Older Gods

I think it has some nice points to this film, but in some ways it missed the mark to have the right tone for a Lovecraften horror. The set up was great, investigation of what happened to a friend when investigating some cult like activies works.

But it had to much drama, and not enough horror. Some moments had good tension, but overall it wasn't there as much as it could have been. Some of the dream stuff was pretty cool though, and the cinematography was nice. There were some beautiful locational shots too.

I also think with it being cult linked there could have been more cultists stalking the lead. But one guy messing with you isn't really as scary as it could be.

Older Gods is a cool little movie that seems to me to be more of a drama piece than a flat out horror.

Not saying its not creepy, there is a nightmare scene that really freaked me out as well as a couple of other really dark scenes but its more of a study on survivor guilt and loss.

Rory Wilson did a lot by himself, hes pretty much in every scene, most of the time by himself, and its a really great performance and it will be really interesting to see what projects he does in the future.

Its not the type of horror I usually watch but I watched it on my phone on a journey and I liked how weird it was.

It would have been interesting to see what the film would be like if it had a larger budget.

The final shot has a great 'oh s**t' moment.

This had a couple of decent scenes but was overburdened with inane dialogue and far too much exposition that didn't actually expose anything. The dialogue from the friends narrative is long slow tedium. This did have potential but needed a few more rewrites to pare it down to just the useful and interesting an eliminate the pseudo pretentious drivel that only serves to lengthen the film. The ancillary characters who appear as voices don't come across as realistic at all but as amateurish. There is just too much chatter that seems like padding the run time. This may have been suited to be a 30 minute short.

My girlfreind found this on amazon as we try to find low budget gems and we were pleasantly surprised wit this one. I thought it would be monsters etc but it was a good story with a few scary scenes and the acting was good. Lots of good shots and the nightmare scenes we nicely weird. Its all about atmosphere rather than a million monsters jumping out on you. Like how all the questions werent answered. Be interesting to see a prequel of what happened to his friend as the backstory there was interesting. Think im going to watch it again as like to see if it gave away some clues earlier in the film.

Older Gods is a bit of a trippy experience, leaning much more towards a drama/psychological thriller with sci-fi and horror aspects to it.

It generally had quite the slow pace that consistently teetered between tension building and belabored, but edged out on the positive for the most part. It had a nice atmospheric sense of suspense, spook, and existential dread. Throughout, much of the dialogue became drawn out and monotonous on many occasions... seemingly pertinent, yet not overtly so. Despite maybe needing said conversations broken up a bit, I don't know if much of the script and acting helped with this issue.

The main guy, while not a bad actor, felt disconnected and one-note throughout the majority of the film and his performance in high intensity/emotional moments was also a bit underwhelming. There were also quite a few phone calls throughout the film, all of which had stilted and unconvincing voiceovers. Where the acting was quite enjoyable was from the character of the friend on the video. He had a natural and down to earth delivery that was enjoyable to watch.

This movie in many ways was also a visual treat. It looks great with a really nice quality of picture and truly stunning and unsettling visuals throughout. There were some impressive effects that really bumped up the overall quality of this movie as well.

Beautiful technical quality aside, I think the foundation for a really interesting story is here. It felt a little undercooked and lacking some layers, ending up having it more so land on the side of a solid proof of concept. However, I don't think that should take away from what this is as a whole.

Indie filmmaking is an art in and of itself and should be appreciated for exactly that. They made something cool and thought provoking here and while it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, it still deserves its flowers. 4.5 rounding up to a 5, would recommend.