11-11-11 (2011)

Made by 80085

After the death of his wife and child, an author travels to Barcelona to see his estranged brother and dying father, where he learns that his life is plagued by events that occur on 11/11/11.

Look at the poster. Those aren't 11's, that's an x-ray screen of Darren Lynn Bousman giving the viewers the bowfinger, twice, with the help of another person. After seeing this film, that's what I feel I see whenever I look at that damned poster.


The characters are pretty much a forgettable bunch. I couldn't even remember the names of the characters, I barely remembered the lead was called Joseph. It doesn't help the characters that everyone's acting came off as amateurish and no better than the acting from your typical MTV shitfest.

The attempts to flesh out the characters by expanding their backstories and their history doesn't amount to much other than poorly padding out the film. Darren Lynn Bousman tries to expand on Joseph through the voiceover technique, but it's utterly pointless, as the voiceover tells us nothing new, just rephrases stuff we've already been told.

For a horror film, it's pretty bad when every single one of your attempts at being scary miss the mark. The only time I came close to scared is when I nearly jumped at one point, and that was due to a cheap jump scare tactic. Pretty much every single line of dialogue written is a generic line that you will have heard hundreds of times before in many other films

One question I have regarding this film: Why set it in Barcelona? There's no good reason for it being set there instead of in America, all it does is lend the way for the awkward moments when Joseph can't understand the Spanish speaking people. And that's just one of the plot holes regarding this film, not to mention the illogical character choices that occur.

Ever get the feeling you're being watched?

Joseph Bishara's attempt at the film's score does not work at all, as the score doesn't fit with this horror film, feeling glaringly out of place. The cinematography by Joseph White does not fair much better, as it's pretty dark and muddy ugly, dark and muddy.

Religion is the main theme within this film, but it feels less like a theme for the film and more of an idea as to how many anti-religion topics they can stuff into this film. The way Joseph constantly hits out against religion really doesn't do much good, as it makes the film feel more like a poor argument against religion, and less like an actual film. And they really make Joseph bash religion a lot in this film, i've heard less monologues of hatred from atheist groups.

The ending should be a climatic scene that pays off everything that has been built up prior to this moment. I would say they dropped the ball with the ending, but that would imply the moments previous to the ending weren't all bad, so I will say that they dropped the ball early on, attempted to pick up all of the shattered pieces, stick them back together with sellotape and then dropped the ball, shattering it yet again. They try and convince the audience that the ending was built up from the very beginning, but it feels very left-field and out of nowhere. Not only that, but a certain plot point was built up in a way that made it feel like we were going to get a huge reveal, but we don't even get to see the supposed big reveal, the audience are left in the dark, leaving this build up to end with nothing more than a damp squib.

Now, I have seen plenty of films that are worse than this one, the thing about 11-11-11 is that I didn't find a single redeeming feature within this film. It managed to fail in every single way possible, leaving this reviewer with a waste of 90 minutes spent. And to think, they had the gall to reference the infinitely superior Misery.

Comments

Unknown said…
Brilliant review! I will be sure to avoid this one.
I laughed at "MTV Shitfest" Clever one,
Jesus. Sounds like a real stinker. Not like I expect much more or less from Darren Lynn Bousman; the man who did so well with the few "Saw" sequels he directed, and so bad with "Repo: The Genetic Opera". Will definitely be seeing this one sometime in the future.
Myerla said…
So, did you like it?
James Rodrigues said…
My thoughts and prayers will be with you
James Rodrigues said…
That line has been in my head for ages, glad I got to put it out there afterall