disgusting, overrated, pointless

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

I will admit upfront, this film left a really horrible taste in my mouth.So much so that it even soured my feelings towards Nerdist and Chris Hardwick.I know his M.O. is to be very positive about everything, and upbeat. But this movie just wasn't good.If you are giving it a HUGE pass because it is low-budget, maybe you could forgive it some of its mistakes.I was ready to walk out after 10 minutes because of a sound design element that was quite literally painful. From Bravest Warriors: "It's like making Oatmeal cry..." Catbug:"Why would you do that?" Why would you hurt your audience? That is lazy filmmaking.All of the characters were unlikeable bullies. I rooted for no one and wanted them all to die.The visual design was for stylistic purposes and actually violated filmic grammar in ways I just could not forgive.Blacklight? Why? Totally non-diegetic, which is fine, but could not forgive it especially compared to other issues.Oh, let me do First Person POV shots as Over-The-Shoulder shots, SOMETIMES. Why? I'm confused.Let me have blinking lights/strobe effect FOR NO REASON, other than to make the shot painful to look at. Thanks.The love story didn't really work for me either. There was ONE SCENE where it was almost poignant (the one with the strobe lights), but I didn't even want to watch it because the cinematography was so annoying.Nor did I find the gore effects particularly interesting either.I didn't like the movie. I didn't enjoy watching it. I didn't like the score (which was also a major selling point of the film).It was all over the place. And there there was weird unnecessarily sexualized slut-shaming/emasculation dialogue that I also did not like at all. The whole big social networking allegory was also not very strong or sold well in the movie itself. You get that more from reading critique on it than what you can actually see in the film text itself.Maybe I am too old.I love genre movies. I love the surprise little indies.But I was sitting in my seat fuming, just waiting for it to end. I felt lied to by the Nerdist stamp of approval.To me it is totally skippable. Unless you are OK with starting a movie that it is OK to shut off before you finish.

I will say that I enjoyed this movie. Now I know there were some things in the movie I didn't believe completely meshed well and some scenes weren't explained well enough for me but overall I think they did a really good job.Went in this movie thinking that it could be a host of many clichéd themes and I should be prepared to drop it at the half way mark in the movie. After the 30 minute mark I can say that the movie had me at a point where I needed to watch it till the end. Now the ending was not as exciting as I hoped for but at least it gave me some type of finality.Now I know my review wasn't very descriptive on the storyline or the characters but I will say this, try to avoid any reviews that give anything away. The movie is much better when you have no clue on what's going on from the very beginning.

Checked this movie out after a buddy told me about it and I'm glad I did. Went in thinking it was going to be a horror movie and got a lot more than that. For an indie movie the acting was actually pretty good, there were only a couple times were the acting took me out of it but all in all they did good. The pacing was perfect and kept me engaged and the plot was great. I love sitting through a movie trying to peace things together up until the final moment. The love story that develops throughout the movie was great, at the beginning you could really feel some chemistry between the two. However, at about halfway through the movie it feels like it skipped a lot of character development between the two which I felt was a little weird. I wish we could have seen more interaction between the two in the middle of the movie. All in all, this is a great movie that probably not many will see that more people should see.

I just watched The Hive as part of a one-night-only Fathom theater event. This movie had almost no marketing, which will have made it an incredible moment for those lucky enough to see it on the big screen. I am a big fan of the zombie genre, and The Hive pays homage to Romero's classic use of the genre to focus on human struggles and social constructs within the breakdown of society. There are running themes of individual experience vs. the collective consciousness and isolation vs. the soma-driven release of free will, that hold strong without coming off as preachy or pedantic. There is a bit of a slow burn here, which leave you wondering if the character-development will be worth it, but the plot is tight, and everything becomes relevant within well written climax.Considering the low budget, the gore/make-up effects are excellent, and never take you out of the moment. There are some lighting choices that come together as truly gritty and spectacular. For the horror fans out there, I would more classify this one as more of a gruesome psych-thriller, with more dark humor and creeping insanity than pop-outs and cheap scares. There are definite moments where the acting fell, and where the writing betrays an intelligent audience (a tight plot doesn't need so much spoken internal dialogue), but overall a must VOD, and worth finding the time if Fathom does a second release in theaters. Find it. See it. You won't be disappointed.