Dark Sea (2013)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Fantastic!

A Masterpiece!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

That's the English title for the movie. The original means "Black Sea". Not sure I have seen as much blood as in this one for a long time. Another reviewer compared it to Peter Jacksons "classic" Braindead (US title is Dead Alive if I'm not mistaken) and that's spot on, when it comes to the gore.Comedy-wise Peter Jacksons movie is on another level though and was much more fun. That is not to say, that this can't be fun. Quite the opposite, with some weird characters and some crazy/colorful "story" elements. This movie obviously knows what it is, with a little tag end after the credits roll. If you are into low budget, you will really enjoy this - not for anyone squeamish obviously

The fisherman Peroá and his assistant Cavalo Cansado are fishing in a boat but they do not find any school of peroá (a Brazilian fish from Espírito Santo state). However they fish a ray and a strange creature that bites the arm of Peroá. They drop the creature into the sea and return to the village in the countryside where they live. They sell the few fishes that they have caught and Peroá goes home. His wife Indiara sews his arm and goes to the local bar tot buy meat for the lunch of her family. The owner of the bar, Otto, is a good man that buys the ray from a dealer and asks his employee Albino to clean the fish. Albino is a weird man that likes the occultism and has a crush on Indiara. He leaves the ray outside the bar to help her and the fish vanishes. Cavalo Cansado also likes Indiara and he disputes her attention with Albino. Indiara is invited by her neighbor and friend to work in the kitchen of the Sururu's Club, owned by Madame Ursula, in the opening night of the cabaret. She leaves Peroá and her children Paulinho and Clara at home and goes to the cabaret. When Peroá wakes up, he turns into a zombie in the beginning of a gore night. "Mar Negro" (meaning "Black Sea") is an insane zombie movie by Rodrigo Aragão, who is also the editor, and the goriest movie that I have seen since Peter Jackson's "Braindead". The story is regional in a poor location by the sea in the countryside of the Espírito Santo with fishermen, simple people, corrupt politician, militia, cabaret and prostitutes. Therefore people from overseas may have difficulties to understand the peculiarities of the typical characters. Madame Ursula's reaction with a machine gun seems to be inspired in a movie from Quentin Tarantino or Roberto Rodriguez The cast has great performances considering that they are amateurs and the special effects are also great with lots of gore. But maybe the most impressive is the extremely low budget of R$ 300,000.00 (three hundred thousand reais) or US$ 123,500.00 (one hundred and twenty three thousand and five hundred dollars) to make this cult movie of the trash genre. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Mar Negro" ("Black Sea")

Don't waste your time by watching it. This is the cheapest and most senseless movie I've ever seen. Acting is just awful. Story is not bad, but screenplay is just a rape of the idea, what was behind.They even did not place any nice girls or something like that in their cast. Actors seem to be just various people picked from the street.Visual effects, hm... you will miss them.There is just bucket wise red paint everywhere. I completely do not understand how people could rate this so called movie so high!!!If you have another choice for an nice movie evening, just take any other movie!

Yes, I know, "Dark Sea" is an appropriate title to go with for this review, but I am already too used to "Mar Negro" to change. It was the same thing with Aragão's "Mangue Negro" a few years back - that has ended up being the title I use. Now, prior to this one Aragão also made "The Night of the Chupacabras", a less splattery movie - but double the creature feature. With "Mar Negro" he returns to a little bit of both, starting out with a damn perfect creature feature sequence, and slowly going into a blood-packed zombie fest (much like "Mangue Negro").As good of a reason as any to turn into zombies, a couple of local fishermen bring back some infected fish after a fishing-trip-gone-wrong. You see, they also got a large mermaid-monster in the net which they had to fight to death first. In a brilliantly atmospheric and fun opening, they're attacked by a fish creature that looks like a mix of the Gill Man and the fully evolved monster in "Class of Nuke 'Em High" (and throw in tits for good measure). You're now fully prepared for some bad ass monster action - but the movie slows down after this opening, and it becomes clear that it's more of a zombie flick. The fishermen return and locals slowly turn into the rotting, living, eating dead. Our focus is on a brothel, where a congressman is currently visiting to make sure it's good enough for his endorsement.I was aware that this was a zombie film, but when the opening came on I forgot for a second and just prayed that it would stay this way. It truly woke the monster loving kid in me, and they managed to make an equally atmospheric as intense scene right there. When the movie switches over to its actual intentions it's still a very enjoyable movie, but zombie movies are a bit more frequent. But Rodrigo Aragão knows exactly how to get his zombie movies to feel more like "Braindead" and less like... you know, most modern ones. When Rodrigo Aragão does a zombie movie, he does it with creativity. We saw this in "Mangue Negro", and we see it again in "Mar Negro". Frankly, these are zombie films that can go anywhere. In this case it goes to a quite far-out ending, but before that we're treated to a bald transvestite with a minigun shooting down zombies in a bloodbath scene. Yeah, that's what you can expect - but without going to the silly heights of some Japanese movies (which it might sound like at first read).The effects are a ton of fun, and the use of colored lights keeps it fresh in nearly every scene. I did react to a few shortcuts in the effects department in this one, where they'll rather go for simply splashing blood instead of getting actual bullet holes (or whatever they are hit with). In some scenes you miss it, but at other times you see a spotless (but extremely bloody) chest after a dozen or more shots. It's distracting once you think about it, but in most cases you don't have the time to. The actual prosthetics and masks are great, they've managed to give the creatures living eyes which is quite the challenge, and the zombies are the real rotten, slimy kind. It's easy to forgive the lesser moments due to the good ones.I think this is a superior movie to "The Night of the Chupacabras", but didn't entertain me quite as much as "Mar Negro". It's definitely his most technically advanced movie and it looks better than the other two combined. There's no doubt that this is a director who stays with his roots but improves it on a technical level. Rodrigo Aragão reminds me of Olaf Ittenbach, except that Aragão's movies are actually fun enough to cover the bad aspects. You should absolutely watch this if you want a zombie splatter because Aragão might be one of the better at it right now. Especially if you want entertainment rather than scares. While this is a very fun movie, there are a few filler scenes makes it drag and I think a tighter runtime would have made it better. It's insane as it is, but had it been shorter than it'd be such a bang that you wouldn't forget it. It's bloody, creative, crazy splatter fun, but far from a perfect movie.More reviews at FilmBizarro.com