Features – International / UK Premiere
Showing @ Cameo 1, Thu 16 June @ 22:00 & Fri 17 June @ 17:45
Nicolas Goldbart/Argentina/2010/96 min/TBC
The sudden onset of a deadly disease is just the least of the problems in Nicolas Goldbart’s Phase 7, an apocalyptic vision of the not-so-distant future, with a little dark humour thrown in.
Following the discovery of a killer diease, Coco (Daniel Hendler) and his heavily pregnant wife, Pipi (Jazmin Stuart) are quarantined in their new apartment block along with their neighbours. But the illness soon ceases to be the biggest threat to their survival, as their neighbours begin to fall prey to hysteria, and plan a vicious attack on one of their own.
Billed as a ‘dark genre parody’ Phase 7’s premise of a married couple fighting to survive in a world ravaged by a new, highly contagious and seemingly incurable disease is a storyline that wouldn’t seem out of place in a horror movie. But while Phase 7 is meant to be funny, and there are moments of tension shattered by a few unexpected comedic bursts, the film becomes a rather serious portrayal of what happens to everyday people in an extraordinary situation. In the characters’ comfortable apartment block, the addition of a deadly virus brings tension, infighting, betrayal and conspiracy theories, which makes it a rather interesting comment on the fragility of the human race against a silent, unknown and completely unstoppable killer. The problem with creating a film about an epidemic is that this genre is limited by its very subject, which means that the piece can only move in a small number of directions, and the direction that Phase 7 takes is not only predictable, but the film takes far too long to reach that particular conclusion. A little flawed, but otherwise entertaining, Phase 7 is a bit of a pick n’ mix of genres, but it’s otherwise good fun.