Another Hole in the Head 2025 Film Festival Coverage
Volume 7 review
A weird little sci-fi film that feels a bit like an episode of Star Trek from the perspective of a backwards society they beamed down to.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Volume 7
Directed by Panos Pappas and Despina Charalampous
Written by Panos Pappas
Volume 7 Review
Anyone who’s ever enjoyed an episode of the original Star Trek series might understand where this review comes from. Everyone else…just bear with me for a moment. Remember when Kirk would take a party down to a strange civilization for an away mission and we’d learn all about their weird and ultimately self-destructive culture? That’s kind of what Volume 7 feels like. Only…without Starfleet beaming down for whatever reason they’ve manufactured to interfere this time. I couldn’t escape this feeling. And, honestly, it made watching Volume 7 a pretty entertaining experience. I’m not certain how it will play out to someone unfamiliar with this specific reference from the 1960s…but I sure enjoyed it.
If you’ll forgive another extremely dated reference…meeting the society in question felt a bit like heading to Kryton in Richard Donner’s Superman. Not really in an aesthetic way…but just as a vibe. It’s stylish in its own weird way. But it gets even weirder. The story takes place in City-Building 7, a giant fortress of knowledge with seemingly no escape. Knowledge is the key to Volume 7. Or, at least, to the people that populate it. They are the guardians of knowledge…trying to protect what remains of human knowledge at any cost.
Given the nature of how Volume 7’s narrative unfolds…we get to see the society over a few different time periods. That narrative design revolves around a man named Nemon…who mysteriously keeps appearing in the fortress many years apart. It’s a cool way to advance a story. The mystery of Nemon…and seeing what has become of characters we met decades earlier.
Volume 7 gets into some heavy topics like population culling dwindling supplies and trying to escape. A lottery for death keeps things decidedly dour even as Nemon’s shifting relationships with people in the compound tries to keep things lively. Even what sounds like a very adventurous concept for escape…using food supplies to create edible rope and attempting to scale the giant structure to find out what’s underneath…doesn’t go so well with a starving population.
At first blush, Volume 7 seems like a time looping movie…but it’s really more of a time hopping one. Nemon hops into different eras and we discover how much…and how little…has changed. A time hop eventually fills us in on some backstory…but I’d describe it more as closing a character arc than providing answers. Still, a cool sci-fi timey-wimey concept in a movie that often pushes that stuff to the background for more dramatic scenes about the point of survival and the importance of knowledge in a society literally stuck in place.
Volume 7 has some nice high concept ideas that are presented in an interesting way due to its time hopping character. I’m hesitant to call Nemon the lead of the story even though it progresses through his actions. He’s more of a puzzle than an active participant. Society limps on with or without him there to view it. Hardcore sci-fi fans may find some deeper philosophical meaning behind it than I did. People who remember 60s Star Trek may get a kick out of living amongst a one-off planet full of odd customs and doomed policies. Maybe we were the away party all along.
Scare Value
Volume 7 is nothing if not interesting. How long it holds your interest may vary among viewers. It delves into some deep political and philosophical ideas…while finding time to carve out a few doomed romances for the mostly inert Nemon. Mysteries may not be solved to full satisfaction…but I found enough to remain engaged with the unique and aesthetically pleasing story as it slowly unfolded.
