Starring - Ceus Rob, Inge Vanleene, and Steven Daemers (The Salesman, Paranoia Tapes 2: Press Play)
Release Date - 2025
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "A decent into madness"
Format - Streaming (Online Screener)
Rating (out of 5):
I love reviewing indie movies. It's always an experience to sit down and watch someone's hard work and aspirations on my screen. It's a lot of hard work to make a movie even if I don't like the movie in question. It happens from time to time. I can't like everything even if it's from a filmmaker that released a film that I enjoyed previously. Several years ago I was asked to review Zombies from Sector 9 and loved it. It was a great zombie flick that almost brought me back to the sub-genre after the years of Walking Dead clones and unimaginative zombie flicks that followed in the shows success. A few weeks back the director Ceus Rob, or Rob Ceus, sent me a link to check out his newest film Cement: The Final Brick in the Wall. I greedily accepted the chance to check it out. I want to thank Rob for sending this one over for review!
The film follows a couple with an eye for drugs and murder who find themselves out of both. In a plea to get fucked up, they work with some friends to rob, kill, fuck, and get fucked up.
I went into this one completely blind. I knew nothing about this film but I remember reviewing Zombies from Sector 9 and how much I enjoyed it. Sadly, Cement was not for me. I liked the premise but the film just didn't work for me as a feature length film. Maybe if it was a short with a runtime of around 30 minutes then it would have been more enjoyable. However, the movie the was way too long for me. I seriously wanted to like it, and I did like a few things with this one, but the overall film just wasn't for me. The acting in this one is a lot of fun. I loved the characters in the movie but the dialogue and delivery is very awkward. A few scenes are unintentionally funny due to the dialogue and how stiff it was delivered. It doesn't really take away from some of the scenes but it does make a lot of the scenes that are dialogue heavy feel a lot longer than they really are. The story for this one is interesting enough but is stretched too thin for the run time we do have. I liked the idea of the film's protagonists being possible siblings and lovers who will easily kill if needed. Honestly, I could find myself following these two anywhere if there was more to the story than just killing, getting fucked up, partying, and more getting fucked up. The film really needed something more than dialogue heavy scenes that lead to nothing. Finally, the film doesn't shy away from violence. We have some rape, murder, disfigurement with some minimal effects. The film is on a tight budget and the effects reflect that. Overall, Cement has the makings of an unforgettable underground horror film but the lack of a coherent story and heavy dialogue scenes that go nowhere makes it difficult to finish. I wanted to love this one but couldn't.
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