Now, I’m sure you all know who rock band
Lordi are. Those bizarre rockers from Finland, who won the Eurovision song contest in 2006? Well, for some time,
there'd been talk and an awful lot of hype, over the fact they were making a horror film, and finally in 2008, it
arrived. Though surprisingly, it turned out they were not the films central characters...
The plot instead focuses on a young father and his autistic daughter, who get stuck in a lift at their local hospital, along with small group of other patients and hospital staff. But when the power comes back on, they’re surprised to find the building mysteriously deserted, the phones aren’t working and there's something blocking the exits.
Trying to find a way out, they discover they’re not actually alone as they're attacked by various ghostly figures, zombies and demonic creatures, played by Lordi in their stage costumes, who emerge from the empty rooms
Filmed using a primarily English cast, this was rather like a cross between “Demons 2” and “Poltergeist 3"” with some obvious nods to the likes of Lucio Fulci’s “The Beyond”. Overall, this wasn't a bad film, although I did find the pacing a little slow in places for my liking. Also, the young girls whining at the start of the film does get kind of annoying after a while, but once things got going I actually found myself quite enjoying this.
Lordi’s involvement, being confined to just playing the demons in this, is I think where opinions are going to be divided. As this is being played as a straight horror picture, many horror fans might see their inclusion detrimental to the plot, given their comical background. Whereas Lordi fans may be put off by the fact that they’re only peripheral characters.
I’m sure Lordi fans will want to check this film out regardless, but my advice to mainstream horror fans is pretend Lordi aren’t in this. If you can get past their involvement, this isn’t actually a bad film, so just view this on its own merits as a straight forward ghost story and you can’t really go wrong.
