Spectral is a Netflix movie set in the near future. Soldiers in a war zone in eastern Europe encounter a mist, roughly human-shaped, which is extremely fast and kills on contact. What’s more, it seems to be indiscriminant in its killing — civilians and children are not exempt.
These creatures (or entities) are only visible with special UV googles and cameras. The military brings in an engineer from a company specializing in military weapons and equipment. He discovers there are several of these things, which the locals refer to as “ghosts of war.”
This is an interesting concept, though not as well-developed as I would like. The first part of the film moves quite slowly, with not enough tension or scary moments. It gets a little more interesting when they finally discover the nature of the ghosts of war.
But I think the big problem is not enough buy-in. Usually, in this type of film, there are a few scenes at the beginning where we get to know the characters, so that we care what happens to them. There was none of that.
Also, they missed the boat on inter-character conflict. There was a scene where the soldiers are hostile toward the engineer coming on board. It is resolved much too quickly. In addition, there is a woman working on the problem who opposes the engineer’s ideas, but there is not enough made of that, or the fact that she is the only woman.
Good try, Netflix, but you can do better.