The Box

Hey, so, I had this amazing run of 8s, and maybe one I even wanted to 9, but now, I'm hitting all the wrong buttons because I'm getting 3s and 4s (ratings I usually reserve for the unappreciative and mean).

But when I finally finish stuttering my way through this, eh hm, film, and stop by to rate it, I see a single rating of 7. It seems, a rating by the *11 year-in-the-making* producer of this yawner. And I knew I had to get an unbiased review on here: My 4.

At first there's this magically appearing box, and I think it's going to lead to something interesting, surprising, suspenseful, action-packed... Well, this was just slow, and confusing. Was it an anthology? That'd explain some of my confusion (and partly early-onset senility).

Seriously, surely you'd have better luck with one of the other many "The Box" movies. Cheers, zp.

This movie started out as a short film. Then someone suggested to me that this could become an anthology feature film, where the box appears in each story. I liked that idea, so I decided to go for it.

The first story I wrote and shot was DINNER & DRINKS. From that concept, the rest of the movie evolved. I would write a story, shoot it, edit it, look at what we had, and then decide what the next move was.

As I wrote the script, the story started revealing ideas about the cosmic significance of the number eleven. I'm not a numerologist and that idea isn't what brought me down that path, but there must be something to it because the movie took eleven years to make!

The end result is a well-paced, well-shot, and overall reasonably well-acted low-budget sci-fi movie. The process of writing different stories and tying them altogether was a real exercise and that's where most of my criticism is. It's not bad writing, but I was so focused on driving the story in a specific direction that I didn't allow the characters to come full bloom. Therefore I think the writing, at times, is lacking in personality.

If I were to shoot this again, it might be a little more risky and visually dynamic. Visually, this was inspired by filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick - classic, somewhat slow, but purposeful. To see that style applied to a B-level sci-fi movie is interesting, but I don't think I would do that again.

All in all, I'm proud of making it to the finish line. It's always a great accomplishment when a person can complete a feature film under strained circumstances. And it's also a sense of pride to get distribution through a well-known company like Gravitas Ventures.

This is my second feature film and it's better than my first. My first movie is a very raw effort - a western called DEFIANCE that was distributed through Lionsgate. I learned a lot from making THE BOX, I'm moving in the right direction, and now it's time to move on to the next one!