BLACK WAKE

Well, when I heard that there was a new movie out about formerly-human RECRUITS of something that lives in the ocean, entering the sea LIKE LEMMINGS...I was TERRIFIED.  Is someone onto our secrets?  Are we -- as the humans in my Conspiracy Zone put it -- STONE-COLD BUSTED?

I watched Black Wake last night in DREADFUL FASCINATION, and I have to say that before long, my terror turned to GLEE.

Let me explain.

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON THIS REMARKABLE FILM:

>>  Imagine my surprise when this supposed ORACLE OF OUR DOOM turned out to be an almost run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse epic, told by a wild-eyed, disheveled research scientist who's slowly gone off the rails while reading a handwritten book written by an even more wild-eyed homeless man.  None of her co-workers believe that her ideas, founded on reading this book and viewing scraps of cellphone video of the zombie infestation, have ANY MERIT.

>> We know to believe her co-workers because they are big-name movie stars in our Zone:  Eric Roberts and Tom Sizemore.  The scientist is played by Nana Gouvea, who's apparently a pretty big deal back home in Brazil, but THAT AND A QUARTER WON'T EVEN BUY YOU A CUP OF COFFEE IN AMERICA.  Just because she's a furriner acting in an American movie, she automatically loses all credibility -- it's the Trump Administration right now, remember?  Of course that would all change if he dumped Melania and married Nana, but that hasn't happened yet, so as I type this she still has, ipso facto, NO CREDIBILITY.  Her cause is a lost one.

>> It turns out by the end of this movie that she and the homeless man are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.  But that is going to be THEIR LITTLE SECRET.  

>> The protagonist is followed from the first frame of this movie by a couple of CIA agents (or something) wearing Google glasses (or something), FILMING HER EVERY MOVE.  They appear to suspect her of something, WE KNOW NOT WHAT.  They make it sound as if they already had the goods on her but are filming her anyway.  The irony here is that she is already FILMING HER OWN EVERY MOVE, even though she is a little old to be fixated on capturing everything she does on video the way an 18-year-old would be.  At one point she even breaks into a house, steals a screaming millennial's cellphone and uses it to KEEP FILMING.  Funnily enough, the homeless man is the right vintage to be posting his every thought, papercut and bowel movement on Facebook and he doesn't even seem to OWN a cellphone...But I digress.

>>   Why we need to see all this footage of the scientist sitting in front of her terminal with a black eye and her hair in disarray, saying "Nobody believes me," is NEVER MADE CLEAR.  They never do anything with all that film.  And as Eric Roberts keeps pointing out, there are no useful revelations in any of the footage anyway.

>> This leads me to one of the real gaps in the movie.  EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PROGRESS OF THIS STORY BEING CAPTURED ON SOMEONE'S CAMERA, even though nobody is ever going to watch it.  Park security cameras, cell phones, research facility wall cams, Google glasses, the monitors in any room in the research facility with a computer terminal in it.  Every important moment of the story is captured on someone's found footage.  

>> Oh, the zombies?  They've been set upon by some kind of little water scorpions that jump down your throat and then kick their way out of your skull, leaving the brain exposed, for reasons that are NEVER MADE CLEAR.  In between the plunge down the Shaved Monkey's gullet and the dramatic exit through a hole blown in the parietal bone, the affected person staggers around talking like the homeless guy.  

>> WE CERTAINLY DON'T OPERATE THAT WAY.  This, ladies, is the EASY way to tell that this movie is not a recruiting video made by US, but a typical horror movie made by some of THEM.  The way I would read the scientist's ramblings, if they were coming from a real recruit's lips, is "They don't believe me" = "They [the landscum] don't suspect a thing."  Which is fine, which is great -- IF YOU DON'T BLATHER ABOUT IT CONSTANTLY AND RECORD IT FOR POSTERITY ON THEIR OWN RECORDING DEVICES.  Sheesh!

>> There ARE some genuinely heart-rending moments in this story, and I can easily see why someone in our ranks RUSHED ME A COPY for review.  There is a recurring image of these bedraggled, muddy, bloody zoms standing by the shore wishing they could go into the water forever...but they can't, because they're still human.  WE LANDFISH OPERATIVES HAVE ALL HAD MOMENTS LIKE THAT.  The protagonist keeps talking about wanting to go home and not being able to figure out where home is.  Until a recruit's transformation reaches a certain point, that pervasive feeling can be PRETTY MISERABLE.  

>> The little boy stranded on the yacht in several scenes of this movie -- who, needless to say, also got captured on cellphone cam as his dad was dragged away by SOMETHING UNKNOWN -- also has a lot to say to us about how it feels to apparently lose loved ones to the sea.  LOVED ONES WHO WILL BE BACK IN DUE COURSE, WITH FINS AND GILLS, TO TAKE YOU HOME.

>> I can also easily see why the ranks were alarmed by the fact that this whole story happens on the beaches, to fishermen and so forth.  But when you watch all the way through and see where the story takes you, you can see THERE'S NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF.

>> In this movie, entering the sea isn't even the real goal.  Wait 'til you see it!  You'll die laughing.