The tyranist's thoughts
From the first blacked out moments of this movie until the very end, I never sensed a single gram of purpose. The movie seems to be based around the question, "What if demons were unleashed in a building that nobody could get out of?" You know, sort of a Towering Inferno only not with fire. Well, I wish that at the very least, someone in a voice-over would have asked that question. Then I could have spent time watching the answer. Instead, I spent the whole movie trying to decipher the question.
So there's this high-security residential building somewhere in the world whose occupants all happen to be watching the same movie/documentary about demons on the same night. Well, it happens. One of the demons comes out of the TV and soon the power is out and the entire building is locked down. Panic ensues.
There were innumerable inexplicable events in this movie and even those that made sense didn't seem normal for some reason. For instance, all the phones in the building are dead. No one can call out. But one boy's mother tries to call him at home and the phone in the apartment rings. Another for instance, there are two cars trying to get to the building for various reasons. When they do finally arrive, they arrive at the same time and crash into one another. SECONDS later an ambulance is on the scene to help the people. Meanwhile the entire night passes without any kind of outside assistance ever even coming near the building. No one ever tries to get in and in fact, when someone does finally get out, the town looks completely deserted.
I really like Asia Argento but she is completely wasted here. Her scenes consisted entirely of her whimpering into her mother's dress for about five minutes of screen time and then there was no resolution on her character. I sort of think this is due to the fact that I was watching the rated R version rather than the uncut version, but they still should have done something. The rest of the cast is pretty throw-away.
One of my biggest problems with this movie is simply that I saw a lot of potential for it, but they completely messed it up both in the idea and the execution. I wouldn't recommend seeing it unless you just want to check out the cool demons.