Tethered

This movie had some good potential. The set up was intriguing and the slow starting pace did a fair job of drawing the viewer.

The acting was alright, but given it's more of an indie film you could overlook it and I still felt endeared to the characters. However, some of the music felt inconsistent and actually took me out of the immersion. Similarly, some of the visual shots seemed to be a good set up for a close up or some sort of follow up scene/dialogue but ended up leaving you hanging. (i.e. Hank reading the journal to Solomon felt cut off and I wanted more from the scene)

The final reveal was predictable and left me wanting something more. Ultimately the world building and story were on the right track, but the final product just felt a bit lacking.

This film reminds me of It Comes at Night (2017), a slow burn that really has no purpose. It starts off semi-promising but feels like it loses its plot as the film progresses. It feels incomplete, playing on loop just to keep you watching for something that appears to exist in your head fueled by seclusion.

I was not impressed with this one personally, but I will say that the cinematography is beautiful. It's dark, depressing, moody, lingering, but lifeless. The ending seems to have one of those what I like to call "suicidal" endings where it disappointingly dies.

I wish the storyline was better.

It's artsy and atmospheric and the actors do a stand-up job, it's even craftily filmed, but about halfway through I realized nothing was really happening, and wondered if it could be condensed into a much shorter version. By the end, my mind hadn't changed and I wondered if it should have just been a short. Then I discovered that the director had, in fact, based it on a 12 minute short, which I am now eager to watch to confirm that this thing would have made an absolutely brilliant short film.

It had everything to score a 9 minimum with its slow buildup to a great unique suspenseful horror flick. Then like a carefully calibrated, almost completed 10 storey deck of cards, the artist just gave a wild swing of hands to bring it all down at the last 10 minutes. No rhyme or reason for the shotgun ending but perhaps it "bears" a hint of being infected by yet another zombie plague. Goodness.

It is artsy and pretty to look at but nothing happens in the plot. The first 40 minutes could have been condensed into a 10 minutes flashback. The ending was pointless and confusing. The whole thing is too cliché.