Here's an oddball: it's a direct-to-video no-budget spin-off film based on the original 1963-1989 run of "Doctor Who", written by super-fan Nicholas Briggs and starring himself, Colin Baker (who played the 6th incarnation of the Doctor) and Nicola Bryant (who played his companion).
The incredibly low production value is a big part of what lets this down. Most interesting is the premise - two strangers find themselves stranded on a foggy train platform, with only an idiosyncratic man in a suit and a floating robot for company. That basic premise is neat, but there are far too many other ideas floating around - the various explanations for what this place is include some kind of purgatory for people who want a vacation from their lives, the site of a science experiment, and the holographic manifestation of a dying space marine's dream to return home. These myriad explanations are another big let-down.
The acting's passable, the dialogue is mostly dull, and the sound is just awful - lots of static-y video sound with generic and uninteresting score. It's also got a very cheap video look, but there are a couple of nice visual moments, like some wider shots of the brightly-lit platform in the pitch-black void, or a cut from the face of a mannequin to the eye of a human.
At first this seems like a creative metaphor for the simple horrors of everyday modern life, realised using an oppressive train platform and a robotic train conductor, but the explanations step on that. You'll only like this if you're a big "Doctor Who" fan, which is why I personally have a soft spot for it, but I'm judging it as a film on its own merit. So...
3/10.
The incredibly low production value is a big part of what lets this down. Most interesting is the premise - two strangers find themselves stranded on a foggy train platform, with only an idiosyncratic man in a suit and a floating robot for company. That basic premise is neat, but there are far too many other ideas floating around - the various explanations for what this place is include some kind of purgatory for people who want a vacation from their lives, the site of a science experiment, and the holographic manifestation of a dying space marine's dream to return home. These myriad explanations are another big let-down.
The acting's passable, the dialogue is mostly dull, and the sound is just awful - lots of static-y video sound with generic and uninteresting score. It's also got a very cheap video look, but there are a couple of nice visual moments, like some wider shots of the brightly-lit platform in the pitch-black void, or a cut from the face of a mannequin to the eye of a human.
At first this seems like a creative metaphor for the simple horrors of everyday modern life, realised using an oppressive train platform and a robotic train conductor, but the explanations step on that. You'll only like this if you're a big "Doctor Who" fan, which is why I personally have a soft spot for it, but I'm judging it as a film on its own merit. So...
3/10.
