Descendents (II) (2008) User Reviews

I'm being nice because I like this genre...

[dhymond · 4/10 · 31 May 2012]

I'm a huge fan of post-apocalyptic/zombie films so I figured this would be right up my alley. I may have misjudged...

So the film is basically an hour and thirteen minutes of watching a young girl walk through various desolate scenes devoid of any emotion. I can't say she's a bad actor because really at no point does she need to act. As long as she kept walking, the crew kept filming.

It's visually very boring on the eyes. They tried this Schindler's List/Sin City effect where mostly ever shot has a low saturation making it nearly black and white EXCEPT for blood which is vividly bright red. And it would "splatter" on the camera in every action scene much like a video game from 10 years ago. For some reason, I'm now craving cherry Kool-Aid.

The film is riddled with flashbacks that you're forced to witness multiple times for lengthy durations, while not really contributing to any story or character development. It's not very endearing...

The blood and zombie special effects were tolerable but as you'll learn, the zombies are no threat to the main character therefore there is no real terror as a viewer either. I watched this by myself in the dark with headphones on and never once was frightened to any degree.

I must say that the opening sequence was the best part of the film. It was creative and had a unique charm to it. As sudden as it came, the charm was gone. On the flip side, the ending credits were pretty cool too.

Overall, this really isn't worth your time but it is a relatively short film so be my guest. Just remember that you have been warned. If you do have the patience to get through the entire movie, I must inform you that there is one last scene after the credits, which unsuccessfully tries to give you the back story of how the world came to be. Enjoy! -- 4/10 --

This movie could have been great if???

[miket2222 · 3/10 · 17 February 2013]

I just finished watching this movie and came to IMDb to see what others had to say. Let me tell you this, I had more fun and enjoyment reading the reviews than I did watching the movie. Everything I felt during the movie has already been explained in all of the other reviews. It's like deja v. I think Olguin and Garcias story could be so much better with the proper tweaking. They went way to far out with this one. Watching that little girl walking around was very boring and seemed to become unnecessary. I myself would have done things much differently. The terror factor was minus 10. The ridiculous factor was through the roof.And at the end I was just sitting here wishing I had my two bucks back that I spent on this disaster.I find myself oddly in the mood for calamari.

World's most boring post-apocalypse movie

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 4 February 2016]

DESCENDENTS is a cheap Chilean post-apocalypse movie in which the central character is a bland little girl who wanders around having lost her parents. The film was apparently shot on the ultra-cheap and in just ten days, which gives some indication as to the reasons why it feels so rushed and amateurish.

I don't mind cheap films if they have good stories, because after all good stories cost nothing. However, this one doesn't. The main character is dull beyond belief and attempts to turn this into a zombie movie fall flat time and time again with ridiculous overacting extras. To disguise the paucity of his film, the director includes lots of camera effects, alongside filters, flashbacks, and plenty more in an attempt to distract the viewer, but needless to say I saw straight through all that. In the end, DESCENDENTS has nothing to say of any note.

Solos: A failure on all levels

[needmedpack · 1/10 · 5 May 2012]

I had the pleasure to watch this 'gem' of horror genre in cinema.

The story is about a little girl who gets separated from her mother during a zombie virus outbreak and now has to live on her own, wandering through abandoned, dead villages or suburbs to search for food. Killer-Commandos were sent out to clean up the place, so not to be mistaken for a zombie is high priority on her list.

Because she is immune to the zombie virus, not a single zombie is a threat for this girl. Eventually she finds other kids who are also immune and they group up to find salvation at the ocean - or something.

Sounds awesome? It gets better: Not only the plot is completely destroyed by the main 'characters' being immune to zombies, the visuals are so extremely bad, irritating and unnecessary that you want to break the DVD in half and burn it after wards.

Expect long, pointless slow motion, blurred and shaky scenes even when nothing happens AT ALL. Watching 5 minutes of playing children with an overload of shitty effects and slow motion. GENIUS!

When the little girl remembers her mother, flashback scenes are used. Not one, but you'll see many of them. However, they are all equally annoying and mostly meaningless.

There was hardly any acting or dialog.

Sound effects do their part to slingshot this horror movie right into the dumpster.

This is no trashy-bad zombie movie but simply a VERY bad zombie movie.

1/10

Very, very, very, very, very BAD

[holograms · 1/10 · 12 June 2012]

First off, let me say that I am a big horror movie fan, and an even bigger zombie genre fan. This movie tried to capitalize on the booming zombie genre, but it fell flat on its face in an epic way.

Picture yourself watching The Walking Dead TV series, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and any other zombie powerhouses. Now, picture yourself watching a movie called "Descendents" where the director has the camera jumping around when there's absolutely nothing happening, children play on a playground for minutes on end with nothing happening, and the constant replay of the SAME scenes from the little girl's memory. There was a lot of wasted minutes with meaningless crap. The movie is purely and perfectly POINTLESS. Now, picture this pointless drivel of a plot-less movie ending on a monumentally STUPID ending that is second to none in stupidity. You think Full Metal Jacket seemed like a different movie half-way through it? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet until you experience the genius of this movie's ending. It isn't even worth renting (not even on a free rental you may get from your cable vendor). Don't waste your money or free time. This movie looks like it was made in one day.

Just so you're not fooled, this is no horror movie. It tries to blend social/political lines into an invisible plot mixed with an apocalyptic world. In case you still want to see it for yourself, I won't go any further, but, honestly, this movie isn't worth telling spoilers on. Why? Because it plain sucks. You've been warned.

Being the first is not an excuse for sucking at movie making

[pariufunk · 1/10 · 21 August 2009]

Nothing... absolutely NOTHING excuses the big plot holes this story has. I had the opportunity to watch this movie on the first public exhibition made in Chile, and although the previous movies of director Olguin weren't good, i had faith in him becoming mature enough to make a convincing and sustainable movie, but i was both disappointed and sad to find myself laughing instead of being scared, and to watch more than the half of the public leaving the place before the half of the film. Believe me. People just stood up from their sits and left the hell out of there in anger. The film has a certain touch of social criticism, but it is so week and so covered up on awful special effects, digital visual filters and ineffective horror sequences that the importance of the messages becomes obsolete.

Lots of questions stay unexplained, and the fact that the child-protagonists aren't attacked by the zombies (because they are immune to them), there isn't actually any tension in the movie. The central musical theme repeats itself along the movie, as also does and scene which is repeated at least five times with no apparent sense. Boring and ridiculous as hell. But you don't know ridiculous until you watch the ending.

Unintentionally funny

[UlysessEverett · 1/10 · 22 March 2009]

What a terrible movie this is, it's just awful. This is my first comment and I'm writing because I feel the need to warn people. The movie stars with five minutes of narration and without it, nothing would happen, It's completely unnecessary. Then we see a kid walking around in an apocalyptic city and we have more narration. It's amazing to me that the main character is a little girl and the audience don't care about her, you have to be a truly bad director to achieve that. The movie has no dramatic structure, it's just a series of "scenes" of little kids being chase by men with guns; SPOILER AHEAD * The zombies don't want to hurt the kids because of something from another movie*. Olguín feels the need of repeating all the time, we see the same scene at least ten times and that flashback editing it's confusing and very boring. I think the premise has some potential but is completely destroyed, I really like to give away the ending because it's one of the most bizarre and stupid I have ever seen, but, off course, I wont. You've been warn.

A movie that was much better then I expected. I did expect low B-movie though. OK zombie movie with stupid end. I say C+

[cosmo_tiger · 5/10 · 13 May 2012]

"Everyone lost hope and their worst fears became reality." In the future a strange virus takes hold of the world turning everyone into zombies. While the world is being overrun a few children are born immune to the disease. One little girl begins a trip to the ocean where she thinks she will find safety. She meets a few more children like her and together the must avoid the zombies as well as the military to get to their goal. I have to admit that based on the cover and the preview I was expecting lameness. While I can't say this is a great movie it was much better then I expected. I do however think the pitch meeting went like this : So you want to make a zombie movie with very little talking, or plot. Just a little girl walking and watching people get eaten until she finds water. Is that right? Yes that is correct. OK, here is 5 million dollars...have fun. I am not a fan of zombie movies but this one was watchable and much better then I was expecting. The end is bizarre and is worth watching just for that though. Overall, much better then expected and fans of zombie movies will probably like this a lot. I say C+.

Worst decision ever made! Movie wise...

[MokN · 1/10 · 12 May 2012]

I received an option from Verizon for a free movie in their catalog for on demand movies so based on the cover and description I went with this. I tried looking for this movie at IMDb, but because of the wrong spelling of the word descendant, I couldn't find the movie. Figuring it was a zombie type of movie I didn't think it could be bad... boy was I wrong. After choosing this movie my friend found the IMDb for this movie and after reading the reviews I knew I had chosen POORLY! Despite the crappy trailer and the signs that I should not even watch this movie, I figured I might as well get my money's worth. For a free movie I feel ripped off because it was so bad I can't even begin to describe what I would do to the person or persons behind this film if I were to bump into them.

The whole movie did not give much reasoning to anything going on in the film. The people with the guns went after the little kids and the zombies, as well as non-zombies with no guns. The zombies went after everyone except for the little kids. Why?? What made the kids special? What caused this whole mess with the zombies? Why would the little girl's mom tell her that the infected people wouldn't hurt her and then tell her to run away when she's turning herself?

I seriously would have skipped this piece of crap if the reviews gave the ending, but because there was no mention of it I decided to see for myself. To save others from this misery when the mess of a "story" came to a close the kids find the sea where a giant octopussy smashes a bunch of army helicopters and the little girl then realizes she's "home". This was all based on a kid-drawn picture the little girl's mom had in front of her as she was turning with a boat in the sea. Seriously, WTF?!

Massively disappointing zombie effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 4/10 · 28 July 2014]

After a devastating war has left the world polluted, a group of Chilean children who are able to survive in the toxic world navigate through the treacherous, zombie-infested world in order to find a sea-side sanctuary.

This didn't turn out to be all that great of an effort. The main problem here is the decidedly haphazard manner it's story runs through all sorts of rather inane and useless side-plots that don't offer up anything remotely interesting throughout. The concept of a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by zombies is a concept that in itself is done to death and hardly interesting in the slightest, and to counter this the concept of having children grow a gill-like appendage to breathe through but other than that it's hardly all that new and this feature isn't explored or even granted enough time to really make a mark on what it means. All sorts of clues are guessed at, but it never gives a definitive explanation for anything since it's too busy with the single most irritating flaw in this, the constant sentimental strains and melodramatic turns it provides. This plays out more like a dark children's fantasy tale about their survival in the landscape more than being munched on by zombies or forcing them to face any kind of fears or life-lessons along the way as this constantly has them sitting around talking about the world at large or what it means to miss their parents who are left behind. The dreams and constant memory-fades that this wallows in are for the most part the main source of inspiration through this so it really doesn't bring in a lot of opportunities for zombie carnage throughout though that is on offer as well. The make-up isn't bad and the gore is certainly serviceable as the early attacks at the compound and their escape attempt are about the main threats by the creatures throughout this, so they take on the main gist of the action scenes here but otherwise there's just not enough spread throughout the rest of the film to really justify the remaining flaws being so persistent and focused in here.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, constant issues of children-in-jeopardy, Graphic Language and drug use.

Not since George Romero!

[Daverat · 10/10 · 4 May 2009]

Beyond Geroge Romero there has not been a zombie film that's loaded with this much social/political commentary. Jorge Olguin's 2002 follow-up to SANGRE ETERNA aka ETERNAL BLOOD is a very strong and original post-apocalyptic/Sci-fi/horror movie. For about a half a million dollars, the movie was shot in ten days, with mostly young children ranging from five to ten years old. The children's acting may not be up to par and some of the effects surely reflect the lack of budget & time but DESCENDENTS/SOLOS is a truly dark and disturbing movie set in a dystopian world that looks like a low budget mixture of 28 DAYS LATER and CHILDREN OF MEN, with strong echoes to Chile's past as a military dictatorship. Jorge Olguin is a talent to definitely keep an eye on.

Without the child element, wouldn't have much to recommend it...

[BigBabe0 · 19 November 2013]

We "soft-hearted" Yanks will supposedly be drawn to anything with a kid or kids in it, as Chilean writer/director Jorge Olguin presumably knows. In "Descendents" his characters mostly speak accented English, so I gather he had his eye on the American market. His protagonist, Camille, born after the outbreak of (yet another) mysterious disease turning humans into crazed zombie-like creatures, has the telltale marks on her neck indicating she's immune to the killer bug. Most of the (relatively short) running time is about her wandering around either alone or with similar genetically fortunate kids trying to reach the ocean, where there is supposedly a boat and/or a friendly giant octopus waiting. (The kids keep their necks covered, presumably to hide the marks, although it's pretty clear they're immune since they're not coughing up blood and trying to eat people.) There are also a lot of flashbacks with Camille's now dead mother, which at first tug at the heart strings somewhat, but after a while I started to get the flashbacks confused with the present day scenes; they're all shot with that currently popular bleached out virtual black and white look that I guess is meant to give the proceedings a "documentary" aura. To borrow a term from the late Roger Ebert, we also have the "semi obligatory" cold blooded soldiers blasting away at anything that moves. (Come to think of it, "28 Days Later..." has an awful lot to answer for. Could Danny Boyle have had any idea he was writing the new rules for zombie fare?) Camille Lynch as Camille is stoic and completely believable as a kind of Alice in Horrorland, and the other kids are good too, although it's hard to keep track of who they all are. The adult actors are all competent. The settings and effects are impressive, especially on such a low budget. But I hesitate to give it the Ebertian thumb up, if only because there's really nothing here that hasn't been seen before (see above re Danny Boyle). I did like the opening using Camille's drawings to illustrate the violent demise of humanity, but at the end Mr. Olguin suddenly tries to insert an element of "magic realism," which in the South American context seems to mean "any goofy thing that strikes the writer's or director's fancy." Here it just seems bizarre after the preceding bleak real realism. But it is what it is. Compare this with Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" for a much more holistic vision of a child caught up in a real-life adult nightmare seamlessly intertwined with the fantasy element, ultimately more credible and thus more heartbreaking for all the dark whimsy.

Uneventful.

[parry_na · 5/10 · 2 May 2016]

This post-apocalyptic Chilean film begins in an interesting way.

Instead of showing the decimation of the world as we know it into a zombie-strewn, blasted wasteland, the terrible events are told through the narration and drawings of a child; the end of the world seen through a child's eyes. Except this child (Camille, played by Camille Lynch), and a handful of others, have been born with gill-like marks on their necks, making them immune from zombie bites and the sickness that accompanies them.

When the film proper begins, it becomes apparent that this opening narration isn't an introduction to the story being told - it IS the story. What follows is a series of images, relentlessly punctuated by flashbacks (often the same flashbacks, repeated), of a group of children – each one displaying no acting ability whatsoever – either playing happily on swings, being chased by the living dead (from whom they have nothing to fear because of their 'gills'), or chased by soldiers eager to learn more about their immunity. And that is it. Story-wise, nothing happens until the end. Worst of all, the viewer is not given any inclination to care.

Visually, things are more interesting. A lot of the colour has been bled from the images, and we are treated to a kind of sepia world, with only rolling contaminated orange skies and the bright redness of blood to enliven the vistas. The zombie transformations are effective, but undermined each time by the juveniles' utter lack of reaction to them – they are immune, so why should they worry? The children reach the ocean, and the swelling of triumphant music tells us this is a good thing, even when a giant digital octopus emerges and destroys a helicopter full of ever-present soldiers. The youngsters' transformation is complete, it seems, as Camille turns to the camera and reveals fully matured gills and webbed hands.

A Chilean Masterpiece of Horror As Metaphor

[dianerpessler-46164 · 10/10 · 12 August 2015]

Jore Olguin, visionary director and auteur, has taken a quite minimal budget and fashioned a masterpiece from it. With haunting imagery and surrealistic cinematographic effects, Olguin's saga of children surviving a post-apocalyptic landscape populated by zombies and killer soldiers unlike anything filmed before. The zombie genre has been overused and is a tired but this is a return to Romero's original concept and it is a stunning accomplishment. The unrelenting horror can sometimes be overwhelming and while it may be necessary to turn away and regain one's composure, this is ultimate a very satisfactory film experience indeed. The Chilean locations heightens the feeling of other worldliness and the sense of an out-of- kilter existence beautifully. An artistic metaphor for how humanity collectively fears the outsider, this is an important and memorable film.

Misunderstood Film Deserves Ovation Rather Than Derision

[jlthornb51 · 10/10 · 13 August 2015]

South American cinema at its most powerful. Jose Olguin, director of the fascinating film, Eternal Blood, has left a deep mark upon Chilean cinema and it is clear why his impact has been so profound with this masterpiece. This motion picture certainly is an attempt to reconcile Chile's history of military dictatorships and violation of human rights with the enlightened nation it has become. Beautifully filmed with stylistic cinematic flourish, the imagery is hauntingly stark and surrealistic in intent. Some of what is depicted involving the innocents is shocking but justifiable in light of the artistic purposes of the director. The film is unrated or NC- 17 because of the violence directed at children but these sequences are clearly misinterpreted in their true meaning as metaphor. In the end, Olquin refers stunningly to Magic Realism and the film's conclusion is overwhelmingly mesmerizing. A true treasure of Chile's cinematic legacy.