Demonic

Carly (Carly Pope) is estranged from her mother Angela who was convicted of burning down her care home workplace and killing some 21 people some twenty years ago. She further poisoned another five. Carly is haunted by nightmares of Angela. She has also been estranged from longtime friend Martin after those events and then he contacts her with news about her mother.

When this popped up, I didn't realize that it's a new Neill Blomkamp film. I figured it to be another low budget inconsequential B-horror movie. The initial assumption is not far from the reality. The premise is similar to Jennifer Lopez in The Cell except its visuals are nowhere near as imaginative nor compelling. This story needs something much more basic than that. It needs a ticking clock and stakes and motivation for Carly. If an evil corporation is going to all that trouble, it should do something much more coercive to bring her into the experiment. It has non of that. She just agrees to join this weird experience for no apparent reason. At least give her a beat and a nightmare in between the asking and the doing. She could do the procedure to confront her nightmarish visions and her mother. There is a clear deterioration in Blomkamp's writing and his visual style has stalled at best. There are basic concepts of motivation and characterization that are missing.