• Straight to Video
• Director: Dave Wascavage
• Written by: Dave Wascavage
• Running Time: 90 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: UNRATED
• Cast: Bill Ushler, Juan Fernandez, David M. Sitbon, Anthony Mecca, Dave Wascavage, Bill McCue, Anthony Spaducci

To be blunt, I put off reviewing Dave Wascavage’s “Infinities Lock”, a film I received about two months ago, because I honestly wasn’t sure what to say about it. A couple of times I saddled up to my laptop ready for an afternoon of penning an appraisal of the film, only to come away after a couple of hours, staring at a blank screen. Let me put it this way, “Infinities Lock” is simply one of the most perplexing films I’ve ever seen. Even attempting to sum it up in a handful of paragraphs wouldn‘t do the film justice, I feel. Regardless, here’s my review:

In the opening minutes of “Infinities Lock”, a plane carrying a US ambassador is inexplicably brought down somewhere in the deep jungles of South America. Moving right along, a US Special Forces Team is immediately deposited into the area where the ambassador’s plane was last spotted; their job is simply to find and extract. Yes, if it seems like you’ve heard this plot before, it’s probably because you have. John McTiernan’s sci-fi magnum opus “Predator” definitely seems to be the driving force, or inspiration, for the film’s early composition. To his credit, Mr. Wascavage isn’t content to turn this into just another re-hash of an older cinematic pearl, rather, he has something else more peculiar up his sleeve.

As the four highly trained, overly chatty Special Ops guy’s make their way deeper into the jungle’s interior, they begin to experience things far beyond their range of training… or experience -- as hungry pterodactyls and other strange, vicious pre-historic animals emerge out of the foliage attempting to do them in. Thus begins our strange detour into the bizarre as the true implications of their mission come to light. As if tearing a page out of Stephen King’s “The Mist”, the group discover that there’s been some kind of dimensional tear, allowing long-extinct creatures to suddenly manifest themselves into our Earthly time and space. Sadly, the grunts are right in the thick of it, forced to defend themselves with the guns and a dwindling bullet supply… and it’s only getting worse.

Despite the hopelessness and sheer craziness of the situation, the group endeavour to accomplish their goal of finding the ambassador and getting him back. It’s a lost cause, as they quickly discover. As they continue their push into the green tangle, they happen upon a bizarre pyramid shaped alien craft/vortex. Their get n’ go objective converts into a game of survival, as they work to stay alive and hold onto their rapidly deteriorating sanity. At least one of them is fast on his way to losing that battle -- the repercussions of which could ultimately put the entire universe in peril.

As it turns out, the triangle houses the ‘Infinities Lock’ -- a sort of cosmic security device keeping various neighbouring dimensions closed to each other. And considering the ominous beings (some of which have escaped) and Hellish scenery glimpsed inside the other dimension, by our soldiers, it‘s probably for the best. The vital ingredient to keeping the lock functioning is human blood, in this case, the blood of patriots. See, a volunteer must sacrifice himself for the betterment of mankind, allowing the lock to drain his physical form, thus trapping his soul inside the in-between world. As the physical body keeps the lock closed, their soul drifts, never to rest. And since the ambassador was on his way to sacrifice himself for the Lock, the question now falls to the soldiers: will they be willing to sacrifice themselves in his place, to maintain the Lock, and thus save all of mankind, or will they simply walk away? Yeah, it’s all pretty heavy duty, I know.

While Dave Wascavage (2005's "Fungicide") has always utilized CGI in his movies, never to the extent that he does here. Whole landscapes, interiors, jets, helicopters, creatures and even the Infinities Lock is manufactured on a computer, which speaks to why the whole project took more than three years to get completed. My fellow CrankedonCinema.com-writer Stan Hart recently had a chance to screen the film, and he theorized that Wascavage took extra time with the sequences where there was no human-CGI interrelation, and they stand-out as quite extraordinary. When made to work with objects and humans together in the same frame, the film seems to suffer… sometimes irreparably. One specific sequence inside the double pyramid exposed numerous keying errors and instances where whole faces are bathed in darkness, when they shouldn‘t be. Granted, it gives the whole scene a surreal feel, it’s clearly due to flawed FX and not something intentional on the part of the director. It’s obvious that the scenes were filmed inside a lit room, and Wascavage is attempting to darken the area around the actor’s heads. It doesn’t work, but it does work to pull you out of the movie. Same thing with the actor’s attempting to react to (or act off of) things that aren’t there. Far too often, it’s obvious that they are indeed performing to direction -- and nothing else.

The acting, as with most of Wascavage’s films, is hit and miss. Some of the performances are great, with Bill Ushler, David M. Sitbon and Juan Fernandez, three Wascavage regulars, standing way way out -- even when they are made to deliver dialogue that doesn‘t sound entirely organic. Juan Fernandez (2004's "Tartarus"), as a level-headed, shame-ridden soldier, is given the film’s most thoughtful dialogue, and, in kind, offers the performance with the most depth. I might even go so far as to say that Juan’s performance is the best thing about “Infinities Lock”. Bill Ushler (2006's "Zombies By Design") is also very good as the leader. While I wasn’t entirely convinced by his sudden wide-eyed plunge into madness in the film‘s final moments, I did enjoy his stern, militaristic soldier-like demeanour as a whole. He sold me. Despite the fact that Anthony Mecca‘s character, the gatekeeper, seems written solely to connect the various plot points, his work here is quite good (maybe even better than that!), hinting at a great actor in the making.

While “Infinities Lock” may be overly complex and confusing at times, the film’s symbolism wasn’t lost on me. Clearly, this was Dave Wascavage’s love letter to the American military, more specifically those soldiers who, everyday, travel to far off lands to sacrifice themselves for the country they call home. For that reason, I sense this might be Wascavage’s most personal film to date. While it wasn’t my favourite Wascavage film (sorry, that honour goes to “Suburban Sasquatch”), I did enjoy it immensely, even when I didn’t understand it. A bizarre sci-fi outing that I recommend you check out.