Movie Review - Into the Abyss

I don’t want to burst your bubble…but Into the Abyss is kind of a bait and switch.

I mean, what we get is a pretty interesting flick but I can certainly see why some might not like it for simply not delivering on the premise put forth by either the movie poster or DVD cover. I won’t lie, it did impact my enjoyment, for sure. Yet there is an argument to be made for what IS there.

In a seemingly endless rain, Bannon searches for any signs of other humans within a city seemingly devoid of any life. The Great Old Ones have returned, with minions to devour humanity’s remnants and madness to finish the rest. A chance encounter with a corpse with a working radio gives Bannon a glimmer of hope: a voice named Demian. Will this voice be his salvation? Or has he fallen too far into madness to be of worth to the humanity rising from the ashes?

The image on the DVD cover is very clear on the nature of this particular post-apocalyptic world: Cthulhu. However, at no point do we ever see the Dreamer…not that it’s necessarily needed either. We do see silhouettes of very “Old One” looking Lovecraftian monsters and we certainly catch glimpses of their human-hunting minions. But the layout of the image as well as the tagline “They came from the sky. We weren’t ready.” leads the potential viewer, or at least me, to believe that this is going to be a bit of a confrontational film. What we’re given instead is very introspective…and if you can get over this initial hurdle, there are some things here that really show potential.

The thing worth noting first and foremost is that Argentinian director Matias Xavier Rispau is certainly a student of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner…and that’s not a bad thing. You see, the core mantra with that film was, given their budget, if the effects were going to be expensive, make it darker and rainier. This way, less work needed to be done as these elements muddle the image in such a way that you don’t have to make all of the details and such. The vague notion of what you’re going for is all you need. Rispau does this in spades. As I mentioned above, we never really see any of the Great Old Ones now stalking the Earth, nor do we need to…they’re simply a looming presence and that’s all we need for this story. The constant rain and darkness in some ways do the heavy lifting for Cthulhu’s brethren. As for the minions, the glimpses of the creatures shows that there was certainly some good work done on the creature effects, but even these rely more on the sound design of their roars and screams and the surrounding darkness. If that wasn’t enough atmosphere for you, there’s an additional risk in this film. The military is still trying to fight these things, so in the background you still have plenty of gunfire, jet engines and bombs. All these things combined draw you into this world and keep you there with an icy cold grip.

Working hand in hand with this is the fantastic score by Pablo Fuu. Deftly switching from choral music to slight hints of synthwave that harken back to Vangelis (to further the Blade Runner comparisons), Rispau’s atmosphere almost depends both on the score and its absence. Fuu’s score adds another level to the film that keeps the viewer engaged…even if they’re thinking of checking out of the film itself.

You see…that’s because everything else we’re going to talk about…not the greatest.

Our protagonist, played by Martin Rispau, goes by Bannon. Now, I’ve got to admit, a fair number of movies that I’ve reviewed spring to mind where I didn’t really like the protagonist and this ended up affecting my enjoyment of the film. Bannon in some ways checks that box. We see him throughout the film descend…both into the fringes of madness and also into losing his humanity. Aside from the disembodied voice that is Demian, we see him mainly looking out for himself and doing nothing to aid those he comes across…in fact, rather the opposite. The first other person he encounters, he tries to steal from and when that goes awry, ends up shooting the guy in the foot and leaving him screaming in pain…which of course just brings the creatures. The other ends up being an old man who has gone mad enough to mistake Bannon as his son. This gent offers him food and what is probably booze…only for Bannon to steal a piece of a geode, something that the man valued above all else. Why? Couldn’t tell you. While it plays into some of the imagery of the film, it ends up being of no use to Bannon. Now fortunately, the film does try to counterbalance this. Bannon was a family man with at least a son and wife…both of whom are now presumably deceased. They end up haunting him in two separate ways: first, his reliance on the pictures and voicemails on his phone and second, during times of high stress their apparitions seem to come to him…as if they are flashes of a conscience that finds itself slowly dying throughout the film. This ultimately ends up being the throughline of the story and where the title comes from. The film follows Bannon as he tries to follow the promise of humanity in following Demian’s voice…yet when it comes to actually meeting people along his way, we see him lose more and more of his humanity in looking not to save or help those he encounters, but in using them to enrich himself. Still, I do love the fact that Demian nails it in his assessment of Bannon in their early conversations, “…and you’re an asshole.” That he is. Ultimately while his descent is worth the watch in some ways, I have to admit I kept hoping he’d pull up…do something right…but not so much.

Demian not only ends up being Bannon’s ray of hope, but ours as well. Played by German Baudino, and strictly by voice for nearly two-thirds of the film, he ends up being a fixed point. For Bannon, it’s a goal to accomplish…a way out of this hellscape. For us, he serves as a reminder that part of humanity is looking out for others, even if they don’t deserve it and even if their attitudes are different from ours. Of course, ‘all good things…’ and whatnot and Demian ends up teaching Bannon a lesson about this new world they’ve come to inherit. While this turn might be a shock to some, predictable to others…I found myself more with the latter but hoping that he too could pull up and out of the trappings of what’s around them. He, like Bannon, also ends up turning one way when I was hoping for the other.

Oh, I nearly forgot…there is one last thing that director Rispau does that helps to enrich the film visually. When the film starts, inside the city, we find ourselves in a 4:3 aspect ratio, but once we leave the city, we switch to 16:9. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t notice it for the bulk of my first viewing until the very end…as we pull out and away from the final scene. Once I picked up on it, I had to rewind to find out when this occurred. Finding it where I did, again, as Bannon steps out of the city and into a nearby forest, I’ll admit it was funny to fess up that I’d completely missed it. This would once again play into the strength of this film: its atmosphere…so much to the point that it even seeps into your subconscious!

The biggest hurdle of this film really is going in with an expectation of a more externally driven plot but finding yourself instead mired in an internal one. It doesn’t help that we find ourselves anchored to a main character that seems to make all the wrong decisions…yet asks us to consider him kindly as his story ends. Demian renders a final assessment…and it’s one that difficult to disagree with. So, by the end of the film you’re wondering “then why the hell did we follow this schmuck around for a little over an hour and a half?”, well, welcome to the club. Still, the sheer expertise Matias Rispau shows in creating and maintaining atmosphere with all the elements at his disposal and working around those that he doesn’t, I can’t simply write this film off as a waste of my time. And that’s the lesson here: if you go into this looking for Cthulhu mythos or Lovecraftian horror, you’re going to be very disappointed. If you’re looking for an atmospheric expression of how much humanity sucks, this movie might just be for you. Sadly, I came in with the former. I appreciate what Rispau was trying to do, but it’s not enough for me to really make any sort of recommendation. Thus, what we have here is the very definition of a Plain Cat – some good, some bad and, ultimately, a film that’s a tough pill to swallow it even after it ends.