零度極限

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

　　1978年，死亡峽谷。警官戴維?麥克阿里斯特（David Stanbra 飾）將殺人如麻、殘酷血腥的霧人（Ben Gunther 飾）繩之于法，這個作惡多端的噩夢最終死在毒氣室里。　　時間回到現在，警長麥克阿里斯特（Robert Pine 飾）即將退休，他的兒子哈里斯（Michael Muhney 飾）則尾隨父親當上了警察。父子二人在六角餐館用餐時，遭遇了在逃的賭場搶劫犯。雙方展開對峙，年輕氣盛的哈里斯引起大爆炸，兩名劫匪劫持餐館女招待瑪雅（Mircea Monroe 飾）逃亡。在救援部隊遲遲未到之時，戴維帶著兒子展開謹慎的追蹤。不過令雙方始料未及的是，似乎有另一個神秘、恐怖的殺手將他們玩弄于鼓掌之中。邪惡的霧人精神不死，重返人間……

　　在女兒青蘭頻繁發作邪病、不斷重復詭異兒歌的困擾下，風水師豪哥(曹衛宇 飾)與碼頭工人阿坤、記者大偉一同踏上了前往青石鎮的探險之旅。在這個風水布局精巧、卻氣氛詭異的小鎮上，他們不僅發現了青蘭的姐姐紅蓮的命運，還揭開了鎮上隱藏的驚天秘密。

 Exploring the friendship between renowned preacher George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin, and Whitefield's impact during the pivotal Great Awakening religious movement.