Gilgamesh

Director - Richard Chandler (Witch Hunt)
Starring - Joshua Davis (30 Minutes to Salvation), Melantha Blackthorne (Death Race), and Joseph R. Gannascoli (Men in Black 3)
Release Date - 2014
Genre - Horror/Sci-Fi/Adventure
Tagline - "With liberty and justice for none!"
Format - Streaming (Online Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     When I was in college I took tons and tons of history classes because it pertained to my degree.  I was aspiring to be a high school history teacher but somewhere along the way I discovered that teenagers are assholes.  I soon changed my degree to early education in hopes of teaching kids at the ages before assholehood.  When I did this I had to take some upper level English classes with one of those being Ancient Lit.  One of the stories that I was required to read and analyze was the Epic of Gilgamesh.  While most of the people in my class bitched and moaned because they had to read it, I was excited.  These stories really interested me and after checking it out I was very impressed by this "epic."  I read it several more times after that and forgot about it over the years until I befriended producer Chad Armstrong.  He was sending out press releases to the upcoming film Gilgamesh.  This really intrigued me and I requested a screener.  He was nice enough to send me an online screener.  Thanks Chad.

     The film follows a married couple who just happen to be scientists as they travel to Siberia as part of a military expedition.  The military does not tell them why they are there but once there the young man finds a young woman held captive.  He rescues her and then everyone returns home.  However, she is no ordinary woman and is actually Inanna, Sumerian goddess of lust and war who was imprisoned by Gilgamesh (a being clad in a gothic gasmask and wielding a giant weapon).  Now, she is free and feels she owes the young man.  She follows him to America where she uses her magic to make his wife pregnant and her child is something special she will use to bring about the end of the world.  Gilgamesh is now hunting for her and she pulls a meteor close to Earth to destroy it.  In the midst of all this chaos is the Communist movement that tries to take over America.  

     I have seen several films in the past that crossed genres and most did not have what it takes to make the film fit into either genre.  Sure, some are able to pull off the horror/sci-fi hybrid but not as many as the films that actually attempt it.  Gilgamesh is a film that tries to transcend from one genre to the next as the film progresses.  The film starts out on the adventure foot when we travel to Siberia and then we immediately switch it up to the horror and sci-fi elements to finish the film out.  Sadly, the sci-fi overpowers the horror and is not able to keep a consistent balance.  The acting in this film is up and down.  Most of the cast is pretty solid and consistent in their performances while others show a lot of inexperience.  The acting is not level throughout the film and this makes some of the scenes a little hard to follow when you have an amazing performance running alongside someone who has never acted before.  The story for this one is very ambitious and bold but is extremely hard to follow.  It jumps all over the place and does not flow well at all.  There was actually times I had to rewind the film just to see what I missed or what lead the characters to be in their current situations.  Finally, the film has a ton of practical and visual effects.  We have a few kill scenes that are nothing great or spectacular but they do have some great practical effects even though they are very minimalist.  The film also has some great visual effects that definitely set the mood for a sci-fi flick.  Overall, Gilgamesh is a film one would expect to be an epic.  However, the film is hard to follow and can not make up it's mind in which route it wants to go.  The film has so much potential but lost it somewhere along the storytelling.  With the proper editing this could be a fun genre-bending film but until then this film is confusing.