Macabre…ish Horror Review: Domain
Domain, 2016/ 1 hr 37 min
There are reports of a flu outbreak known as the Saharan flu, that is beyond containment. The World Health Organization is reporting that it could be a world ending event, scientists warn that mortality rate could be 100%. Riots have broken out and people rush to secure bunkers. The WHO are building half a million underground bunkers. The bunkers will be assigned through a lottery system.
There’s an estimated three billion dead and there is no way to know if the bunkers, which will be buried 30 feet underground, will be built in time.
People lucky enough to get a bunker interact with each other through monitors on a live, open feed, an information and social network platform known as Domain. These people, rather than using their names, they call each other by the locations they hail from. It’s been over 5 years and one of them, Orlando (Kevin Sizemore), who is located in a bunker in Florida, confessed to murders and is antagonizing the group. The other six in their cluster are horrified.
Many in the group want to vote to ban him, meaning cutting off his feed, which one if them figured out how to do that by studying the code. Phoenix aka Kimberly Miller (Britt Lower), Denver aka Dean Atkins (Ryan Merriman), Atlanta (Sonja Sohn), Houston (Nick Gomez), Chicago (Cedric Sanders) and Boston (William Gregory Lee) struggle to vote but overwhelming get to a consensus. Cutting him off means banishing him to isolation for the next few decades.
Eight months later, the electricity starts to glitch. And the network that’s monitoring and neutralizing the flu particles outside say that their time left in the bunker is 19 years until, presumably, it’s safe to go outside again. And the bunker population decreased by 8 over night to 489,573. They also have biometric monitoring that keeps track of their health.
Some of their terminals begin to glitch out and die which really freaks out Houston, most of the worst glitches are happening in his pod. Phoenix suggests that maybe banning Orlando caused this but Atlanta and Boston protest. Which upsets Phoenix, she later confesses that she has been struggling with the past. She was in prison when she won the bunker lottery and she was there for killing her mother over a suspected drug theft. And now she has nightmares about her mother.
So Denver works on unbanning Orlando and he does it. But his pod is empty. Denver checks the logs for info but there are no updates. So they tell everyone else about it and they aren’t thrilled but get to work trying to figure out where he might be. They wonder if the glitch might have unlocked their doors. But no one is willing to check because no one wants to risk contamination.
Boston is concerned about Phoenix and Denver, who are in a relationship. He thinks something is wrong with Denver but Phoenix brushes his concerns off.
Phoenix wonders if Orlando could have made some private videos, maybe there’s some information about what happened to him. There are some, hundreds of them, mostly of him working out, but there’s one from a few days ago. The screen is staticky and they hear him screaming ‘Leave me alone.’ then the static disappears and his door is open. Five hours later, the door swings shut.
They update the group and come to the realization that they are not safe, based on what they saw. Now they need to decide what to do. Phoenix searches her bunker that evening, looking for clues. Then they all hear Houston banging his head, bloody, into the wall. His lights still violently flickering around him. Then his starts maniacally laughing and then screaming. As his feed fails, they watch a figure come through his door and grab him.
That same night, Phoenix wakes up and not only is the monitor glitching hard but someone is in her pod. She quickly plays sleep but is then awakened by the others telling her not to move but to look down. There’s a giant rat in her bed, it apparently entered through a wall panel. She asks if they have the same panel and they do. Which puts into question, where are they? How can they be 30 ft underground and how do they have vents where dirt should be.
Phoenix is ready to find a way out because it no longer makes sense. Atlanta breaks her food powder tube and finds a big empty space on the other side of the wall. Suddenly her door is opening and her feed turns to static, then she’s gone. Then Chicago, who’s been starving himself, hangs himself with his blanket, from a beam. And the others can do nothing but beg and watch.
Meanwhile, Denver, has been working on finding something on the Domain. He found other people but they can’t communicate with them. Many have committed suicide. He says instead of there being 500,000 feeds, there are only 1000. Meaning, there are only 1000 bunkers, they were lied to.
They make a plan to escape and then pick a rendezvous point to meet. Denver decides they’ll meet at City Hall in Phoenix. Boston, the odd man out, decides to go it alone.
Outside their doors’ are ladders but the ladder is a door that leads to a corridor and the three of them step out, into it.
This film was directed by Nathaniel Atcheson and it’s a good story! It’s a sci fi thriller with a little violence and a few graphic deaths but the story is the star and this movie has quite the ending. Well done! Also in this is, Beth Grant.