Paralysis

Not a genre I typically watch, nor typical for the genre. Emotionally wrenching and lots of twists and turns with a satisfying ending. It is incredible that this film was created and shot using a mobile phone on a shoestring budget. The entire film had a sense of dreaminess and semi consciousness, as though you are drowning and your synapses are randomly firing, blending reality and memory and fear and guilt until you are unable to discern which way is up, your lungs burning as you flail for the surface and air. That the scenes are confined to a handful of rooms and locations drives home the isolation of the main character and her being tethered to her grief, unable to move, paralyzed.

I really wanted to like Paralysis. The premise is intriguing, and I'm sure there's a solid story underneath it all. Unfortunately, I found it almost impossible to get into the film because of the acting. It felt more like a local theatre production or a student project than a professional film. The performances just didn't carry the emotional weight needed for this kind of story - they often felt flat, awkward, or overly dramatic in a way that pulled me out of every scene.

I don't say this lightly, but I genuinely believe someone with no acting background could have delivered a more natural performance. That made it hard to connect with the characters or feel any real tension, which is a big problem in a psychological horror like this.

That said, credit where it's due: the team clearly had passion and a vision, and the concept could've worked with stronger direction and casting. I just hope future projects put more emphasis on performance quality, because that alone can make or break a story like this.

I enjoyed this film. Lots of threads weaving around and brought together for a satisfying ending. Very good use of some scary images and it keeps the floating sense of unease and unreality going. I don't like an unresolved "you figure out what happened" ending, and this film avoids that nicely. Good depiction of the distress that family can cause. No time wasted in diving into the story, and a generous amount of creepiness. The main character does a very good job of portraying how debilitating poor sleep/bad dreams can be. This movie digs right into personal horrors without having to resort to a bucket of blood.

I'm currently working my way through this one and it's rough, to say the least. Definitely a low budget flick. The acting is the worst part about this so far, making it extremely hard to immerse myself into the atmosphere and genre. The acting feels like what you'd get from a cheap highschool film project, most notably, the wide angel single camera found footage movies that flood streaming platforms such as Tubi and Freevee, to name a couple. They're not all bad, but the acting is generally the worst part in them. I get it, amateurs gaining experience and whatnot... Anyways, I'm going to finish it and then come back to this review and hope that between then and now, I've got something positive to say about it.

(2022) Paralysis PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

Edited, co- cinematography, co-associate produced, written and directed by Levi Austin Morris that has Haley Stone (Allison Lobel) interacting with her brother, Nicky Stone (Levi Austin Morris) who happens to be be a painter/ artist. At the same time she is seeing and dreaming about things that are not there, such as a demonic presence sometimes with her brother, Nicky present sometimes not. And although, she takes medication we find out she suffers from sleep paralysis/ nightmares. It is during then she seeks help from a paranormal investigator, Anissa Bradley (Lisagaye Tomlinson) who may or may not be the solution to all of Haley's nightmares.

Self-explainable psychological horror movie that is slow and boring in parts but may have been better if it had a bigger budget.