The Horror Show
Infini
by Shane Abbes
I can’t recall the last time I saw a really good sci-fi horror film. Like, the ones that actually take place in space. The only thing coming to my recent memory is Event Horizon. I mean, critically that movie didn’t do well, but I enjoyed it. It had everything, like the dangers of space, portals to hell, a demonic spaceship, and an evil Sam Neil. Infini opens up quite mysteriously much like Even Horizon. It hooked me almost immediately, but then it took a turn.
The future is bleak, to make a living wage people are forced to work dangerous jobs in deep space, such as space mining. Through the use teleportation, you can work a deadly job and be home by dinner. For some reason, the teleporters cause extreme time dilation. You can teleport and be gone for a week and return to find out that it’s only been an hour. I guess it’s actually teleporting you not only through space, but time. So, you’re teleported into the past before you’ve even left or something, I try to not think about it too hard.
Anyways, the movie follows Whit Carmichael, his team was sent out to Infini as a part of a search and rescue mission; he and a few others stayed behind. Those that left return only seconds later and begin killing each other and everyone else around them. The base is locked down and forced into a lethal quarantine. Carmichael makes it out by teleporting to Infini. Infini is being mined for a unique and highly combustible material used as fuel. Someone on Infini weaponized it and plans to hit the earth with it; they refer to it as the “payload.” A team on the east-coast are sent in to disable the payload permanently and rescue Carmichael. They manage to locate him and together they take the payload offline in minutes by turning some valves, problem solved... permanently. However, one other survivor attacks the group. He’s killed, but his blood manages to infect everyone present. They are driven into a killing rampage and only one person can walk out a survivor.
This movie gets confusing fast. Infini actually opens on a bookend from the end of the movie. It’s the crew returning from Infini being yelled at and asked to look at the interrogators. This is quite a jarring way to start the movie. I immediately felt confused and lost, like I was being yelled at for not paying attention. Using this bookend to frame the movie was completely unnecessary. The movie could have just opened up on Carmichael spending the morning with his wife before going to work. It would have eased me into the movie, without sending me immediately into a panic attack. The beginning of the film also just starts throwing information at you so fast and you’re expected to keep up. By the time the east coast was being briefed on their objectives, I was lost. They were talking about a weaponized payload, which was the mineral, and somehow it was going to arrive soon but they had to stop it in the past. I’m not sure, I couldn’t quite understand this part of the movie.
Once the movie actually reached Infini, it was much easier to understand. So that mineral found on Infini, it’s actually a living organism when in a liquid state. It infects people, forcing them to fight until there is only one survivor. Because, that’s how evolution works. At least that’s how the movie attempts to explain it. Survival of the fittest is natural selection, a species with a trait that helps it survive will pass down that trait to its offspring and then their offspring. It’s not killing everyone until no one else stands. The movie talks about infection on a cellular level and shows Carmichael’s cells attacking one another. That would kill him, his own body would be attacking itself! It’s implied the ooze does this on instinct, because life is competition and competition is survival, but wait, this goop is actually sentient.
I’m going into heavy spoilers, so be warned. Carmichael is the last human left standing after they’ve all killed each other or themselves. He then records a message and plays it on loop for all the goo to hear. He basically says that they choose to represent all the bad in humanity instead of good, despite the implication earlier that it was instinct. He goes on to say that they could have learned from each other and worked together. Then Carmichael kills himself. Then, guess what, the ooze feels bad. It decides to bring Carmichael and the entire east-coast team back to life, but nobody else, not that one survivor that got everyone infected before dying, and not the rest of the crew on Infini. The goop didn’t care that much apparently. This ending was a copout. I think the movie should have ended with everyone else dead and Carmichael succumbing to the ooze, reactivating the payload. I think it would have been a much more memorable ending. At this point we know that the material on Infini wouldn’t just create an explosion, it would have infected the entire earth and everyone would have started killing one another.
Honestly, the movie was unoriginal. It played out like every other disease/outbreak horror film out there. Group goes to infected area, group gets infected, group gets paranoid, group starts killing one another, everyone dies. Except it’s in space. The only original concept appears early on, the movie seems to place emphasis on something called a dirty jump, they don’t explain what it really is, but it’s mentioned because a team experienced a few minutes of lost time when teleporting. I believe the intro also mentioned something about a chance of data corruption during teleportation. I thought the movie was going to be about some freaky teleporting horror, like people turning into monsters, but no. Just a loose thread.
I can’t say I’ve seen much by director Shane Abbess, really only Infini. However, I saw that he also directed 2007’s Gabriel, I never saw it because that movie looked terrible. Upon seeing this, it’s not hard to imagine why Infini wasn’t the best movie. I mean it kind of started strong, it got me interested enough before it got really confusing, but then it continued to go downhill. I felt like the movie was also trying to say something about being a parent, Carmichael was a soon to be father, two other characters were both fathers, and one couple was pregnant but the woman decided to terminate the pregnancy. I’m not sure what the message was, but it seemed like there was supposed to be one. Maybe the movie is supposed to be a metaphor for being a parent means you should be a better person.
I also feel like the movie tried really hard to scientifically explain things one minute and throw reality out of the window the next. After everyone gets infected, Carmichael runs away immediately, and he comes across a six foot gap. He could have run around, but he tries to jump and falls for who knows how long before hitting the ground. All that happens to the guy is he loses consciousness and cracks a rib. It was a huge fall, he should have died. That’s the problem with Infini, it’s inconsistent. It’s also confusing, misleading, and disappointing. It’s safe to say the number of good sci-fi horror movies out there is finite.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
The Horror Show Menu.