Don't Say Its Name

When I watch any film, but particularly my favoured genre I ask a few questions. Did they love what they did, did they treat the audience with respect, and how did the do with what they have.

I was extremely impressed with Don't Say Its Name.

You can tell they had a passion for the story they told, which is both Indigenous, and Universal. The freshness and realness of the people who were real people and not just caricatures comes through for the whole thing. For those of us who are descended from colonizers, this story may very well provoke a reaction. That's another piece of an extremely well crafted puzzle.

They respected me and my time as the audience. The scares, while not intense, were earned and not cheap. I am really used to being treated like an idiot by a large section of the horror genre, and it was really nice to be able to watch something that wanted me to pay attention to the people and the ideas in the story.

They did a tremendous amount with what they had. They alternated between CGI and practical effects with a deft hand for, despite Telefilm and SuperChannel funding was not a huge budget film. They made the story work for them, and there were large parts of the movie where I actually lost track of the time, and that's really rare in horror films these days, especially when you're watching on TV Streaming services with all your devices around asking for attention.

While it's true that at it's heart it's not a blazingly original idea there are few of those left, and they took a classic story and made it their own.

I was really impressed - this is well worth your time.

This film was not very good. Tbh the main reason I bothered to leave a review is that this film had 100% on rotten tomatoes due to not many reviews being submitted so far. Each review was very high and gave a glowing account. Which is why was so disappointed at the awful acting.story and effects.

I should have taken more notice if the fact that the reviewers and the publications that gave such high reviews on rotten tomatoes were unknown to me and the reason this film looks like a television movie is because it has all the production quality of one.

Do yourself a favour and avoid this film and go for something rlse.

This movie was actually pretty solid. Not really for me, but that doesn't mean others cant enjoy it. The story is decently engaging though the audio mixing is ATROCIOUS. To the point where I almost wanted to turn it off entirely but I managed to stick it through. Subtitles are your friend here.

The acting is actually pretty good, the scenery is very beautiful (movie takes place in Alaskan woods on a rez) but the transition between scenes is a bit lackluster and makes things a little hard to follow. There's also not really a clear timeline unless you really pay attention to the day/night cycles in the movie.

There's a more than a few scenes that honestly didn't need to be there, or were just written poorly which sadly detracts from the movie but they aren't so egregious that it totally, totally ruins it. I think by far the most angering part of the movie is the cold open as it was a situation that could've been avoided if she just....didn't keep walking in front of a suspicious car but ah well.

There is nothing a film can do to irk me more than have bad sound. Nothing. Poor writing and bad acting get to me less. This one really, really ticked me off. It isn't that it's muffled or poorly recorded, it's the mix. My GOD will you PLEASE bring the dialogue up in the mix and take about 30 percent or a little more off the INSANE volume of the music and sound effects? Please. Watching this late at night with everyone else asleep is an absolute nightmare. Can't hear the dialogue so you turn it up then there's music loud enough to wake the dead. Seriously, stop that. Movie wise, it's well made. Derivative, not very original but entertaining enough. Performances are good. Could have been better if I could hear more than half the dialogue over the blaring, bass heavy music.

Really solid acting and filming. Great editing and production quality. Good script and storyline. The CGI and special effects make-up were also excellent. It was more of a supernatural thriller than a horror I think, but regardless, I enjoyed it.

I read the other reviews and I didn't experience any flaws, other than from the reviewers themselves.

I hope to see more content like this.