User Reviews

Typical blood splattering nonsense where people do stuff that nobody would.

Silly tricks to make you jump like having someone scared in the woods, looking around for people chasing her and a figure passes really close to the camera at the same time a loud high pitched noise is generated. Just tricks to make you jump, but not because the plot or story is scary.

A girl in the middle of a field hears a noise and crouches down in the middle of the empty field as the camera zooms in and then magically someone grabs her. Now, where the heck did he come from? Answer: it was impossible, it was just another silly trick to make you jump.

Combine that with totally unnecessary blood splattering torture and that's about it. Not worth the time really.

Sorry this review is not well structured... I just finished watching the film and don't want to waste any more time on it.

The Day has enough craft and care in the beginning to think, this might be an indie winner. It's tense and brooding and has a decent premise. But as soon as the plot and the characters really come into play, you just think, "Silly me for having high hopes."

The real draw of a post apocalyptic movie is character development in tough survival situations. The characters in The Day are as flat as a pancake and flip on their 2D character traits at the drop of a hat when it serves the script.

This movie is very very cliché, and throws in gore for gore's sake. Also in the fighting apparently only the 'goodies' are capable of one hit kills where as the 'baddies' must fight in a fog of war and can only target and engage in battle with one person at a time.

The CG smoke and fire is pretty bad and the sound track is woeful. As soon as you hear a heavy rock number to indicate 'badass action moment' it just smacks of "I've a friend in a band" syndrome.

If you watch this with some friends who like ripping into movies, this could be a good one, but otherwise, stay away.

Lets say at least its still watchable...BUT... It has good picture ,nice acting ,but the script is a total stupidity. Writer and director must commit suicide. Idiotism begins from the start - ppl are walking down the road and first what i think ,wtf there is all there possessions. The rain is going and they got chills ,1 of them even sick but they don't have no rain protection ,even piece of plastic bag or something. And then comes EPIC : "We need to get to the mountains. Whats there? Mb there we can find water..." Hell, in that scene they are standing with HUGE puddle of water (swamp or even river) on back ground and it is RAIN right from above ,just OMG. Further its just getting more and more idiotic pace. Logic and sanity means nothing for director and script writer ,but its still watchable... So if you want to laugh and have nothing to do with an hour of your life ,go on watch it ,'cause its lil bit better when TV series or news block on TV.

I have to say I enjoyed this immensely. It's a character drama rather than an action-fest, though there is action.

Focusing around a small group of survivors, the movie develops their personalities rather than settling for just eye candy effects. Think more "The Road" than "Mad Max" and you won't go far wrong.

There are a couple of moments, towards the end, where I expected things to slip into Hollywood cliché mode. But, thankfully, both times (especially the very last scene), the movie refused the obvious storytelling development in favor of something better. You'll have to watch it to see what I mean.

The nature of the apocalypse is never explained, just as in "The Road". Its just something that has happened and, frankly, it isn't important. It serves the purpose of putting people in difficult situations. It isn't the focus of the film whatsoever.

The characters are developed nicely and there is a real nasty section in the middle of the film that will make you go right off one of the characters.

But, essentially its a story of human nature and what people will do when pushed to the limit. There are also themes of redemption running throughout.

It's not big budget and the minimal effects work reasonably well. There is a terrible CGI blood moment right at the end, so I expect there were others that I missed. But the action sequences are quick and so any mistakes are not likely to be noticed.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie, though some might want to beware of the grimmer moments in the film (I don't mean the violence or the gore, either, but human nature).

I recommend watching this if you like post-apocalyptic fare in general, especially those with a more grim and realistic tone.

In a completely destroyed world inhabited by cannibal mutants, the human Rick (Dominic Monaghan) leads a group formed by his school friends Adam (Shawn Ashmore) and Henson (Cory Hardrict) and the women Shannon (Shannyn Sossamon) and Mary (Ashley Bell) expecting to find a safe place to settle down and Rick brings seeds with him.

When they reach a dilapidated farmhouse, they decide to stay for a while since Henson is very sick. However they activate a trap in the basement with an alarm system and soon they are under siege of a horde of mutants. Further, they discover that Mary is also a mutant. However, she tells the story of her life and she stays with the survivors to fight against the mutants in a doomed battle.

"The Day" is a dramatic horror movie developed in very slow pace with an unoriginal storyline and unpleasant characters. In basically half of the boring story nothing happens but Rick's group walking and staying in a farmhouse. The action begins with a despicable torture that ruins the movie. The conclusion after a conventional battle between humans and mutants is also nasty, with betrayal. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "24 Horas para Sobreviver" ("24 Hours to Survive")

Why the 7 when most people thought it barely passed muster or just plain sucked. Well...2 reasons. I thought it was smart adding the whole stabbing through the boarded up windows tactic. Seen many Z movies and I remember thinking why didn't somebody think of this before and I remembered the whole "gotta be the head" issue. But the method would work just as well in any "viral/contagion" film. Secondly, the end. GOTCHA!. Not going to spoil it. But this is the main reason I rated this film 7/10. In three minutes I went from OK that wasn't a total waste of time to where the $$$$ did that come from and I should have seen it coming. Not a Usual Suspects moment but still worth watching the film.

Much has been made of The Day being just another generic post-apocalyptic movie, rehashing an old formula without bringing anything new to the table itself. And while it does focus on a small band of survivors and opposition in the form of a band of cannibals all filmed in bleak, washed out colors, they are used in service of creating a unique statement in the genre. Yes, the similarities are unquestionably there, but the method in which they are used breathe fresh air into a stale film trope.

From nearly its onset, The Day knocked me off my feet and never allowed me to regain balance. Whether it be through the shocking, sudden death of a character early on in the film, to a seeming character betrayal that is just as quickly turned on its head, to the ending itself, which deserves a special commendation. It is both brutal, and gutsy, with a final act of sudden violence that not only would be either softened or left entirely out of most comparable films, but that is also committed by one of the protagonists; my jaw was agape as the credits began to scroll across the screen, something that I can say for very few other films.

And where would a review of The Day be without a mention of the exemplary acting? Shawn Ashmore and Ashley Bell, in particular, are fantastic as a father still grieving the death of his wife and young daughter, and a mysterious nomad of few words but quick action, respectively. Michael Eklund is also notable as the leader of the cannibalistic tribe the lays siege to the house in which the five survivors thought was a refuge. Only Cory Hardrict leaves a bit to be desired in his performance as Henson, whose would-be tough lines more often than not fall flat, and on occasion are even laughable.

However, that one misstep barely registers in a film as well made as The Day. Amidst the washed out colors and the shaky camera work, there rests a diamond in the rough. The Day could have been a disaster; indeed, it certainly isn't a perfect movie. But when the acting is as strong as is on display here, with characters well-drawn even without the addition of any back story, and the sheer daring with which certain aspects of the film itself are made, The Day rises above the post-apocalyptic clichés and becomes instead a breath of fresh air in a genre film that should not be missed.

The trailer for the day was somewhat enthusiastic, characters locked up in an old house, defending themselves from cannibals after the apocalypse... it has so much in it for such a small budget movie. Yet after I saw it I can say they shouldn't have bothered. The premise is simple enough, the world has ended (no explanation needed, some catastrophe) and the characters need to scrounge for limited resources. They go into a house which turns out to be trap, kills one and attracts the cannibals to hunt them down. The premise dies at this very point. There are a couple dozen savages, none of them has guns, and our heroes are armed to the teeth, all the time complaining about how low on ammo they are. There is a mysterious woman among them who is desperately being portrayed as a bad-ass but really aren't. She was obviously one of the cannibals and she knows she is beyond redemption but this has absolutely no point in the story other than having a five minute torture scene, followed by her being set free again. The actors are rather less known and other than the main guy, they do an awful job. The main villain is convincing and baddie enough, but what he gives in looks, he lacks in fighting prowess; being dispatched easily in the final battle. He is in fact dumb enough to send in his own child after the survivors as a scout, and after the kid is killed, he shows remorse apparently not expecting the scared and trapped people to shoot a kid. Dominic Monaghan is i the movie too, making me wonder how he gets so many roles and acting terribly in each of them. His screen time is so little you might think he came in just because the director pleaded him to. You can pass this one, characters trapped in a house surrounded by evil is done much much better in Night of the living dead, or Assault on precinct 13(the old one, of course)

I can only guess that many of these quite similar and overwhelmingly positive reviews must have been made by those close to the cast or production or what have you. The Day would've been a pretty mundane affair were all else perfect, but as it stands its bad filmmaking on top of a worse story. We are never treated to things that make other films enjoyable, such as say, an explanation for anything that's happening. We don't know why this world exists, who the characters are aside from vague notions of a normal life turned savage, or what exactly drives the cannibals other than the idea "to survive."

It's impossible to determine the quality of the actors involved due to the drivel that these poor souls are expected to pass off as human speech. In the same vein, there isn't even the faint glimmer of a broken 40 watt light behind a brick wall on another continent of human emotion for the audience to identify with. Through illogical actions and plot contrivances the story progresses without attention to suspense or timing. Everything plods along to the uneventful and poorly thought-out climax. Most of the action takes place during this battle with the cannibals but there is never any urgency or clear goal or anybody really doing anything besides sticking their arms in and out of windows.

The Day is a failure to be sure but even worse its not even a magnificent failure; the entire project has been absolute trash since its inception. And I nearly forgot about the weird murky gray-scale filter that's supposed to be dead and dreary like this "new world." Nauseating and distracting. Don't bother with this one; there's not enough drama, horror, or action in this to be enjoyed by even the least demanding audiences.

"The Day" is by no means what I would define as a bad movie. It deserves a little love if only for the pretty solid acting all around. That being said, "The Day" isn't an excellent movie by any means either. The basic premises is a group of stragglers are trying their best to survive in a "post-apocalyptic" world. What the apocalypse was however is never determined. The "blood-thirsty predators" are actuality a small click of apparently murderous cannibals. This is a small budget movie with a medium budget feel. It's short, hits hard and fast, and leaves you with a hunger for something with a little more substance. Most of the movie entails the defense of a house as the "predators" launch perhaps one of the least imaginative, least tactical assaults on a building ever witnessed. They are led by Michael Eklund, who...is a sleepy kind of bad guy; not very imposing...not very wise...and not very tough. As the main antagonist his performance is paper thin, however he isn't given anything real to chew on until tragedy strikes his crew...and then he still can't emotionally summon any sort of menacing conviction. Dominic Monaghan is a HUGE boost to the casts morale and adds that special character touch he brings to everything I've seen him in. Shawn Ashmore does a fantastic job and helps me forget the travesty that was the X-Men franchise. Ashley Bell is brilliant in her "kick butt take names later" character and the movie hinges on whether she can pull it off...and she does. If Bell stinks this movie erodes to a 4.

This is a "rent it if there's really nothing else to watch" sort of movie. You would be hard pressed to rate this above a 6...so I'm very skeptical on how many of the earlier reviews were actually non-objective. This is AVERAGE....and that's not necessarily a bad thing.