Main cast: Jason Spisak (Ryan Winrich), Leeann Dearing (Caitlin Webb), Abe Ruthless (Nate Beaumont), Jose Rosete (Abner Rosen), and James Morrison (Bill Marshall)
Director: Gus Holwerda
The best part about Intersect is its opening sequence, easily the best CGI this movie could afford, but it also raises false hopes that the movie will be a cosmic horror tale of time travel gone awry.
We have three researchers at Miskatonic University, clearly a bait to get fans of Lovecraft-ian movies all salivating, and they are Ryan, who loves Caitlin, who loves him back but is in a relationship with his drunk and goofy friend Nate. Oh look, they have invented a time travel device called Quantum-42, ooh. Nate of course wants to be the first human guinea pig to try it out despite it liquefying a few mice in previous tests, and I’m sure everyone can guess what happens next.
This movie is, sadly, more soap opera than horror, and worse, it’s a soap opera of three boring, one-note clichés that barely make any impression due to how poorly developed they are as characters. Their story is one that’s old as time and done to death already, and director-cum-screenwriter Gus Holwerda seems to believe that gimmicky devices like non-linear chronology (the movie jumps back and forth in time) will somehow make things interesting. No, they don’t. I don’t care about any of the three, so I really want to throw up my hands when the movie for some reason then jumps back to when these three are teenagers.
Seriously, who cares? I want to see cosmic horror stuff that is promised to me, I did not sign up to watch a clichéd soap opera of three dull, flat, and lifeless characters weeping, scowling, and posturing. Yet, the film seems to believe that I am heavily invested in these characters. Mr Holwerda clearly believes that his script is far more amazing than it actually is.
The last half an hour or so finally sees some cosmic horror stuff kicking into gear, but that also means that terrible CGI rears its ugly head to make me cringe. Did they spend all the money on the opening sequence?
I suspect that Intersect is hoping to be a cosmic horror version of Inception or something, but the movie poster and the opening sequence are more akin to deception. Don’t be fooled, folks—this one is just a poorly developed soap opera of a tedious love triangle trying hard to be gimmicky in order to hide the fact that it has little going for it.
