and completely unnecessary, detracting from the enigmatic finale the film should have been aiming for.
An independent film, Pod was clearly made on a tight budget and struggles to hide its low production budget. As with the narrative, the first part of the film looks fine, the decision to set the story in one main location helps keeps costs down. The dark and messy set dressing of the interior of the cabin also hide a multitude of sins. Yet for some reason the choice was later made to not use clever trickery to mask the ‘pod’. Instead the viewer is confronted with a cheap and shoddy design that is little more than the classic man in a suit.
Pod review
An interesting and smart idea that is let down by unnecessary character and plot decisions. Pod has the making of something special but it gets lost in translation.
Pod review, Kat Hughes, August 2015.
Pod is part of this weekend’s Frightfest programme screening on Friday 28th August at 10:45am.
