Admirable film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Some movies are bad because of the acting, the budget, the camera-work or other such things. Those movies, you detect easily and either don't pick them up at all or at least stop watching them and wasting your time. "Artifacts" is much, much worse than that.Clearly, it's a low-budget movie, but it's actually well made. The acting is decent too, as is the soundtrack. So it lures you into thinking it might, actually, be a decent movie. Don't be fooled.Because, you see, "Artifacts" didn't run out of budget at the end, it simply ran out of plot. You never find out anything about the doppelgangers, the artifacts, the foreshadowed "Carl Francken"... it all just goes completely unexplained. None of it makes any sense. At all. And they can't even play the "it's about the characters, not the plot" card, because it's blatantly a plot-driven movie... without a plot.Frankly, I find this kind of movie an insult to the viewers.

There are so many people confused by Artefacts ... frankly, I'm confused why everyone is so confused! If you just pay attention, and give the attention this film requires, you'll understand plenty. Just because it has an open ending, that doesn't mean answers weren't given.Kate is a career gal that seems to have things going for her, except for a failed relationship. All of a sudden her employee and friends start turning up dead, killed by doppelgangers. Even the news reports mention a strange metallic artifact (spelled artefact in the film, due to its Belgian production I assume) that has been found inside each victim. Kate finds that her own doppelganger is hunting her down, and the implant is possibly a tracking device for the doppelgangers to find each victim. The arrival of each doppelganger is preceded by a clicking, ticking sound as well. Through investigation on the internet she finds a big clue to what is going on around the world, and she is just another pawn in the whole thing.She then meets up with a man named Carl Francken who reveals just enough for us to know some of the "why" of the situation but only just a tidbit to keep us in the dark and still trying to figure things out. In a way this would have made a great X-Files episode, much of the atmosphere and story fit that well. I'm also very much reminded of the wonderful 2008 feature "The Broken" with Lena Headey (which equally baffled many U.S. viewers but, if paid close attention to, gave more answers to its mystery than Artefacts does). There is also an "experiment/game" element that reminded me of the 2005 film "Experiment." However, Artefacts is a story and film of its own, and I feel holds up well.These days, particularly in U.S. audiences, people want easy answers and wrapped up solutions in their movies. If they have to think while watching a film or try to think some more after the credits roll, they get angry. I've read some very severely hateful things in comments online about Artefacts, The Broken, Session 9, and a good example -- the 2001 film The Wind, where people just didn't get it. They were upset that they had to think, figure things out, and put the puzzle together. They weren't easily handed blood and boobs on a platter; just angry that they had to do a little work as well as sit back and watch.Artefacts, to me as well as some open-minded friends, turned out to be a tense well-made, well-acted thriller, and smartly made on a low budget (only $100,000) with an intriguing premise and execution. I love to view it with friends as a double-feature with The Broken, as each has its own strange world to absorb and mess with your head. Some folks may say it's a European thing, but I sure welcome a viewing challenge and for me it paid off quite well. Oh, it's just plain creepy too...

The premise of this movie was okay en kept me curious for like 10 minutes. After that the many shortcomings of this production took over until the end.I watched a piece of the DVD's extra, where the makers of the movie told that they did it in 12 days for 100.000 dollar. They sounded sympathetic enough, but this is definitely not a Blairwich Project-kind of surprise, because as a supposed horror-flick it fails on the most crucial part: it's never ever in any way even a tiny bit scary! Maybe it's the low budget, maybe the lack of time, maybe the definitely bad script, but even under such conditions a decent (or promising) director should still be able to create some suspense or a creepy atmosphere or some solid scares, but this movie simply lacked all of that. It's mainly about a girl finding out that she, her (ex-) lover and a bunch of close friends all have implanted some metal artefact in their bodies, which all of a sudden attracts their exact Doppelgangers who are out to kill them. There's hardly an explanation, not even in the end, just some mystifying ramblings like: high people from "up there" are playing a game with you. The whole movie we see a lot of running around through ugly streets and houses, while the Doppelgangers conveniently announce themselves by way of a strange rattling sound. No graphic violence whatsoever, hardly any blood, and one car exploding (probably costing the most of the films budget). That's about it.Then there were these annoying other things, like the strange accent of the actors (were they originally Begian?), the bad acting of the rather scruffy looking male main character (why did she ever want HIM back?!?), the uninspiring "musical" score (mostly some weird sounds) and the uninventive and amateurish "special effects". I always think it's a cheap trick to let aliens (or whatever supernatural influence is intended) take over the bodies of normal people, it saves the makers of the movie the trouble of creating a decent alien or monster. Here they even went to such juvenile tricks as: you touch the hostile Doppelganger and puff, (camera stops filming, actor takes off, camera starts running again): he disappears into thin air! The script rattled as much as the score. How and when were these metal artefacts implanted? Were they born with it? So how come nobody found that out earlier, for instance when crossing a metal detection gate at an airport or during some chance medical examination or X-ray. If it really had to do with some devilish game to see how the normal people would react to an evil twin, why did the Doppelgangers instantly went to kill the normal persons? And what were these evil twins supposed to do after the kills? Live the life of the dead person? Take over the world? And why this complex scheme of planting an artefact to attract the Doppelgangers - if these "people from up there" were so skillful as to plant a metal artefact in a body without the victim knowing of it and without a visible scar on the body, couldn't they just have sent the Doppelgangers to the normal people without the need of such a clumsy mechanical beacon?? All in all I was not impressed, I only have to admit that the female character (actress Mary Stockley) did a pretty good job acting under these poor circumstances.I rate is 3 out of 10.

The movie's only an hour and fifteen minutes long, and a portion of that's taken up by the end credits, so it's very short. The end credits mention something about a Belgian Tax Shelter, which may explain this movie's existence.The DVD cover, incidentally, has nothing to do with the film.It did actually hold my interest up to the "ending." People are being killed by their doppelgangers, who appear accompanied by odd static. The police find metal "artifacts" in their bodies. There's an amusing web search at one point where the heroine searches for "artefact in bodies" or something like that. That would bring up a lot more results than she gets, and she actually finds more or less what she was looking for.But anyway, in the end the artefacts and the doppelgangers are not explained. Nor is the non-explanation satisfactory in any way. I might have given the movie a 6/10 or 7/10 if it sustained the interest with the ending, but the failure to have a resolution really damaged it for me.The special feature indicates this was shot in 12 days for $100,000 with a cast of 10 and 20 locations. It sounded like they originally wanted the actors to work off the synopsis rather than use a script. For a movie on a limited budget with a limited shooting schedule, that's a real mistake. The dialogue and acting in the film is actually fine, it's the plot where the film falls flat at the end, with no wrapup. I'm not really sure where the $100,000 went. Maybe just towards paying the cast and crew? They do blow up a car....The special feature does offer a very little additional information about two of the characters that one could not possibly get from the film. However, the director either really did not have an explanation, or plays coy. Supposedly, budgetary restrictions kept them from offering a real ending. They're open to the possibility of a sequel or a remake. I'm doubtful whether they'll get that opportunity.