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The year's 1953, and the Soviet Union has launched a biological attack
on the USA - with some success it seems, but it's hard to tell for the
inhabitants of a certain New York apartment building as it's barred off
from the outside world, and neither do they get any information from the
outside, nor are they even able to take a peek outside as their windows
are all boarded up to keep out "the infection". Felix (David
Labiosa) tries to be a just leader to them, but when he notices the
building runs low on food, he volunteers to go out and look for
provisions, not sure what the outside might bring and more than certain
the town is overrun by commies. Control is passed on to caretaker Horen
(Anthony Marciona), but when Felix fails to return, Horen goes looking for
him and resolute Martha (Casey Kramer) takes over. Now Martha is a woman
of strong princicples and not to be shaken by her beliefs - but the
problem is, her beliefs aren't always grounded in fact. And thus, when
Horen returns from the outside, she simply shoots him dead, claiming him
to have shown signs of the infection, though objectively he didn't. This
especially shocks the gang of children in the house, led by 16 year old
Joanna (Nicole Tompkins) and they soon make up a plan to escape,
especially after Martha throws up 8 year old Rhonda (Emmy Greene) on her
own, just because she showed symptoms of the common cold. There's one
problem though, Joanna is not quite stable - she's very intelligent,
reasonable and rational mind you, she just has fits of self-harming and
the occasional outbursts of violent rage ... Darkness in
Tenement 45 is a movie that's quite probably quite unlike anything
you've ever seen, a piece of dystopian science fiction on an alternative
timeline on the outside, it's actually a rather compelling psycho thriller
and character study about the human condition as such - and thanks to
clever and intelligent writing it just remains tense and suspenseful
throughout, with an atmosphere-heavy directorial effort giving the film an
extra layer of uniqueness, only topped off by a strong cast. Totally
recommended!
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