The use of the handicapped and disabled in cinema is a tricky subject, not wanting to let the physical disability serve as a means of exploiting, demeaning, or lowering the person's on-screen attributes into being a lesser figure than the other participants who don't suffer from this condition. The horror genre has provided memorable characters in it's history that have a handicap to positive and uplifting effect, which is the route taken here with James Hung's newest creature feature “Detrimental.” This shows off the handicapped being instrumental to stopping the carnage around them in addition to being a fun monster movie in it's own right.
“Detrimental” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
Living in the year 2070, miner Raven (Vincent Wong) works with the other members of his team, Chef (Lau Shun), Ghost (Kenneth Chan), Kip (Thor Lok), Scotch (Tony Wu), Cain (Marx Cheung), and Dr. Tu (Shirley Chan) at a mining colony trying to extract Ataca, a resource that can help replenish the fading energy sources on the planet. When they get cut off from their headquarters during a devastating storm, the dwindling supplies and unknown recovery time force them to split the handicapped workers off into separate parts of the island so they can take the remaining supplies for themselves. While they've been split up, they find that the process has awoken a vicious monster deep within the Earth who starts hunting them one by one, forcing the group to band together to stop it
Overall, “Detrimental” has quite a lot to like. Among the stronger features of the film is the strong setup from writer/director Hung which has some intriguing elements at work. The whole approach of the setting here, with the future world stressed to the maximum and forced into utilizing this specific mineral as a way to keep the world functioning, comes across quite nicely. That gets compounded with the conditions that have to be met in order to access the material, working in dangerous underground mines with their senses impaired to allow the workers to get to the Ataca itself inside the rock. Despite being dropped into this scenario with nothing more than a few lines of a preamble, the general gist of the setup works rather nicely and also provides enough to get to know Cain and the rest of the crew who work at the station. Seeing the ingenuity that goes into how the various cliques operate and what the workers are accomplishing, there is quite enjoyable and all leads to a solid setup in place.
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As well, “Detrimental” comes together with some solid creature action in the second half. While initially appearing as a hindrance to the escape attempts to secure shelter and supplies following the accident, the difference in the second half, when it becomes a more ominous and impactful threat is generally fun. Shown stalking the team in the facility's confines or the underground tunnels where the Ataca is removed, these fun scenes are the perfect setup for the later ambushes where it springs on the sleeping team at their beach camp or the big battle to take it out. These scenes feature some creative weaponry, ingenious defensive and offensive tactics as well as several high-energy confrontations. In addition, we get to see the impressive design of the creature in full force as the unnatural design allows it to fit quite well with the action depicted. These all manage to come together for some likable qualities.
There are some minor drawbacks in “Detrimental” that bring this down. One of the biggest issues is the inability to properly explain why Cain and the workers decide to entertain the notion of trusting the non-handicapped workers once they've been betrayed and left for dead on the island. When they get trapped in the tunnel and left behind, there's no need for them to be the ones that would trust Ghost and Scotch not to screw them over once again thinking that a deal can be negotiated, which makes no sense. Even worse is the sequence that explains it, which produces some of the most inhumanely stupid and asinine reasoning to do so which is outright absurd and nowhere near rational human speech calling attention to this problem even more. On top of that, there's also the somewhat cheesy CGI effects for the creature which is goofy and silly compared to the rest of the effects here, which make the creature look a lot more realistic. The outrageous design doesn't help much as the full-body shots are the biggest culprits, in contrast to the brief cuts to parts of its body which are the best ones here
A generally fun and enjoyable creature feature without a whole lot of flaws, “Detrimental” carries itself quite well overall. Those who appreciate this kind of Asian horror feature or are fans of creature features will have a lot to like here.
