Three strangers are trapped inside an elevator in an empty apartment building during a blackout. The asthmatic Claudia (Amber Tamblyn) is traumatized with the accident with her beloved grandmother due to a moment of distraction. Karl (Aidan Gillen) is a widow doctor that loves his daughter. Tommy (Armie Hammer) is a young man that has just accidentally killed the violent father of his girlfriend Francesca (Katie Stuart) while protecting her and is planning to runaway to Paris with her. The tension of group escalates to a nightmare when one of the strangers shows that is a psychopath and sadistic serial-killer. "Blackout" is an effective low-budget thriller with a tense and scary story. The plot is uncomfortable despite most of the story happening in one location with flashbacks of the lives of the three characters. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Blackout – Prisioneiros do Medo" ("Blackout – Prisoners of the Fear")

One of the great things about having access to Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature is that (of course) you can watch movies without having to wait on a disc to arrive via snail mail.Sometimes you'll stumble across unexpected gems that come in the form of obscure indie films. My experience, however, has been that I usually end up being suckered into movies that are a complete waste of time. Enter Blackout, a low-budget psychological horror/thriller from director Rigoberto Castaneda (yeah, I'd never heard of him either).The story is this: a trio of strangers becomes trapped in an elevator when a citywide power outage cripples Los Angeles. What's especially dire about this group's situation is that their apartment building is undergoing heavy renovations, which means that there are only a handful of tenants who could possibly hear their cries for help.If you're like me, this sounds like a brilliantly simple setup that could only result in a great horror movie. My first thought was that days of existing in a dark elevator would expose the occupants' inner demons, which would accompany a chilling set of primal instincts that were triggered because of being forced into an extreme survival scenario (this drummed up thoughts of films like The Descent and Cube).Unfortunately, I was quickly reminded of the other elements that comprise "good" movies. You know, things like an engaging narrative and characters that I actually care about.As you've no doubt guessed by the categorization of this critique, none of these things are found in Blackout. Instead, we're given a series of flashbacks that shed very little light on the main characters' motivations. In fact, the indication that one of the elevator's inhabitants is a serial killer does little to generate tension, as each are shockingly wooden in their respective roles. There's even a red herring thrown our way in the form of an absurdly "emo" teen, but the ensuing flashback connected to said angst-laden youth informs us that he is, in fact, a good kid. Not only is this strangely irrelevant to what's happening in the idle elevator, it also completely destroys any sense of mystique that might have otherwise existed around our tattooed/pierced anti-hero.And then there's the setting of the film. Given the title, one would be safe in assuming that a large portion of the film was shot in the dark, right? I mean, this is the kind of thing a director would want to do because—if done correctly—it would create a sense of claustrophobia, which would be entirely appropriate given the nature of a movie about a group of people stuck in an elevator.Oddly enough, this is a very well-lighted movie. It's not until the very end that shadows seem to envelop the doomed elevator, and even then the proceedings are entirely too bright.What starts off as film built on a great premise quickly descends into the worst sort of horror fare: the boring sort. In order to save you an 85 minutes that you'll desperately wish you could have back, go for another "Watch Instantly" option that's actually entertaining and creative. I'd recommend 2008′s Splinter. It's about a murderous "splinter parasite" that traps an escaped convict (along with his girlfriend and a couple they've taken hostage) in a gas station. Yes— it's every bit as awesome as it sounds.

This movie was supposed to be a thriller with little horror/crime elements but instead they tried to make it into an artistic melodramatic cinema and that's where it failed miserably. I have nothing against slow paced movies but this movie was so slow paced that it turned watching it till the end a chore in itself. The moot point is there was nothing much interesting happening throughout the entire film. The filmmakers tried to give us a sense of character development through flashbacks but instead of cutting to the chase halfway through, the flashbacks continued right till the end which killed the pacing in my opinion. I kept saying to myself, can we please get back to the present, all the while looking at my watch for the movie to end.The main problem of the movie is the three main characters. They are largely uninteresting characters with uninteresting lives and even after all the attempted character development through flashbacks, you never really learn to like or sympathize with any of them.The flashbacks could have been kept short and interesting but the directors went for the art house approach by showing us long drawn out scenes from the characters' lives. The whole part about the doctor seducing the women and subsequently cutting her up and raping her was like poetry in motion which completely ruined the movie given the fact that it aimed to be a thriller right from the get go. Even the ending was bland and melodramatic to say the least. The atmospheric tension was sadly missing from the entire film given it's highly volatile nature.There still might be folks willing to sit through this garbage and for them I would like to stay clear of any further spoilers in my review. I am a big fan of Horror/Thriller genre and can easily sit through anything remotely interesting but I found myself looking at my watch every 5 minutes when I watched this one.Thanks for reading.

some people apparently just want to bash some relative unknowns for personal reasons, others want to bash famous people, neither give work a fair viewing. I read the first comments, wonder if his screenplays have been roundly rejected, or what his ax to grind is.the movie's use of flash backs was quite good, the casting was superb visually, beautiful women. the editing was economical. Itd successfully created an entire world. the photography was great. the acting was superb. every moment believable with tumultuous emotional inner lives. it's sleeper worth seeing. I cannot comment on the script versus the finished film. But he took a tired concept and made it work most excellently.