An asteroid, a plague, zombies, robots, aliens, and a little time travel thrown in for good measure. To say Nebulous Dark has a lot on its plate is an understatement. At one point a character says, “I had no clue what was going on.” And all I could do was simply agree with that statement. Ultimately it just comes off like a totally garbled mess. Be it the hyper fast cuts or the random edits, the over all story is just a mashup of ideas all thrown at the wall and left on the ground then set on fire and filmed.

When Captain Apollo wakes up, he’s confused and lost, only to find the world in ruins thanks to a virus that may have turned people in to zombies. But after the whole zombie thing, there was also an asteroid the crashed into Earth. Then after that asteroid, Earth was then invaded by aliens. It falls on Apollo to fight off the invasion while trying to save what’s left of humanity.

Nebulous Dark is the brainchild of Shahin Sean Solimon as he is writer, director, and lead in the film. But none of those three things are done particularly well. The writing is bland and including plenty of eye-rolling. The acting on all fronts is stiff and over the top. But even that could be overlooked if it wasn’t for the directing. With so many flashing lights and quick cuts, I don’t recommend anyone with photosensitivity watch this movie.

The rest of the cast is just there. They will deliver lines with the same exuberance you would see in something like Troll 2. That is when they have lines you can understand. Only one actor has any actual screen time, Nephele (Ginger Christie), though a majority of it has her playing the girl that always needs saving. There is even a scene that involves her cowering behind Apollos’s leg while he shoots aliens with a gun. Nebulous Dark is full of moments that will have you alternate between smacking your forehead or just saying “Wait, what?”

From a technical standpoint, you have to give the team credit for being ambitious but that doesn’t make the end product any better. The audio is all over the place. Some dialog is easy to hear while some is so over processed, that subtitles would be necessary. The sound effects themselves aren’t too bad though. The visuals are just as inconsistent. Generally, they’re just not good and akin to something you’d see on 90s TV sci-fi. One exception to this though is the zombie effects, they look terrifying and well done.

Nebulous Dark was easily one of the worst movies I’ve seen in some time. With the hyperactive editing, excessive quick cuts, all the plot points being fired in rapid succession and the acting being clunky only creates a completely messy version of a film. You can see that they tried for a more stylized movie but without any cohesive storytelling or editing, it all just falls flat.

 

2 out of 10

 

Nebulous Dark
RATING: NR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYU2zUuRw9E
Runtime: 1 Hr. 15 Mins.
Directed By:
Written By:

 

About the Author

Nate Stephenson is a northern California native. His love horror and being scared runs deep. Gaming with his pups is where you'll find him on his downtime.