Like the love child of dystopian science fiction and a Kafkaesque landscape, Chino Moya’s intertwining stories about mistrusting strangers and mysteries beyond explanation really does make the mind explode. It’s not a simple world, where the good are rewarded and bad are punished, there more going on behind the 70s/80s infused décor by way of Ikea and the characters that inhabit it. Even more confusing is the parallel world that seems to ravaged by plague and despair and populace is enslaved to manual labour until their ‘anniversary’. The stories are bleak and nightmare inducing but you can’t help but stare on in horror as a character falls and the next and the next.
Set in our world or one that resembles one we can recognise, stories about scavengers collecting dead bodies in a desolate city, unhappily married couple letting in a stranger, a business man searches for his daughter and a family thrown off kilter when some unexpected appears back in their lives are either told like a bedtime story or someone’s dream. It’s never quite clear what is a dream, a story or reality.
The style and design of the film is to be admired and marvelled at. With Moya’s past work including photography, it’s easy to see he knows exactly how to create an atmosphere that feels familiar and science fiction influenced. The film is reminiscent of ‘The Double’ and ‘High-Rise’ in their design and story. But with intertwining stories and various characters and being an original piece rather than an adaption, ‘Undergods’ offers the harsher, darker side of this particular dystopian genre and there is certainly very little if any moments of comedy and can feel overwhelming at times. At its core, the film is far more at home in the horror sci-fi genre and managers to escape any cliches giving it a fresh edge, even if that edge is razor sharp. As well as the design and look, the characters that inhabit this world have been carefully crafted, featuring a vast excellent European cast list with familiar and rising talent faces.
For all its bizarre and dark shades, it’s been a while since something of this calibre was made but there is a chance the film could be seen as too down trodden and miserable. For the horror/science fiction fans out there, they would be missing out and for anyone looking for a film that is this bold would be need to take another look at what ‘Undergods’ has to offer them.
To take a look for yourselves, take a look at the trailer HERE.