New this week on DVD from Cleopatra Entertainment; help me out and pick it up on DVD/BluRay here on Amazon!

THE RIFT: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (2016)

Directed by Dejan Zecevic
Written by Barry Keating, Milan Konjevic
Starring Ken Foree, Katarina Cas, Monte Markham, Dragan Micanovic, Denis Muric, Miroljub Leso, Sonja Vukicevic, Mick Garris, Ratko Turcinovic, Masa Dakic, Jonathan English, Milan Todorovic
Find out more about this film here

THE RIFT: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is not a new B-side collection of Pink Floyd hits. It’s actually a odd little sci fi film that kept on upping the ante and surprising me all the way to the end.

When a satellite disappears, a government team of specialists are enlisted to track it down somewhere in Serbia. Special agent Liz Waid (Katarina Cas) is still recovering from the loss of her son, but is called in to lead the squad including; loose cannon Agent John Smith (yes, that’s his actual name, played by Ken Foree), a gung ho Serbian Agent Darko (Dragan Micanovic), and a scientist Dr. Dysart (Monte Markham) who has ties with the missing satellite. But what they uncover is anything but a satellite—it’s an astronaut that is being worshipped like a God and a purple portal that seems to breach both time and space, and maybe even reality itself.

THE RIFT: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is a film that I believe suffers from being made in English by a director that may not have English as a first language and therefore has an understanding of Western culture that seems to come from popular movies rather than real life interactions. There is a bit of a “rift” between the story that director Zecevic is trying to tell and the story that appears that I found noticeable.

That said, I found this film to be thoroughly entertaining and unpredictable all the way through. From the poster, I was thinking this was going to be a space story, and it eventually gets to tell that aspect of the story. But it is also a high stakes story of international intrigue with a group of specialists from different countries forced to work together on a common goal. Right when I thought this was going to be all action and no horror, the film really does tip its hat to both sci fi and horror as the astronaut that appears in Serbia due to some kind of wormhole anomaly in space becomes a religious icon in the small town. The film turns into a sort of PRINCE OF DARKNESS story where the city is compelled by this portal to defend itself against these foreign invaders. It all ends with a terrific and terrifying montage that suggests a much bigger and crazier tapestry occurring as a result of this small combat mission.

On top of that, the entire cast really does deliver on a lot of complex dramatic moments with Ken Foree getting to play around with a role that is meatier than anything I’ve seen the actor embody in recent memory. Monte Markham is a character actor who never gets his well deserved dues, but he again lends a lot of weight to this story as the scientist with a grave secret. And Katarina Cas, though she does have a thick accent, really does provide the heart portion to this film extremely well. All around, these actors make this big sci fi story full of an all important soul. Embracing many elements found in John Carpenter films, this low budget film does a fantastic job of blossoming into a big tale by the end. I was taken off guard by this low fi sci fi horror film, having not known anything about it going in and I think that’s going to be the best way to enjoy THE RIFT: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

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