There Comes a Knocking

Ryan Connolly's latest film is his most potent and captivating to date. Incredible visuals, enthralling sound design, and a great performance left me wanting to explore more of the story. This proof of concept has promise and I would gladly pay to see a feature film based on this.

It's a shame to see someone like Ryan Connolly, after years of videos teaching low-budget/accessible filmmaking methods, make such an empty vessel of a short. Is it shot nicely? Oh yes, very. You can tell a lot of effort was put into the technical aspects of this short, from camera work to lighting, to the set dressing etc. However the story was absolutely lacking in content. I'm still squeezing my brain trying to get anything out of it. It's the most bare bone "ghost horror" short one could come up with. It's baffling to think there's a whole team of people out there who believe this is strong enough to be made into a feature film. All style, absolutely no substance.

In essence, it's no more than a technical filmmaking test.

Left me wanting more to explore more of the story.

This is not a bad short film. It's good. The cinematography and lighting were an easy 10/10 for me and this whole thing was clearly a high quality project.

However, my biggest gripe is with the narrative. First off, I know it's hard to create a lot of substance in nine minutes. But for me, this story is full of cliches that I've seen before and doesn't even try to present things in any new way.

It's just the whole "grieving character brings a creepy object into the house which makes scary things start happening" story has been done so many times before. Maybe I'm being too harsh and maybe the filmmakers were trying to do more than just that, but that's the general interpretation I got from it.

So overall, it's not bad. People also need to keep in mind that it's a proof of concept so it's unfair to be too hard on it. And to be honest, I don't think it deserves the 1/10 ratings that it's getting. I will be on the lookout to see if this gets turned into a feature someday.

Folks, its classic film riot. Looks great. Story lacks. I understand it's a concept for a feature but Ive seen film students tell better stories then There Comes A Knocking. Full of cliches. Nothing new or refreshing. Well made however, looks like something you would see in a theater.