The Weathered Underground
The Weathered Underground
| 26 January 2010 (USA)
The Weathered Underground Trailers

A Groundbreaking interactive DVD that plays like a video version of the "Choose Your Own Adventure Books" as the story follows 21 Year old Eric (the character whom the audience makes choices for) as he deals with a skull crunching breakup. Eric is a struggling musician who works a side job and just broke up with the greatest love of his life, the somewhat insane yet adorable Liz (Brea Grant, Heroes, H2). Now you, the viewer, must guide Eric through one insane evening with Criminals, Drugs and Damsels while deciding whether Eric will win back the love of his life or crumble into Moral Decay... His fate is now in your hands... The Weathered Underground allows the viewer via remote control or mouse (online) to control the story ultimately choosing a story of redemption or debauchery. Featuring over 30 different endings and 1,000 choices. The film can be played/viewed for up to four hours, over and over without getting the same plot line!

Reviews
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Statutory Ape I tend to agree with the person that said the other positive reviews of this "film" must have been left by people involved with the production of it. Compare, if you will, the reviews on Netflix.I don't for one second buy the idea that people who didn't like this movie are somehow "dim" or old. And to even put this film and its director in the same sentence as anything done by Kubrick or John Waters is sheer lunacy. That seems to be the new normal in reviewing anything...people don't like it, then plants come out of the woodwork saying it was brilliant and "you people" obviously didn't "get it"...but I digress.The most absolutely annoying thing about the film, beyond the (unintentionally) laughable dialogue and (let's be kind and call it "sub-par") acting is the awful color palette. It's as if someone said "Here's an idea: let's make all the blacks deeper than Atlantis and replace all the natural light and color with garish splotches of red and lime green and just let it bleed all over the place!!!" It looked like they were going for a comic book look, but that makes sense only if the comic they were trying to look like had just been colored and left out in the rain.Also, anyone looking to actually sit and make these choices in order to get more than a 15 minute story is SOL here. The plots are designed to last about that long, no matter what you do...let me give an example of what I mean. This is how my first playthrough went: First choice, go to work or go to a club...we picked go to the club. Once arriving you have to choose from three ladies to talk to at the bar. So, we talked to a brunette, left the bar with her, dropped in on a diner where the ex works, get into a tiny altercation with her, then go up on the roof of the "hero's" apartment, get drunk, the girl somehow sprouts glittery angel wings that look like the kind ravers got from Spencer gifts in the 90s and then the girl wakes up after what I can only assume is a night of unsatisfying sex with our leading man, since she just walks to the edge of the roof and starts crying...ROLL CREDITS.Now what the hell is that? It's hard to work up a reason to care about these characters in 15 minute snippets that go nowhere. After the color palette gives you a brain tumor, the rest of you will be trying to piece together a plot. Don't waste your time.
sammy jones I gave it ten stars simply for it's originality. I could see how some would hate it. As matter of fact, several of us sat around watching and my cousin was so annoyed that he left the room. But I think it was because his girlfriend thought the lead actor was cute. It is somewhat offensive in the way that south park might be to some conservatives. But it's very smart too. You can tell it was made with very little money but it looks so cool and unique that you don't really care. If anything, I thought it was endearing.And sooooooo funny. I couldn't stop playing the thing. Really addictive. I read that it's coming out on ipod and I'll be the first in line damnit.It's not like other pictures, which will probably mean that you will either love it or hate. But let's be honest, what Kubrick film got a good review when it first came out? Very few. Most got trashed. Or Pink Flamingos? Or Araki? These films got trashed by half the people that saw them because they dared to do things that other movies had never done. The Weathered Underground is daring, at times provocative, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this weird little interactive movie ends up becoming a cult classic. Kudos to the filmmakers. You've done something that I liked. And I generally hate everything.
CanORage I can only assume the 13 ratings posted thus far are from people involved in the production. I hosted a movie night at my house last night. When we saw The Weathered Underground at the movie store, it sounded like a really fun choice for the evening. I pulled it up on IMDb, saw an extremely high 13 ratings with a few really rave reviews, and decided we'd take the chance. Bad call. Never trust high ratings with such a low count.Where to begin...the production values are abysmal, the writing is awful and preachy, the plot is unnatural, the acting is sub-par, and the "choices" are ridiculous and poorly set up. There's an extremely unpleasant and distracting visual effect applied to the movie. It looks grainy at times and washed out at others. I'm really not sure where they were going with it; perhaps they were trying for a "comic book" feel. Or maybe they just wanted to mask the fake-looking choices of location by making it so difficult to actually make out any details in the scene that you can't tell where they are. I can only speculate. Worst of all, it's really boring. The characters drone on and on as though they were carrying on a dull conversation in real-life between people without much to talk about. We found ourselves selecting choices based on which one would "mix it up" the most, because of just how dull the current scene was.I don't often stop watching a movie I've paid to watch, but after about 30 minutes of this we couldn't take any more. Luckily we picked up a backup to fall back on. I can appreciate the "so-bad-it's-good" movies from time to time, but with this one you'll just find yourself bored and upset by all the terrible choices. This would be a decent submission for a film class, which film students would have every right to be proud of. But beyond that, as a serious movie you pay money for, it's pretty darn bad. Don't waste your time on this one.
guidedbyvalentines I just got this disc in netflix after seeing a trailer on youtube. I thought it would be cool and was always hoping someone would make a choose your own adventure type film, because I was obsessed with the books. But The Weathered Underground is more than a just an interactive film. It's a really, really funny interactive film. We were addicted. It just gets funnier and funnier the further you watch. What surprised me most about this movie though, was that it actually has a lot of depth to it.The voice overs aren't just hilarious, but very honest and true statements about the world that we live in. There's a lot of warmth and humanity that runs through out all of the dark and jaded short stories that make up The Weathered Underground. After seeing the trailer I figured it would probably be fun. After watching the DVD, I'm convinced that these guys are geniuses.