James Wang, the ingenious move of the director of the two heads of Astral, did not seem to have left a chance for the appearance of the third chapter: he killed the main character and defeated the main villain, led the plot to a logical ending, and he took up a much more monetary and important project (“Fast and Furious 7” )
The patient is more likely alive than dead.
But the producer Jason Bloom, quite authoritative in the field of modern horror, having caught the intonation with which Van told previous stories, decided to implement an attempt to resuscitate the franchise, allowing Lee Wonnel to steer. So, “Astral 3” appeared to the world, reviews of critics designated the film as a story about the medium Alice Rainier, who fought with demons in the first two films. James Van decided not to take an active part in resuscitation, limiting his participation to the producer’s functionality and a cameo at the beginning of the film. The change of director affected the final product.
Plot
Horror "Astral 3" rating is mediocre: 5 out of 10 or 3 out of 5, although the plot of the picture is quite entertaining and promising. The main character - a young girl Quinn ( Stephanie Scott's debut ) - after the sudden death of her mother, lives with her father Sean (Dermot Mulroney) and mischievous brother Alex (Tate Burnie). Unable to put up with the loss, the heroine decides to contact her mother in the other world, for this she turns to Alice (Lin Shay) for help. She categorically refuses to cooperate, warning the girl that, by calling someone from the afterlife, you can call anyone from the dead. But youthful maximalism does not give a chance to sanity, and Quinn independently tries to conduct a session. The psychic's words turn out to be prophetic, and soon the poor half-orphan begins to feel someone else's presence in his home. Misfortunes pour on the heroine as if from a cornucopia: Quinn breaks both legs, falls under the car, she is chased by the One-Who-Not-Breathes, experiencing far from maternal feelings. A frightening creature in an overgrown oxygen mask not only made its way into the world of the living, it is trying to drag the heroes into the other world. Quinn's life turns into a real nightmare, and Alice has to intervene.
Prequel
"Astral 3" (2015) reviews of those who were not indifferent identified as a prequel to the dilogy, clarifying the circumstances of the meeting of psychic-medium Alice with "ghostbusters", gouging Speks and Tucker. But the creator's group has been preparing the horror and all-consuming fear for too long, demonstrating in all aspects the main character, the teenage neighbor in love, school friends and other not very important characters. Such a director’s reception in the film “Astral 3” was called by experts' reviews as unjustified and incomprehensible. Although Lee Wonnell made his debut as a director, he should have felt like a fish in water in this direction: he was a co-producer of the Saw franchise, co-wrote the scripts of the first two episodes of the astral trilogy. But he created his creation through experiments, mixing the components of modern horror with the elements of the sitcoms of the 80s.
Have time to scare
In previous chapters, James Van, although he did not shy away from “boo” effects, emphasized the general atmosphere. In the Wannell project, the audience is introduced to the characters for an hour, so there is no time left to build the atmosphere, because the viewer still has to be scared. This makes the picture “Astral 3” similar (reviews of the 2015 film indicate this fact) with the spin-off “Curse of Annabelle”, which, having spun off from the “Spell”, abuses dark corners and loud sounds without much suspense.
Common truth
In defense of Lee Wannell, director-debutant of the horror Astral. Chapter 3 ", reviews of film critics lead everyone to the well-known common truth, which says: to frighten the beholder (as well as to make laugh) is extremely difficult. It’s even more difficult to scare a fan of the genre after the inexorable “Bell”, the chilling “Peel” and the controversial “Paranormal phenomenon”. It’s just that Wannell didn’t have enough experience and directing skills, his attempt to frighten the viewer ends, before he even starts. The level of suspense revered by Alfred Hitchcock, he replaces with a series of surprises. But not one of his surprises is comparable with the horror of expectation. Like it or not, anticipation and expectation are much worse than fear itself. Wang realized this, turning his paintings into the worst nightmares. Wonnell created Astral 3 (the rating of the film is the best proof) like a horror story told at night around a fire, but with the onset of the morning it ceases to be scary.
Neophyte timidity
The technical side of the picture gives a very modest budget. Skeletons with disfigured skin, silhouettes in dark windows, frightening creaks, steps, knocks in the film are abundant, but they act on a more undemanding level of the psyche. Yes, and the other world presented , which sometimes the heroes of the episode have to plunge into, does not look like a good find. Dark elevator shafts, long corridors, empty apartments - only this was enough for the creators of the film to have imagination and money. A kind of budget Silent Hill, but not a frightening abandoned city, but only a few dark floors. But nevertheless, one successful directorial feature in the Astral 3 tape is often mentioned by the audience’s reviews. These are the broken legs of the main character, who crunched disgustingly and disturbingly with each subsequent step. This is a very worthy, juicy scene, perhaps copies of it will appear in subsequent horror of all stripes soon.
The verdict is simple
Why did “Astral 3” deserve mostly negative reviews? The fact is that, going to tell the backstory of two episodes about Lee Wonnel, the scriptwriter in the first profession focused all his attention on the plot narrative. Therefore, he did not realize many opportunities to aggravate the "terrible" effect. The central characters are not particularly inclined to themselves. The main character Quinn sometimes behaves inappropriately. The humble widowed father is busy with his problems and does not pay attention to children at all. Even the psychic Alice, the leading hero of the picture, does not surprise the viewer, all her tricks and tricks have been demonstrated earlier. A sluggish attempt to bring a share of humor to the horror did not become the luck of the creators, the meeting of Tucker and Spex with Alice turned out to be cool. For the viewer familiar with their future activities, it does seem awkward at all. Worse than the characteristics of the characters, travel to the astral plane looks, they are tortured and faded, despite the fact that the characters there perform heroic actions, accompanying them with pathos speeches.
As a result, the third chapter was not bad in some successful episodes, but in general it is a one-time ordinary horror, the weakest in the astral trilogy, but perhaps not the last. The finale of the third picture may well provoke the appearance of "Astral 4".