Radius (2017)

March 22, 2020 11:51 AM

Liam discovers a horrible truth: anyone who comes within a 50-foot radius of him dies instantly.

Currently available streaming in the US via Tubi and Amazon Prime.

posted by DirtyOldTown (9 comments total)

If this isn't timely, I do not know what is.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:52 AM on March 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

I caught this when it first came out on netflix and I liked it. No real star power, which was a feature not a bug.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:41 PM on March 22, 2020

It's not bad at all. Taut little B movie that plays like a mildly extended Twilight Zone episode.

And the storyline is... well, it's weirdly timely.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:41 PM on March 22, 2020

Ha, super timely! I have such a backlog of weird movies like this one spread across several streaming services, which I was hoping to whittle down while social distancing. Been very curious about this one, will check it out tonight!
posted by ejs at 12:53 PM on March 23, 2020

Oooooooo I've never heard of this one before. Adding it to my watchlist now!
posted by miss-lapin at 1:04 PM on March 23, 2020

Thanks to the magic of working from home, I watched this movie during the time I’d normally be in a car. While queuing it up I was surprised to see it had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%, which turned out to be well earned. I greatly enjoyed it! They explore the premise well with some interesting twists (not just of plot but of narrative) and darkly fun set pieces.
posted by ejs at 5:27 PM on March 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

The premise allowed them to have some extremely effective suspense. The scene in the hospital where they are separated had me on the edge of my seat. If either of the main characters had been the ones in jeopardy, it wouldn't have worked so well for me. After all, they were going to get away. But knowing that they were trying to save an entire hospital full of people, and that they might well fail, made it work.

I could have done without the serial killer aspect, but that didn't keep me from appreciating the movie.

Thanks, DirtyOldTown, for posting this one.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 3:06 PM on March 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

I was very interested by the premise and watched with enthusiasm for the first half or so. However, the absurdity of the amnesia, the twin sister, and the serial killer backstory struck me as just dumb as a bag of hamsters and utterly irrelevant to the central interesting idea and its potential for striking imagery. It's like someone was handed a Star Trek level replicator but all they could think to do with it was clone $100 bills and try to scam grocery stores.

Compare this to the equally low-rent and low-ambition high-concept film Don't Blink, where a group of friends is... attacked, I guess? Basically if no one is looking at someone, they might disappear inexplicably, and people act like people from there. It's weird and tense and it doesn't ignore its central premise in favor of elaborate artificial mysteries and silly just-so 'explanations' for its weird 'monster.'
posted by Scattercat at 6:13 PM on March 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

Well, Scattercat, now you’ve convinced me to watch Don’t Blink. It’s free on Vudu and Tubi, and a 99 cent rental on Amazon Prime. I’ll report back when you post it to Fanfare!

I agree with you in that total amnesia elicited an eye roll from me, as it’s so overused. And I did laugh out loud at the audacity of the secret serial killer reveal. But in both cases I went with it because I liked how it twisted the story in a knot. The guy who murders freely is granted the curse of killing everyone who comes close (and a nice twist is that the corpses have white, glassy eyes like a drowning victim). The only way to keep him from killing is for Rose to keep close to him, when it turned out Rose was trying to escape him to save her own life when the cosmic event hit. (She even foreshadows this, when they’re talking about going to see her husband, and she says “I don’t even know this guy, maybe he’s who I was trying to get away from.”) Sure, it’s not Shakespeare, but it was more thoughtful than the average straight-to-streaming horror thriller.

I kept thinking that at some point they’d handcuff themselves together to ensure they wouldn’t be separated. Now I’m imagining an alternate version of the movie where Liam is actually just fine being a serial killer and wants to use the death field for evil, and Rose handcuffs herself to her attempted murderer to prevent him...
posted by ejs at 7:48 PM on March 24, 2020 [1 favorite]