*(slight spoilers)*
As a person who is interested in hallucinogens, astral projection, the occult, conspiracies, other dimensions, etc. this movie obviously appealed to me. However, my interest (and therefore degree of knowledge thereof) in the aforementioned is probably also what killed this movie for me. Anyway here is my breakdown:
Good: This movie was very good at being creepy. The premise was excellent and quite unsettling. The comically fake but decently executed "found footage" of MK ULTRA experiments was sufficiently creepy (though perhaps better in concept than execution). The shortwave radio stuff was exceptionally strange and creepy. Where they got the special DMT from was a nice touch. The tension was good; there were tons of predictable boo scares but they were done well enough for a movie of this budget.
Bad: Massively underdeveloped plot line. They could have done SO MUCH with the premise to make it horrific and bizarre. It's not really a spoiler though I guess it could be seen as one, but the entire plot can be summed up by the phrase they use "the DMT doesn't make you hallucinate, it turns your mind into a receiver and they can get in". That's it, that's the entire plot, now you can skip the movie. And if you missed it the first time don't worry because they repeat that line over and over throughout the second half of the movie. There is no further explanation beyond that phrase, you never see or learn about the entities "from beyond" (yeah they drop in that HPL reference), there is no motivation for them or for the government conspiracy/ies (I don't think they even talk about MK Ultra in any significant depth, which in itself could have been quite scary). Oh, sometimes peoples faces change and bleed for, um, some reason. There is no purpose for why any of the stuff in the movie happens - each scene and idea presented exists simply to be creepy and holds no weight or goal beyond that. Better dialog could have vastly enhanced this. I think a lot of stuff that they do, for example the unnecessarily glitchy cameras and bringing up that Lovecraft story, is done solely to attempt to cover up the fact that they had nothing interesting or substantial to provide the viewer with, but their hope is that the viewers mind will fill in the gaps with something good on it's own. There is next to no character development, and no evolution of the plot. Basically it starts with DMT being weird & scary and it ends with DMT still being weird & scary and no one knows (or cares) how or why. I ended up falling asleep towards the end because it was just so gripping...er, except not. I re-watched the ending, but, as predicted, I hadn't missed much. Also, a couple asides: DMT is a naturally occurring substance that exists in many plants (and some animals) which people have been extracting and ingesting for quite a long time (Ayahuasca, etc) without dying. Also to my knowledge MK Ultra focused around LSD (and to a lesser extent some other things) but not DMT. close enough I guess.
Overall, I sort of enjoyed watching this because it was tense and unsettling at times, but ultimately due to lack of ideas, and perhaps budget, it failed to deliver.
As a person who is interested in hallucinogens, astral projection, the occult, conspiracies, other dimensions, etc. this movie obviously appealed to me. However, my interest (and therefore degree of knowledge thereof) in the aforementioned is probably also what killed this movie for me. Anyway here is my breakdown:
Good: This movie was very good at being creepy. The premise was excellent and quite unsettling. The comically fake but decently executed "found footage" of MK ULTRA experiments was sufficiently creepy (though perhaps better in concept than execution). The shortwave radio stuff was exceptionally strange and creepy. Where they got the special DMT from was a nice touch. The tension was good; there were tons of predictable boo scares but they were done well enough for a movie of this budget.
Bad: Massively underdeveloped plot line. They could have done SO MUCH with the premise to make it horrific and bizarre. It's not really a spoiler though I guess it could be seen as one, but the entire plot can be summed up by the phrase they use "the DMT doesn't make you hallucinate, it turns your mind into a receiver and they can get in". That's it, that's the entire plot, now you can skip the movie. And if you missed it the first time don't worry because they repeat that line over and over throughout the second half of the movie. There is no further explanation beyond that phrase, you never see or learn about the entities "from beyond" (yeah they drop in that HPL reference), there is no motivation for them or for the government conspiracy/ies (I don't think they even talk about MK Ultra in any significant depth, which in itself could have been quite scary). Oh, sometimes peoples faces change and bleed for, um, some reason. There is no purpose for why any of the stuff in the movie happens - each scene and idea presented exists simply to be creepy and holds no weight or goal beyond that. Better dialog could have vastly enhanced this. I think a lot of stuff that they do, for example the unnecessarily glitchy cameras and bringing up that Lovecraft story, is done solely to attempt to cover up the fact that they had nothing interesting or substantial to provide the viewer with, but their hope is that the viewers mind will fill in the gaps with something good on it's own. There is next to no character development, and no evolution of the plot. Basically it starts with DMT being weird & scary and it ends with DMT still being weird & scary and no one knows (or cares) how or why. I ended up falling asleep towards the end because it was just so gripping...er, except not. I re-watched the ending, but, as predicted, I hadn't missed much. Also, a couple asides: DMT is a naturally occurring substance that exists in many plants (and some animals) which people have been extracting and ingesting for quite a long time (Ayahuasca, etc) without dying. Also to my knowledge MK Ultra focused around LSD (and to a lesser extent some other things) but not DMT. close enough I guess.
Overall, I sort of enjoyed watching this because it was tense and unsettling at times, but ultimately due to lack of ideas, and perhaps budget, it failed to deliver.