The Hive Reviews

Initial Thought: I never knew about this one. I only heard of it when one of my managers said it would be playing for weekend. I watched the trailer and was kind of intrigued. It looked a bit like Evil Dead with other elements. The only problem I had is how strange the cinematography looked. Anyways I decided I would go ahead an watch it.

Characters/Acting: I'm not really familiar with too many people here. Only Gabriel Basso and Kathryn Prescott caught my attention by name and face. Other people I've seen a few films of, but they weren't recognizable to me. This in a way kind of reminds me of Super 8 which Gabriel Basso had starred in ironically. So Gabriel Basso plays one of the most likable jerks I've seen on film. You will see what I mean if you watch this. I absolutely adored Kathryn Prescott here. Gabrielle Walsh and Jacob Zacar also added to the mix with their characters. I thought they did well with their parts. If you know your directors there is a surprise cameo I wonder who will notice it.

Story: A young man suffering from amnesia must dig deep into the far reaches of his mind to remember who he is and save the love of his life before a virus that has infected him takes over. So besides having similarities with Evil Dead and Memento this has several sub-genre mixed in for extra measure. It's a mystery. It's a love story. It's to some extent coming of age. It's not extremely gory, but it's still pretty gross. It goes back and forth between time. That doesn't make it hard to follow as you can easily tell what is before and what is now. There were a few loose ends that I was hoping would be somehow explained. It didn't take away from the story. I thought the romantic aspect was quite well done. The ending was okay, but it kind of felt a little cliche.

Directing/Writing: This is the first film from both the director and the writer. It seems though that they are very inspired by Evil Dead and possibly Memento. So with all the genres mixed in and the time jumps the filmmakers still managed to keep this easy to follow. They really made a fun concept here. I think this has possibilities for a sequel. Hell the low budget Evil Dead got two, a remake, and a TV series coming.

Final Thoughts: This was pretty damn good. It was fresh yet had some familiarity with it. The acting is good. Our main characters are pretty likable. We don't get much in the way of gore, but we get a lot of black goo stuff everywhere. The story jumps back and forth, but I honestly think it was rather easy to follow. It's a different sort of horror film. So don't think of it in terms of zombies or demons. I recommend checking it out to really understand it without spoiling it.