Radius
Don’t come close
Whenever we think about science fiction movies, what comes to mind are expensive productions full of CGI special effects, with complex stories and sophisticated characters. So, it’s a pleasant surprise to find movies like “Radius” (CAN, 2017), an interesting Canadian production where creativity was the most used feature.
A man (Diego Klattenhoff) wakes up on the side of a road without knowing where he is. A overturned pickup truck indicates that there was an accident, and he was probably involved, although he could not remember how it had occurred. When a car passes on the road, he has a double shock: the woman driving the car dies, with his eyes whitish and he only finds his own name when consulting his documents.
Liam – that was his name – can’t understand what’s going on around him. As he walks, animals fall dead, always with whitish eyes. When he arrives at a restaurant, the same thing occurs, everyone drops dead the same way.
The man returns home and comes to the conclusion that he is the cause of death of any living being who reaches less than fifteen meters from him. He hides himself at home while trying to understand what is happening until he receives a visit from a woman (Charlotte Sullivan).
To his surprise, not only does she survive her closeness, but the deadly effect is nullified. Jane – this is how she introduces herself – says that she was in a hospital, that she had woken up like him, with no memory whatsoever, and that she had been collected near the overturned truck. To try to find out something, she had come to him.
Liam and Jane team up to find out what this deadly effect is and how to get rid of it. But the police begin to search for Liam by pointing him out as responsible for the deaths, which puts the two on a desperate escape route.
Jane discovers her real name, that she is married and that her husband desperately searches for her. The meeting is surrounded by mistrust, mainly by Liam’s need to be close to her.
The only explanation they find for the strange situation they are experiencing is that an unknown cosmic anomaly hit Earth at the exact spot where their accident occurred.
Gradually a few fragments of memory return, both to Liam and to Jane. The truth that is being revealed will be more terrible than anything the two could have imagined.
“Radius” is a low-budget independent film written and directed by Caroline Labrèche and Steeve Léonard. The absence of sophisticated locations and special effects was offset by a creative story, reduced cast and a lean script. The film was shot in Manitoba Province, central Canada.
The initial idea came from two very different sources. One was from the Korean film “Oldboy” (“Oldeuboi”, KR, 2003), where the two main characters have a strange and unknown connection. The other comes from an old Superman story, when he was prohibited from saving people because they would die if they had contact with him.
It is possible that the connoisseurs of the popcorn movies do not like much “Radius”, by the lack of a larger explanation of the story, especially about what caused the phenomenon. This film can be classified as science fiction, but also as suspense, police and even horror, although the creative way people die does not shock much, since there is no blood or violence.
Although it has not passed through our theaters, “Radius” is now available on the Amazon Prime Video streaming service.