致命追踪

　　恐怖和奇怪的事件困扰着玛雅和她家人的生活，她怀疑舅舅和舅妈是幕后黑手，因为他们一直想要获得玛雅家从外公那里继承的房子和土地。但是这种贪恋吸引了一股可怕的力量，这股力量的目标是玛雅全家。

　　每个学校都有很多故事，从新生入学到毕业，一届又过了一届，然而那些建筑和房屋仍然留在原地，有些人带着难忘的回忆离开，而那些回忆可能永远也不能忘记……

　　盖里（Calvin Reeder 饰）、扎克（Lane Hughes 饰）等人是一伙无恶不作的不法之徒，某天他们接到委托，要闯入某户人家偷取一盒神秘的录像带。空空荡荡的大房子里，只有一个死去的老人坐在电视机前。他们无所顾忌，播放了那盘录像带：第一段视频中，一群年轻人带着针头摄像头去夜店狂欢把妹，却遭遇一名夺命妖妹；一对旅行中的情侣入住Motel，期间他们偶遇一名请求搭车的女子，夜晚更有人潜入他们的房间，厄运降临；两男两女驱车去林区度假，却遭遇凶残的杀手；一对网络情侣通过视频聊天，女子声称经常在家中听到奇怪的声响。镜头前，一幕幕恐怖画面接连上演。万圣节，几名男子以外遭遇了神秘而残酷的仪式，他们介入其中，自己的命运也发生改变。　　录像带结束，恐怖故事却刚刚来开序幕……

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.