Vanishing on 7th Street [DVD]

Detroit; the entire city has a split-second black-out, everyone disappears - rapture-style - leaving their clothes behind in a pile on the floor. All electrical systems are down and any electrical light sources rapidly runs down. A group of survivors (who happened to be bathed in some source of natural light when the black out occurs) band together in a downtown bar with a generator. The lights keep the dark at bay but for all they know they could be the last people left in the world. With the fuel running out and the days inexplicably becoming shorter & shorter, how long can they keep the whispering dark out?

SPOILERS follow, so if you don't want to know what is wrong with this film, please don't read on. But let's be honest - there's really nothing to spoil.

This start of this film is amazing - the opening scene where Hayden Christensen (Star Wars - Prequel Trilogy) wakes up to an empty Detroit with nobody on the streets is a straight rip-off of 28 Days Later but that doesn't lessen the chilling effect of seeing an entire city like the Marie Celeste - seconds later, an airliner ploughs into the street about a mile behind him... and that's it, that's the best bit of the film right there - barely 5 minutes in, you've seen all that this film has to offer. It's a great set-up but it's all downhill from here...

Thandie Newton (Rocknrolla) plays a hysterical woman looking for her baby, but she comes over like a mental patient rather than a concerned mother. The young black kid - James (Jacob Latimore) is probably the best supporting role and John Leguizamo (Repo Men) plays a cinema projectionist who is injured... or ill... or constipated - I don't know it's not explained at all. Also, he was abducted by the shadow people for three days - but nothing comes of that plot thread; it's completely forgotten about - despite being discussed at length when the group first meet for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

This film is so full of glaring plot-holes and nonsense I don't even know where to begin. Don't get me wrong; I love films, fiction is an integral part to them, but this was just tripe. The bad guys/monsters are shadows FGS!! Later, Hayden's character finds a car where the headlights work (inexplicably, as every other bit of electrics in the city is fried) and then pushes it back to the bar with the generator, hooking the generator to the car to jump-start it. I'm no mechanic, but if the headlights work on full-beam (they did) but your car won't start, the battery isn't the problem...

Then, also inexplicably, there is a little girl that runs around the whole time, but is pretty integral to the ending - which is just awful. It leaves so many questions that I am still fuming about it now. Why are the days getting shorter? Is this shadow situation a permanent thing? How come her solar-charged torch works when every other battery dies in seconds? Why didn't the protagonists set some buildings on fire and stay in the light produced?? Basically, it was so poorly thought-out that I thought my brain was going to leak out of my ears and at several points I thought I would probably enjoy this film more if it had.

Possibly worth a watch for the couple of good scenes at the beginning, but soon enough you'll be wishing this film could disappear too, leaving its DVD-case, empty, on the floor. Avoid!

Um, don't really know how I can expand on the title. Four strangers wake up to find the world's population has disappeared and only their clothes remain. If that wasn't spooky enough, those `bad ghosts' from the Patrick Swayze film of the same name have finally got themselves another gig and keep coming out of the dark to make a grab for our dumbfounded heroes. Only staying in the ever diminishing light can save them.

It's a good premise and the cast do well enough with the dialogue that's given to them. Plus there are some moments of genuine creepiness.

It's quite an open-ended story. If you don't mind your films not giving too much away (yes, even after the credits roll) then you won't be too disappointed.

I've read what other people have said on this film and some have read biblical elements into the story. I'm no Christian, so I didn't see that, but, I'm told the signs smack you in the face (I just must have ducked).

It is what it is. There are better films out there, but there are worse too. If you're not expecting too much, this one might be pleasing enough.

We started watching Vanishing on 7th Street with no idea of what to expect. We had seen a single trailer for it and thought it looked pretty good. Mostly we were intrigued as to what was causing the people to vanish. The film starts off really well and jumps straight into the meat of the plot. Within a few minutes most of the people have vanished and you are gradually introduced to the survivors. The back story for most of the people that you are introduced to is delivered by flashback, which is a mechanism that I normally find a bit annoying, however in this case it was ok and served its purpose. You aren't given quite enough information to actually start caring about these people though and this is where it starts to go downhill.

From the promising start you know get to watch the trials of the main characters as they adjust to what is happening around them, however there are a couple of fairly major downsides. Firstly there is no consistancy to the behaviour of the shadows and the precious light that fends them off. There seems to be some kind of advanced entropy going on and all items that generate power seem to be gradually failing, this is fine as a principle, but why in that case isn't it consistant? There is also no consistancy to how the characters escape from the shadows, at one point fairly near the beginning the main character hides from them in a car with no lights on. So whatever these things are seem to be able to get everywhere except inside a locked car? In that case how come all of the other people vanished from their cars?

My second major problem with the film is that you aren't even provided with enough information about what is going on to be able to form your own opinion about the cause of it. Don't get me wrong, I hate those films that spell everything out to you, but at least give me enough information so that I can come to my own conclusion, even if it is different for every person that watches it.

The acting was mostly ok, with the actors doing the best with what they were given, unfortunately they weren't given much....

This is a film that has a great beginning, but then it's as if the writers ran out of time or just decided that they couldn't be bothered to finish it off. I would recommending avoiding this, or at worse getting it as a rental if you really must see for yourself how poor it is.