The film from director Douglas Aarniokoski (Highlander: Endgame) follows a group of young people wandering the country on foot several years after an event of catastrophic proportions. They include Shawn Ashmore (Frozen), Ashley Bell (The Last Exorcism), Dominic Monaghan (TV’s Lost) and Shannyn Sossamon (One Missed Call), and they spend much of the movie in a seemingly abandoned farmhouse, which any moviegoer knows means “not for long.”
With guns a-blazin’, it’s them against a faction of fringe types harboring cannibal tendencies, yet somehow manages to be dreadfully dull all the while. Like a summer-camp staging of The Road, the film is shot in a drab color palette that’s desaturated to the point of being nearly black-and-white. The stylistic choice isn’t exactly engaging to the viewer, and it becomes downright pretentious in the one scene where Aarniokoski allows a big swath of color … on a coffee cup, for no discernible reason. Dude, this ain’t Schindler’s List. Heck, it’s not even Always.
I suspect many of those who rent The Day on Blu-ray or DVD won’t care to see it through until the end, but those who do are likely to be put off by the utterly nihilistic act that counts as a curtain close. It struck me as a giant middle finger, extended straight through the screen. —Rod Lott
Hey! Read This:
• Frozen DVD review
• The Last Exorcism Blu-ray review
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2012.