Between Worlds

 



Director - Maria Pulera (Falsely Accused, El Matador)
Starring - Nicolas Cage (Mandy, Mom and Dad), Franka Potente (The Conjuring 2, American Horror Story), and Penelope Mitchell (Hemlock Grove, Vampire Diaries)
Release Date - 2018
Genre - Horror/Thriller
Tagline - "His new life is haunted by old ghosts"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

 

     Nic Cage has been on a roll lately.  He had a string of hits with films like Mandy, Mom and Dad, and Into the Spider-verse.  I was a fan of his growing up but the 2000s saw Cage appearing in several horrible films that earned him recognition for accepting roles in films without reading the script.  I'm not going to lie, I fucking love Season of the Witch and Drive Angry but I know a bad movie when I see a bad movie.  Fans are now backing Cage after Mandy and I don't blame them.  I fucking loved Mandy and when I heard Cage was cast in Between Worlds I knew I would have to see it.  As soon as I saw the film was going out to reviewers I had to get a copy and I was lucky enough to get one in for review.

     The film follows trucker Joe (Cage) who lost his wife and five year old daughter in a house fire.  Joe has tried to move on and has met Julie (Potente) who is a single mother who almost lost her daughter in a motorcycle accident.  Julie does something question involving dark arts to get her daughter back but something goes wrong.  Instead of Julie's daughter's soul entering the body it's Joe's dead wife.  Now she is using Joe to stay alive and Julie is forced to stop her and break Joe's heart or lose her daughter forever.

     I went into this one with a lot of excitement and quickly realized that this one was going to be a task to complete.  The movie had a lot of flaws and nowhere near as awesome as the artwork but was still watchable.  The acting in this one is actually impressive.  Cage is a bit of a buzzkill which may remind viewers of films from his Left Behind phase.  With that being said, I absolutely loved Penelope Mitchell's performance.  Her character was very layered and at time intense which demanded a lot from her.  She did an amazing job and definitely exceeded my expectations.  The story for this one is stretched way too thin.  The first hour or so of the film is painfully slow and the story is barely sprinkled about.  Instead, we get a drunken Cage wondering through his scenes and getting his dick wet.  Honestly, and I can't believe I'm saying this, Cage's sex scenes are fucking bland.  No wonder he has went through a few divorces.  The story needed heavily edited and possibly rewritten to cut out some of these pointless scenes.  Finally, if you are looking for blood and gore you will be very disappointed.  The film has some visual effects here and there along with some great sets but they get lost in the slow moving story and pointless scenes.  Overall, Between Worlds is a disappointing film.  It's not one of the worst films I've scene recently and was an easy way to kill an hour and a half.  It has no replay value and very predictable.  Skip it.