The Lonely Ones

Let me start of saying. The whole thing looks like it was shot through a web cam by nervous kindergarten students. Gotta give you haters that much. The camera and sound guys should be made to go through the gatherer trials as punishment for this or be made to watch their own work which is worse.

For you complaining about getting better for this budget? Let me see you try. You might be right but just try to get this many of your friends in one place long enough to shoot anything longer than a trailer. If you are not paying them you ain't getting much done. Even then try to get them to take it half as seriously as these actors tried. That location didn't look like they had a McDonald's near by either they definitely had to spend a little money here on food and lodging. I don't know about 100,000 though what they do buy the cabin? Probably the most expensive thing to get right was that HEADSHOT and even then I guarantee you that they overpaid for those effects. They definitely didn't spend it on equipment. And don't play me with that 20 days to shoot bull this did not take more than a week. With 14 days or more even Ed Wood could get better shots.

The story starts off slow (and ends a little slow) but I have to say the story was deep enough and it definitely had me. I think it was original and very well thought out very well written. Note to the editor. PACING... look it up trust me. The long dramatic pauses and scenes play out nice on paper but they where bad here.

Oh, yeah and I wouldn't mind taking a bite out of Devanny Pinn (Tifa)

I want some of what you're smoking. This movie bites the big one. Horrible acting,story,cinematography,etc. etc... Yes it is original alright. Originally retarded. Someone give me 100 grand and I will make a film to blow this one straight to DVD. I have seen so many movies reviewed here with a 4 or 5 rating and thought wow, that movie was better than that. So when I saw the rating of above seven for this I thought it must be really good. I couldn't have been more wrong. Maybe if it didn't take itself so seriously and had some comedy injected into it, it may have been better. Easily one of the top 3 worst movies I have seen this year.

I have seen a lot of low budget horror films; even though most of them are pretty bad by any standard. "The Lonely Ones" is exactly the sort of quality effort that keeps me on the lookout for rare cinematic gems. It has a very well written plot, some very good performances, fairly grisly special effects and much better executed scares than any of Hollywood's PG-13 so-called horror films. Kudos also for making use of a mythological monster that exists in almost every culture, but which I can't recall ever having seen used in a horror movie. Well worth checking out; especially for real horror fans! I look forward to seeing the next project by Mister Quiroz.

Yes, the budget for THE LONELY ONES is obviously extremely tiny. Yes, the acting is stiff, and even comical in spots. Yes, the dialogue tends to be silly at times.

And yet...

The story is -very- innovative and the special effects are gruesome and believable. It's especially interesting to get the ghouls' perspective: What they think, what they say to each other, and what they're planning.

This movie pulls no punches in its graphic portrayal of murder, dismemberment, and cannibalism. Some of the splatter scenes may have you spewing your beverage! Gorehounds should get a warm feeling from this one!

THE LONELY ONES starts out rather slow and mediocre, builds up to an unpredictable middle, and finishes off with a dynamite ending...

As other reviewers have already pointed out, this is a low budget movie - the listed budget is $100,000 I've seen movies with a tenth of that budget and similar production value. With the grainy digital video, bad or non-existent lighting, bad acting, muddled sound, and cheap-looking FX in the first twenty minutes I figured I was in for yet another microbudget waste of time.

Then, an amazing thing happens, and the movie suddenly finds its stride about 1/2 way through. Right as I was getting ready to write this one off, the focus shifts from the melodramatic coeds (there's one giggle-inducing scene where the main girl shows her ex boyfriend the shirt of his that she's kept - LAME!) to the lonely ones - a group of creatures that live in the forest. The flat film-making suddenly steps up as the victims start getting picked off and from here on out there's actually some good camera-work throughout the rest of the movie. Even the performances and FX pick up, and as someone who has seen a lot of shot-on-video productions, I can safely say that the second half of the film carries it above most of its peers.

I won't ruin anything for the viewer, but there is a very well-built story here that is worth checking out. What I thought was a boring and drawn-out setup (honestly, it could have been trimmed down here and there) actually ties in to the film's payoff and unlike some other movies I've seen, the movie's loose ends are actually tied up very well in the finale. There are some twists I didn't see coming, and some of the characters' actions surprised me as well.

Unfortunately, the very good story is hampered by the low budget pitfalls described earlier. Also, one of fights between a lonely one and victim plays out like a lame backyard wrestling production, and some of the kills should have been more graphic. The main thing is that the monsters in the film aren't much more than people in fake blood and rubber teeth. I know that the movie was concentrating more on the creatures' personality and stuff (a novel concept for today's horror movies), but this would have been a better movie if the makeup effects had lived up to the descriptions we get of the monsters during the setups.

I wish the filmmakers would have tried to get a bigger budget before filming this because the potential is there for a really good movie, but it seems like they bit off more than they could chew with this one. Still, the story alone is worth the price of a rental so long as the viewer can get past the production value. One of the websites said this movie hits more often than it misses, and I agree there.