All Eyes

I've been posting reviews for over 5 and a half years here and most have been written with the purpose to warn people away from bad movies with ballot-box-stuffed ratings or just simply bad, usually with detailed reasons and spoilers.

But this movie is different - take your time with it, it relies on a pretty good plot, good acting for the few main characters and clever writing. One of the characters is a real piece of work and quirky - I loved that actor! The setup is slow but important and gives you time to soak in the background story before the pacing heats up so pay attention to the details in the setup as it pays off later. I just really enjoyed it, only 87 minutes long, and it was good entertainment. I refuse to spoil it by being more specific so I really recommend this.

P.s. When the credits roll it appears the film was a family affair, I counted at least 5 different Greenlees involved with it. They did a great job!

This is very different and much better than I had expected. The monster is sort of a McGuffin for the story of two damaged men.

The two principal characters are well-written and well-acted. The plot keeps the audience off-balance and unsure whether to laugh or recoil. I really couldn't predict where it was going, unlike most low-budget horror.

Criticisms: The writers didn't seem to know how to end the story, so it kind of limps along too long after the denouement. There is really only one secondary character, the podcast producer, and her acting is very weak. But the focus is on the two main characters, which are great.

It's a small movie, for sure. But I really liked it. The nicest aspect is its originality. You haven't seen this story before, it's not a rehashing of two dozen movies you've seen before. It can be read as a metaphor of human pain and loss, but you are trapped by the narrative from start to finish. It's a nice small flick!

At the moment I'm writing this review, it is scored 5.4. It pretty much reflect what it does worth. I personally put a solid 6 on it. I found it entertaining and fun. Don't think you'll get great special effects, here, people flying all over the place, explosions, explicit gore, Godzilla-like creatures crushing cities, etc. Yet, it's well shot, the photography is nice with deep colors, it is well played through and through, and at the risk of revealing too much, you have a decent mix of heartfelt moments and action. A very decent film.

For reference, I score 6 for entertaining; 5 for entertaining with reservations; 7 for VERY entertaining movies.

The most disappointing thing about this film is that we didn't get more time with Don.

If you let yourself be entertained and don't think too hard about it, this film won't do much to interfere with your enjoyment. Lots of truly bad horror films insult your time and break the experience. This film sets out to be a "bad" horror film from the get go, and it does that very well. It has campy moments, a basic plot, low budget production and absurd "super serious" moments that will crack you up at how silly it all is.

It does feel about 10 minutes too long though. Part of that issue is that the main character portrayal (both acting and writing) struggles to carry the film to its conclusion. The Don character pretty much stole the show here (and the guy in the intro). So this film does end up with a typical horror movie final act, sadly. You'll be itching to finish it right about when it does decide to finish. You can even skip the epilogue and it wouldn't detract much from the experience.

From the guys that brought us Home With A View To The Monster comes this. It's hard to put into words what this movie is. It's a horror movie, a comedy, a drama, a conspiracy theorist's dream, but above all else it is a backhanded love letter to a cynical world. Top shelf performances from all, the director has real talent, and the script...oh man, the script. This is next-level writing. This is the kind of movie that made us fall in love with independent cinema to begin with. These guys are names to watch: and I do mean watch, as in I can't wait to see what they do next. Highly, highly recommended,.