Review of Infini (2015) by Mark M — 17 May 2015

Either writer-director Shane Abbess' Infini is a crafty piece of science fiction horror, or a genius attempt at copying bits and pieces of similar genre movies of decades past. Like Event Horizon (1997), Infini is essentially a haunted house premise set in space, and like Aliens (1986), the core cast involves a group of Space Marines - except lacking personality - that attempt to fight off the contagion - functioning similarly to the alien life form in The Thing (1982) - aboard the O.I. Infini.

Devolving into another generic genre movie under the same category as Doom (2005), Infini uses violence and gore to mask how it never answers anything that Abbess throws at the metallic walls of the mining station with hopes that some would stick, and he does throw everything at it, including the space kitchen sink filled with eviscerated human organs, effectively tainting the meaning and appeal to science fiction - the use of imagination and intelligence - as the plot moves along hurriedly, spraying blood and growling at anything that moves.

Not only underutilizing the talent of the cast, who are all reduced to the stock horror role of essentially filling up a blood quota, the Australian-made Infini is an all around 'been there, killed that' horror movie, just like many other derivative science fiction horror movies attempting to emulate the success of the Alien franchise, but the film goes further by wasting the promise it had to bring something new to the subgenre the same way the Australian Roache-Turner brothers did to Infini's zombie brethren from earlier this year, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead.

While decently directed and filmed, with above average set pieces and production value, as Infini's curtains begin to draw to a close, the subject of madness and anger in the script go completely unrealized - this is coming from someone that enjoys movies without exposition and spoon-feeding -, and leaving the viewer in a dilemma as they attempt to make sense of the ambiguous, lazily written ending and its connection with the equally hazy exposition that comes before that. The other question that will remain unanswered is whether Abbess and co-writer Brian Cachia had given up on Infini's screenplay by the third act, or whether it was a classic case of studio tampering.