An excellent and brave tragic-horror film

Rating: 8/10 (18 June 2009)

Quite brave and upfront in a lot of ways, the most impressive feature of this movie is its honesty. People are a fragile bunch and have a lot of very peculiar character traits and beliefs. Several of these are used as clever devices to increase the tension.
While this is a creature-feature of sorts, the real horror of the film comes from the way some of the characters react to each other rather than how the creature attacks them. While characters aren't fleshed out as much as they could be, the important characters are relatively multidimensional.
The plot isn't particularly predictable and the ending winded me. To my mind it was rather effective, although I found it slightly unlikely - that is the way it happened! As far as the usual minutiae, the effects are good, very good in places. The acting is convincing and in some cases understated and impressive for it.
All in all I'd say the movie was an engaging and well made examination of how people fall apart in the face of the unknown. I'd recommend it to any fan of horror or science-fiction...